Brodard’s Grilled Pork Spring Roll Dupe / Nem Nướng Cuốn

One of the most famous spring rolls in the world comes from Brodards in Orange County. They popularized the grilled pork spring roll (nem nướng cuốn) with their house-special sauce. It’s packed with fresh herbs and veggies, a crunchy little egg roll wrapper, and, of course, the fragrant and incredibly delicious grilled pork sausage! This recipe is a copycat version of Brodard’s Grilled Pork Spring Roll, and in my opinion is just as good if not BETTER than what you get in the restaurant!

How to Make Nem Nuong:

The first step in this recipe is making the grilled pork sausage. You’ll need Tusino’s Curing Powder, which will give our sausage its signature reddish hue and flavor. Alternatively, you can purchase nem nuong in the freezer section at your local Vietnamese grocery store, which is just as good as making it from scratch with none of the effort.

Protips:

• For the ground pork, buy the fattiest ground pork available at your grocery store. Additionally, you could also add pork fat trimmings to the mixture. Honestly, the more fat in this sausage, the better!
• Partially freeze your ground pork for a couple of hours before you throw it in the food processor. We want to ensure that pork fat stays nice and cool when we blend it to help the pork turn into a paste.
• Use Alsa Single Acting Baking Powder! This will help give the pork sausage more volume and a springier texture.
• The raw pork paste freezes really well and will hold in your freezer for up to a month!

Cooking Alternatives:

For my recipe, I chose to throw these on the grill. Alternatively, you could bake or air-fry them.

Bake: Preheat the oven to 350F. Depending on the size of the pork sausage patties, they will take 15-20 minutes to cook through. Make sure to flip halfway in between. For the last couple of minutes, turn the oven to broil, to carmelize the patty. Make sure the internal temperature reads 160F.

Airfry: Airfry at 350F for 10-12 minutes, flipping halfway in between. Turn the Airfryer to 400F and air fry for 1-2 minutes to caramelize.

How to Roll:

Step 1:

Dip the spring roll wrapper in cold water! The cold water will moisten the wrapper slowly and give it a bouncier texture. It’ll also give you a bit more time to wrap before the roll becomes too difficult to work with. For this roll, we’ll want to fold one side of the wrapper up so that one end is open and the Chinese chives are exposed.

Step 2:

Add lettuce!

Step 3:

Add your grilled pork sausage closer to the middle of the wrapper. When we roll these up, we want the sausage to be unobstructed and the first thing you see!

Step 4:

Load up the rest of your herbs and veggies. Brodards specifically only uses cucumbers, Chinese chives, cilantro, and pickled veggies.

Step 5:

Arguably, my favorite part of the spring roll is actually the crispy eggroll wrapper. When you make these, make sure you don’t roll them up too tightly. The looser the eggroll, the more evenly it will cook through, giving you a lighter, crispy bite.

Step 6:

Roll the spring roll wrapper up tightly, tucking in the other side!

Rinse, repeat, and serve with their house-special sauce!

Brodard’s Grilled Pork Spring Roll Dupe / Nem Nướng Cuốn

4.3 from 58 votes

Servings

4-6

servings

Prep time

3

hours 

Cooking time

45

minutes

Ingredients

• Nem Nuong:

• 2 lbs 2 Ground Pork

• 6 oz 6 Tusino Curing Powder

• 1 packet 1 (11g) Alsa Baking Powder

• 1 tbsp 1 Minced Shallots

• 1 tbsp 1 Minced Garlic

• Spring Roll Wrapper:

• 12 oz 12 Rice Paper

• Filling:

• Lettuce

• Cucumbers

• Cilantro

• Chinese Chives

• Fried Egg Roll Wrappers

• Pickled Veggies

Directions

• Freeze fatty ground pork for 2-3 hours prior to assembly
• In a food processor, add minced shallots, minced garlic, partially frozen ground pork, baking powder and curing powder
• Pulse a few times, and blend until fully incorporated and ground pork mixture turns into a reddish pork paste
• Put on gloves, add a little bit of oil to your hands, and form patties in the desired size and shape
• Grill pork on high heat until cooked through – internal temperature should read 160F
• Let the pork sausage cool down before slicing
• Assemble the spring roll, by adding veggies, herbs, grilled pork sausage, and a crispy egg roll wrapper

Did you make this recipe?

Tag @feedthepudge on Instagram and hashtag it with #feedthepudge

If you like this recipe, make sure you pin it!