The menu just said banh xeo, Vietnamese pancakes. We ordered them, innocent and unexpecting with no idea what would be delivered to our table.
We were in Hoi An, a city in central Vietnam famous for good food so we figured, as we had 3 months to spend in Vietnam, that we should try every item on the menu. Our first banh xeo had us hooked.
This post is about banh xeo, crispy Vietnamese pancakes. We have video of making this dish along with information on how to eat them.
What is banh xeo? You should know by the end of our post.
Banh Xeo mass production at the famous Ba Le Well restaurant in Hoi An Vietnam. In this case, the crispy banh xeo are pre-made and reheated in the pan with omelette. The chef here has 12 banh xeo stoves and pans cooking at once to feed diners their excellent set menu.
At least one of our family has eaten crispy banh xeo every day since that first taste and texture explosion.
Banh xeo can contain meat or be vegetarian or vegan. Vegetarian or vegan versions of banh xeo can be made without egg and with mushrooms instead of pork and prawn.
Let’s take a look at cooking banh xeo crispy pancakes, how to eat them, and what exactly is a Vietnamese crispy banh xeo pancake?
Watch the video below to see how banh xeo are made and assembled.
The video below shows us making Banh Xeo at a cooking class in Hoi An Vietnam along with eating banh xeo, assembling the dish, at a restaurant in Hoi An that is famous for its banh xeo.
How to eat banh xeo is a common question.
There is a skill to assembling the dish with the pancake, rice paper, leaves, sauce, and accompaniments.
Is it the best banh xeo in Hoi An? Possibly, but it wasn’t our favourite.
What are Banh Xeo?
Banh xeo is a cold-weather comfort food dish popular in Vietnam. These crispy pancakes are delicious and surprising.
There’s just something about banh xeo that makes the dish out of this world.
When we first tasted banh xeo we couldn’t imagine how wrapping them in thin rice paper could possibly enhance them, but it certainly does.
It’s another textural dimension on top of the extra crispy pancake.
The crispness comes from the rice flour used in the pancake mix, coconut, not dairy milk, being the liquid ingredient.
Again at Hoi An’s Ba Le Well. The banh xeo are said to be the best in Hoi An and come to the table along with barbecued pork and whole prawn spring rolls, all of which must be wrapped in rice paper along with leaves, herbs and vegetables.
Each banh xeo holds a few bean sprouts along with a couple of plump prawns and a few slivers of finely cut pork.
Overstuffing this pancake would not improve it.
Vegetarian versions we’ve enjoyed contained mushroom slices in place of pork and prawn.
As with all Vietnamese dishes, the balance is perfect just the way it is.
Add leaves and herbs, particularly mint, and dip in the sweet, sour, hot fish sauce. Amazing!
How to Eat Banh Xeo?
Cut your folded banh xeo pancake into manageable sized pieces and lay it flat on a piece of rice paper.
Using chopsticks, select leaves, and herbs and lay these on top.
Roll the pancake into a tight wrap ( this takes some practice!) dip into the sauce and eat.
What to Serve With Banh Xeo?
Banh Xeo must be served with a selection of leaves, lettuce and mint being our minimum requirements, along with thin, crispy rice paper to form the wraps and the correct dipping sauce.
The sauce is composed of fish sauce, sugar, lime, garlic and red pepper of chilli to taste.
It’s in the cooking time and the temperature of the oil.
Don’t add your banh xeo batter until the oil is hot enough to bubble a chopstick, then cook for longer than you would expect.
The sizzle is in the name ( xeo) and the crispness comes with long cooking as demonstrated in the video.
Where to Get Bahn Xeo Mix
You can buy Bahn Xeo or Vietnamese pancake mix online or at your local Asian grocers.
Amazon seem to be out of stock due to the current crisis, sorry.
But Banh Xeo mix simply contains rice flour (2 parts), wheat flour (1part) and turmeric powder for the golden colour.
Then add coconut cream, water, salt and some green onion tops. It’s not hard to make banh xeo from scratch. Rice flour is available here.
People have been asking which wrappers to use. A reader suggested the rice paper wrappers below ( see comments section) for banh xeo use.
I haven’t tried these.
Links for the UK and USA are below, there is a similar product here for Australia , but check the price. A very hard wrapper will not work, it needs to be thin and flexible so as not to crack when you wrap. You do not soak wrappers for banh xeo use.
Bahn Xeo are absolutely one of our new favourite things, we’ve eaten hundreds from several different restaurants and never had a bad one. We hope you have fun making and eating your bahn xeo. If you’d like to read more about Vietnamese food, Hoi An food in particular, click through, or maybe you need our general Vietnam travel guide.
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About the author
Alyson Long
Alyson Long is a British medical scientist who jumped ship to chase dreams. A former Chief Biomedical Scientist at London's West Middlesex Hospital she started in website creation and travel writing in 2011.
Alyson is a full-time blogger and travel writer, a published author, and owns several websites. World Travel Family is the biggest.
A lifetime of wanderlust and over 6 years of full-time travel, plus a separate 12 month gap year, has given Alyson and the family some travel expert smarts to share with you on this world travel site.
Today Alyson still travels extensively to update this site and continue her mission to visit every country, but she's often at home on her farm in Australia.
You can use the same rice paper wrappers used for Vietnamese summer rolls. Just dip in hot or cold water in a bowl provided at the table to soften.
Here is a link for round ones but we sometimes got square ones on our last trip to Vietnam.
ADMIN EDIT: Links for these wrappers are now in the body of the post. Thanks Alice.
You could use those, but they wouldn’t be the same as the fresh wrappers in Hoi An! I’d did a pretty extensive search on this and learned that the fresh wrappers in Hoi An, that you can eat without soaking, aren’t found outside of Vietnam due to the fact that they must be eaten within days of production.
While you certainly could use the dried Vietnamese rice wrappers found all over the world, it will be a different experience than the fresh wrappers in Central Vietnam. They are amazing, providing this thin, crisp “snap” sensation with each bite. Soaked wrappers have a different texture, but would be an acceptable substitute if you can’t access the wrappers normally used.
In Southern Vietnam, they use lettuce to wrap banh xeo. That’s what’s commonly done here in the U.S., as much of our Vietnamese population is from the South.
There are many great reasons to visit Vietnam and Hoi An, in particular. I’d put trying this version of banh xeo on the list! It’s really unique.
I enjoyed banh xeo when I was visiting Hoi An and Da Nang last month. I’m having trouble finding the wrappers for banh xeo now that I’m back in the U.S. When you buy the wrappers in Vietnam, what is the name for them? Any tips you have on finding them online would be really welcome.
I don’t know sorry Sarah, there are loads of different types of rice paper. My husband ( he’s a chef) may know but he’s not here right now, will ask. If we can find them online we can add a link. Best wishes,
You can use the same rice paper wrappers used for Vietnamese summer rolls. Just dip in hot or cold water in a bowl provided at the table to soften.
Here is a link for round ones but we sometimes got square ones on our last trip to Vietnam.
ADMIN EDIT: Links for these wrappers are now in the body of the post. Thanks Alice.
You could use those, but they wouldn’t be the same as the fresh wrappers in Hoi An! I’d did a pretty extensive search on this and learned that the fresh wrappers in Hoi An, that you can eat without soaking, aren’t found outside of Vietnam due to the fact that they must be eaten within days of production.
While you certainly could use the dried Vietnamese rice wrappers found all over the world, it will be a different experience than the fresh wrappers in Central Vietnam. They are amazing, providing this thin, crisp “snap” sensation with each bite. Soaked wrappers have a different texture, but would be an acceptable substitute if you can’t access the wrappers normally used.
In Southern Vietnam, they use lettuce to wrap banh xeo. That’s what’s commonly done here in the U.S., as much of our Vietnamese population is from the South.
There are many great reasons to visit Vietnam and Hoi An, in particular. I’d put trying this version of banh xeo on the list! It’s really unique.
You want to cook delicious pancakes to cook with charcoal not by gas.
I enjoyed banh xeo when I was visiting Hoi An and Da Nang last month. I’m having trouble finding the wrappers for banh xeo now that I’m back in the U.S. When you buy the wrappers in Vietnam, what is the name for them? Any tips you have on finding them online would be really welcome.
Take care!
I don’t know sorry Sarah, there are loads of different types of rice paper. My husband ( he’s a chef) may know but he’s not here right now, will ask. If we can find them online we can add a link. Best wishes,