Name: Banh Xeo (Crispy Crepe)
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 2 servings
Cuisine: Vietnamese
Ingredients: 1 cup Rice flour; 1 tsp Turmeric; 0.5 cup Coconut milk; 1 cup Water; 2 stalks Scallions; 0.5 tsp Salt; 150 g Shrimp; 150 g Pork belly; 2 cups Bean sprouts; 0.5 Onion; 3 tbsp Cooking oil; Lettuce & perilla; Herbs; 3 tbsp Fish sauce; 4 tbsp Water; 2 tbsp Lime juice; 2 tbsp Sugar; 1 clove Minced garlic; 1 Minced chili

Ingredients

2servings

Batter
Rice flour1 cup
Turmeric · for the yellow color1 tsp
Coconut milk0.5 cup
Water1 cup
Scallions · sliced2 stalks
Salt0.5 tsp
Filling
Shrimp · peeled150 g
Pork belly · thinly sliced150 g
Bean sprouts2 cups
Onion · sliced0.5
Cooking oil3 tbsp
To serve
Lettuce & perilla · for wrapping
Herbs · mint, cilantro, basil
Nuoc cham (dip)
Fish sauce3 tbsp
Water4 tbsp
Lime juice · or vinegar2 tbsp
Sugar2 tbsp
Minced garlic1 clove
Minced chili1

Steps

Whisk the batter ingredients smooth and let rest 30 minutes. It should be thinner than pouring cream so it spreads paper-thin.
⏲ 30 min
Stir all the nuoc cham ingredients together into a dipping sauce.
⏲ 1 min
Season the pork with salt and pepper; peel the shrimp.
⏲ 3 min
Heat oil in a pan over high heat and cook the pork, shrimp, and onion through.
⏲ 3 min
Ladle in batter and swirl to spread thin, pile bean sprouts on one side, cover, and cook 2 minutes.
⏲ 2 min 30 sec
Uncover, and once the edges are crisp, fold in half and slide onto a plate.
⏲ 1 min 30 sec
Wrap a piece in lettuce and herbs and dip into the nuoc cham.

Variations

Vegetarian: Use mushrooms and tofu instead of meat and shrimp.
Mini banh khoai: Make small, bite-size ones.
Squid banh xeo: Load it with squid instead of shrimp.
Beer batter: Swap some water for beer to make it extra crisp.

Tips

Keep the batter thin and cold for a paper-thin, crackly crepe.
Heat the pan well before pouring so the edges crisp up lacy.
Add the bean sprouts at the end to keep their crunch.
Wrapping in herbs and dipping in nuoc cham is the proper way to eat it.

More detail and the reasons why (4)

The lid goes on and then comes off, and those are two different jobs. Covered, the pan fills with steam that sets the batter through and cooks the bean sprouts without stirring them (steaming); uncovered, that water can finally leave, and only then can the edges get past 100°C and go crisp. Leave the lid on to the end and you have a soft yellow pancake. Skip it and the middle is raw while the rim burns. The order is the recipe.
Rest the batter, then stir it again before every ladle. Cheung fun is blunt about why: rice flour does not dissolve the way sugar does, it only hangs in the water and starts sinking within a minute. The thirty-minute rest is hydration — coarse rice flour takes that long to take up water, the same reason farinata rests its chickpea flour — and it is not a substitute for scraping the bottom of the bowl each time. Unstirred, the first crepe is thin water and the last is paste. Crêpe rests for a different reason and stays mixed, because wheat flour behaves differently in water.
The coconut milk is there for the crackle, not the flavour. Rice flour has no gluten to build a network, so what holds the crepe together is starch alone — and fat gets in among those starch chains and shortens them, so the sheet fractures rather than bending. Drop the coconut milk for plain water and it comes out tougher and more leathery, which is also why the beer in the variations works: bubbles for a thinner, more open sheet.
It sits in a family of rice-batter dishes that reach crispness by different routes. Cheung fun steams the same kind of liquid into a soft sheet, khanom bueang gets its snap from thinness alone, and dosa from fermentation. This one uses fat plus that uncovered second phase. The wrapping is the same table as gỏi cuốn and bún chả.

The basics behind this dish

Cooking basics →

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Main course →

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