Whether you're calling it rainbow food or opting for the unicorn label, there's no denying that colorful, Technicolor eats are flooding your Instagram feed from breakfast to dinner and dessert.
The latest to get the multicolor treatment isn't a trendy latte or sugary snack. Instead, Real Simple shared a recipe for Unicorn Summer Rolls that has zero artificial colors and definitely won't give you a one-way ticket to the dentist's chair. You can't say that about many unicorn-themed treats.
Real Simple reports that a food blogger from the Netherlands created rainbow noodle bowls by cooking rice noodles in cabbage and vegetable-infused water. But the problem with that is those vibrant noodles don't taste very good without a sauce or broth. We don't have to tell you that those things definitely don't make for good #foodporn.
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That's where these summer rolls come in. Using the same technique, Grace Elkus, the magazine's digital food editor, created a rainbow food that looks great in photos and tastes great, too, because all the flavor comes from the other ingredients in the roll: the fresh vegetables and green herbs.
To get the purple rice noodles, all you have to do is cook a few cups of purple cabbage in water. The longer you cook it, the deeper the color will be. The magazine recommends five minutes for the perfect purple hue. After removing the shredded vegetable matter from the water, drop in the noodles. The natural dyes will imbue the rice noodles with color. After they're cooked, just squirt on some lime juice and you'll see the color brighten even more.
And if you want your rolls to boast even more color, you can use that water to dip the rice paper. It'll lend a more subtle shade, but you can rest assured that it'll show up, even with #nofilter. Roll the chopped red and yellow peppers, bright green lettuce leaves, and fresh herbs along with the rice noodles in the blush-colored rice paper and you've got an Insta-ready meal that looks great and tastes fresh, too.
While all those vibrant flavors don't need much else, Real Simple says that a peanut sauce can't hurt — and it won't mess with any of your snapshots, either.