Crave-Worthy Light Chicken Lettuce Wraps
Crave-Worthy Light Chicken Lettuce Wraps recipe comes together fairly quickly – the thing that is most time consuming is chopping all of the vegetables. You can make this task go much more quickly with the use of a food processor, or you can do the prep work the night before you plan on making them, so that when lunch or dinner time rolls around, you can just throw everything together.If you have eaten at a restaurant in the past year, I’m sure you have seen these on the menu (usually as an appetizer). There are tons of variations on this recipe – so feel free to use this one merely as a guideline and vary it to include your favorite flavors (just be careful that all of your new substitutions aren’t too high in calories or fat).
Equipment
- 1 large pot
- 1 large bowl
- 1 separate bowl
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground skinless chicken breast (sold near the ground beef in most supermarkets)
- ½ cup red or green bell pepper, very finely chopped
- 1 carrot, very finely chopped
- ¼ cup mushrooms, very finely chopped
- ⅓ cup red onion, finely chopped
- 1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
- 2 ounces rice noodles (see note)
- 2 teaspoons peeled fresh ginger, grated (optional)
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 6 tablespoons rice vinegar
- ¼ cup honey
- ¼ cup reduced sodium soy sauce (or tamari)
- ¼ cup cilantro, chopped
- 3 tablespoons chopped unsalted peanuts
- 12 large lettuce leaves (iceberg, romaine, Boston, etc)
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook the rice noodles according to the package directions. When they are done cooking, rinse them briefly under cold water, drain well, and finely chop them.
- Heat 1 teaspoon of the sesame oil in a large nonstick skillet; add the ginger and garlic and stir for 30 seconds – 1 minute. Add the ground chicken and cook for 6-7 minutes (until chicken is no longer pink). Transfer the mixture to a large bowl and stir in the chopped pepper, carrot, mushroom, onion, and rice noodles.
- In a separate bowl, combine the rice vinegar, honey, soy sauce, cilantro, remaining 2 teaspoons sesame oil and peanuts. Pour this mixture over the chicken, and mix well. Arrange 3 lettuce leaves on each plate and spoon the chicken mixture in the center to serve.
Video
Notes
Rice noodles (also called cellophane noodles) are fat and cholesterol free. They can be found in the Asian foods section of most supermarkets. Because the noodles are very delicate and fragile, you will want to take care not to overcook them. They are also great served as a side dish, with simply a touch of soy sauce and a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds.