We have a lot of recipes on this site. Some of them we know are obvious reader favorites, and others are sort of hidden gems. This Asian lettuce wrap recipe I felt was one of those hidden ones, which is why I didn’t even notice when somehow it didn’t make it over to our new site when we re-designed. But apparently a lot of you noticed! We got tons of facebook comments and emails from panicked readers asking where the recipe was because it was a family favorite. (I wish I had known that- it might have not gotten axed in the cook book cuts!) Thanks to some helpful facebook fans, I was able to track down the recipe so I could get it back on the site. It’s been a long time since I made these, and seriously I forgot how good they were. No joke- I couldn’t stop eating them!
So today’s post is short and sweet. I wanted to get this recipe back up and in our index. I did make some minor changes, mostly to make measuring and prepping easier (and not as time consuming), and also to improve the sauce. This recipe was originally created for a healthy food month so it’s incredibly lean and filled with good-for-you ingredients (unlike those famed restaurant lettuce wraps which are calorie-packed and fattening). These are lean chicken and vegetables which get tons of flavors from fresh ingredients like garlic, lemon, ginger, and onion.
The easiest way to eat Asian lettuce wraps is to roll them up sort of like a burrito. You can dip the roll into the sauce, but since the chicken mixture is crumbly and the sauce is thin I find it easier to just drizzle some on top before rolling it up.
You could serve these as an appetizer, or pair them with some fried rice for a great dinner!
Asian Lettuce Wraps
- Yield: 5 cups chicken mixture
Ingredients
- 2 tsp canola oil
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
- 1 lb ground chicken*
- 3 ounces mushrooms, finely chopped (about 8 small mushrooms)
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 4 cups bagged coleslaw mix or thinly shredded cabbage
- 1 8oz can sliced water chestnuts, drained, rinsed, and finely minced
- 1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions
- 4 Tbs soy sauce
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 1 lemon, zested and juiced (about 3–4 Tbs juice)
- 1/2–1 tsp sriracha or other hot sauce (1 tsp of Sriracha is fairly spicy in my opinion, so if you want less or no kick, just give it a little, or you can leave it out completely)
- 1/3 C roughly chopped cilantro
- 1–2 heads iceberg lettuce
- DIPPING SAUCE
- 4 Tbs soy sauce
- 4 Tbs rice vinegar
- 3 Tbs water
- 2 tsp honey
- 1–2 tsp finely minced fresh ginger
Instructions
Heat a very large skillet to medium-high heat on the stove top. When hot, add vegetable oil and then garlic and ginger. Saute for about 30 seconds, until fragrant, and then add ground chicken, chopped mushrooms, and kosher salt. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often, until chicken is cooked through. (*At this point, sometimes I have some extra liquid in the pan from the chicken. If it’s quite a bit, I tilt the pan and spoon it out so the chicken can cook and not boil.) Add cabbage/coleslaw, water chestnuts, and green onions. Cook for about 2 minutes, until cabbage starts to wilt. Add soy sauce, sesame oil, the zest from the lemon and the lemon juice, and hot sauce to taste. Remove from heat and stir in cilantro.
To prepare dipping sauce, combine all ingredients and whisk to combine.
To serve, carefully remove the individual leaves from the head of lettuce. (The closer you get to the center, the easier it becomes!) Place chicken mixture in the leaves and serve with sauce.
Notes
*To prepare your own ground chicken, cut boneless skinless chicken breasts into large chunks and pulse in a food processor until ground.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 14 - 16 wraps
- Calories: 253kcal
- Sugar: 9g
- Sodium: 1513mg
- Fat: 11g
- Saturated Fat: 2g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 21g
- Fiber: 6g
- Protein: 22g
- Cholesterol: 78mg
Asian Lettuce Wraps
Recipe by Our Best Bites
2 tsp canola oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
1 lb ground chicken*
3 ounces mushrooms, finely chopped (about 8 small mushrooms)
1/2 tsp kosher salt
4 C bagged coleslaw mix or thinly shredded cabbage
1 8oz can sliced water chestnuts, drained, rinsed, and finely minced
1/2 C thinly sliced green onions
4 Tbs soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 lemon, zested and juiced (about 3-4 Tbs juice)
1/2-1 tsp sriracha or other hot sauce (1 tsp of Sriracha is fairly spicy in my opinion, so if you want less or no kick, just give it a little, or you can leave it out completely)
1/3 C roughly chopped cilantro
1-2 heads iceberg lettuce
*To prepare your own ground chicken, cut boneless skinless chicken breasts into large chunks and pulse in a food processor until ground.
Dipping/Drizzling Sauce
4 Tbs soy sauce
4 Tbs rice vinegar
3 Tbs water
2 tsp honey
1-2 tsp finely minced fresh ginger
Heat a very large skillet to medium-high heat on the stove top. When hot, add vegetable oil and then garlic and ginger. Saute for about 30 seconds, until fragrant, and then add ground chicken, chopped mushrooms, and kosher salt. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often, until chicken is cooked through. (*At this point, sometimes I have some extra liquid in the pan from the chicken. If it’s quite a bit, I tilt the pan and spoon it out so the chicken can cook and not boil.) Add cabbage/coleslaw, water chestnuts, and green onions. Cook for about 2 minutes, until cabbage starts to wilt. Add soy sauce, sesame oil, the zest from the lemon and the lemon juice, and hot sauce to taste. Remove from heat and stir in cilantro.
To prepare dipping sauce, combine all ingredients and whisk to combine.
To serve, carefully remove the individual leaves from the head of lettuce. (The closer you get to the center, the easier it becomes!) Place chicken mixture in the leaves and serve with sauce.
Yield: about 5 C chicken mixture. Makes 14-16 lettuce wraps.
And hey- if you already love this recipe, or another recipe that you’ve never commented on, make sure to leave a comment today! That’s one of our best indicators of the kinds of things you all like (and therefore the kinds of recipes we create for you). Plus it just makes us super happy to hear from you guys 🙂 Thanks to everyone who asked about these lettuce wraps- it’s going to be appearing a lot in my own menu this month!
Questions & Reviews
I’m making these for book club- will it still taste good if I cook it in the afternoon and then just re-heat prior to everyone arriving? I don’t want to have a messy kitchen when everyone comes!
Yep, you could absolutely heat it up last minute!
Madenthis today for lunch. Only thing I did different was left out the water chestnuts. Oh! And had to use ground turkey since my grocery store didn’t have ground chicken (huh?!?) Everyone loved it! Thanks so much!
These look amazing. My mom has celiac’s and these look like a great thing to make for her this weekend!
I don’t know if there was something I did wrong, but I made these for dinner and my husband and I both agreed that these were pretty terrible. The lemon flavor was way too strong, even though I put less in than it called for. There seemed to be too many flavors mixing together here that it just didn’t quite work. This was my first attempt at lettuce wraps, but I will keep looking for a different recipe.
Made these for dinner tonight(except with ground turkey) they were so yummy. I also used your dipping sauce for the Asian ground turkey meatballs(your sauce was better) from skinnytaste.com , very healthy meatballs. If you get a chance check it out. Disclaimer* its not my website or anyone I know, just stumbled on it when searching for ground turkey recipes. Thanks again!
Loved it. Also good with left over chicken breast.
We had some left over meat filling from our lettuce wraps. I didn’t want to be eating lettuce wraps everyday for lunch. So I made a new meal using the filling for the lettuce wraps. Dumped the meat in a pot with chicken stock, added a tbsp of the dipping sauce from the lettuce wraps. Then I boiled some noodles in a different pot (used egg noodles). Once the soup was heated through I added the noodles. So supper yummy. My kids and husband devoured it. They had no idea I was using leftovers.
I knew I was forgetting something. I also sauteed some mushrooms in olive oil and garlic salt. Then added them in. I know mushrooms are not something a lot of people like, but I love them. They were divine in the soup.
I love these and have made them multiple times. However, today was first time I actually used the lemon zest and fresh lemon juice – in the past, I’ve just used bottled juice. Wow it made a huge difference. These were even better!
I don’t fuss with the wraps. I pile it on a big bed of romaine lettuce
I have made these twice now and we really enjoy them. I have 3 small children and they have a hard time with the wraps, though. So, this time around I just served it to them over rice and my husband and I enjoyed them wrap style with the dipping sauce. Great recipe- though give yourself plenty of time to chop and prep all the vegetables!!
Just made these for dinner tonight. YUM. I’m never disappointed with your recipes, and I’ve made lots of them. Thank you!!!
I’m curious if you could freeze the “inside” of the lettuce wrap and then cook it later???? Suggestions?
Ya, you probably could!
Okay Sara, I’m going to try these again, as written this time! Quick question on the cabbage. How do you shred it? Do you just cut it as thin as you can with a knife? Or do you use a grater or food processor or something?
I use a bag of pre-shredded coleslaw. If you want to substitute cabbage, just slice it thinly with a knife.
Do you have any suggestions of what to serve this with to make it a full asian meal? I recently found your blog and love it! You have the best photos too 🙂
Sara, this has become a favorite meal for my husband and me–we are still working on the kidlets. My husband invented a dipping/drizzling sauce that is amazing!! I thought you might want to try it:
1 part (2-3 tablespoons) coconut oil
1 part peanut butter
1 part teriyaki sauce or soy sauce
Thank you for the wonderful recipe!!
I don’t know if we did something wrong, but I made these and everyone hated them. So sad… it was a lot of work. we usually love everything we make off this site.
Had these at a friends house a few months ago, and just made them on my own for my husband and I for lunch. Sooooo goood! Hit the spot!!
Absolutely amazing! This one is a keeper! My kids, who can’t have soy or wheat (and soy sauces have wheat), enjoyed the portion I set aside for them before adding the sauce.
Love these! I’ve made them 4 or 5 times now. They are part of our regular menu rotation. My favorite home made asian food now.
We served this for dinner for a group of people with ham fried rice as a side. Everyone LOVED them!!
I am super excited to try these! Just a question: Where do you find siriracha sauce? I just tried looking for some the other day when I made your thai noodles and couldn’t find any. I settled for some chili and garlic sauce. Is that basically the same stuff. If not, what aisle would it be on at the store or do I need to go to a specialty store?
It’s usually in the Asian aisle of the grocery store. For this specific recipe, plain ol’ hot sauce (like Tobasco) works as a substitute.
Totally made this for dinner. My sister isn’t a fan of lettuce so I fried some wonton skins for her. I am totally in love with this and my husband may hate me tomorrow since I want to make it again for dinner! Lol!
These were delicious, easy, awesome! I loved the simple, easy to find ingredients! I will definitely make these again! I highly recommend!
This my first comment on your site, ladies, and I just have to say, I love your recipes. I have yet to make one that I do not love! I made these lettuce wraps the other day, though, and I have to say they were a little labor-intensive with all of the chopping! I will definitely use some of the shortcuts next time (coleslaw mix, ground chicken, etc.) OR I will try to do all of the chopping the night before while I am watching The Biggest Loser :). I do have a question, though. I left out the ginger, because we are not big ginger fans, and used lemon juice from the bottle, because there were no fresh lemons at Wal-Mart the day I went, and the filling seemed a little bland. Could these two ingredients make that much of a difference? Also, I did not make the sauce, as my husband is trying to do a low carb diet and didn’t want the added sugar from the honey. I am a novice cook, but would love to be an expert cook, so any constructive criticism you have is welcome!! Thank you!
Andrea, yes- definitely use the short-cuts, that’s what they’re there for! I often prep this recipe early in the day, or the day before and that makes it a snap to throw together. Ginger is definitely a major flavor component here, and I always encourage the use of fresh lemon, especially in a recipe such as this. Bottled juice tends to be bitter, and lack flavor. Plus you missed out on all of the flavor of the zest. Also, the dipping sauce has tons of flavor, so if you left all of those things out then I’m not surprised they turned out bland! Try the recipe as written next time and see what you think. And hey- congrats on leaving your first comment, I hope there’s more to come! 🙂
I made these for dinner tonight, everyone loved them, though we didn’t eat them as there were intended. I counld’nt keep the filing in the lettuce, so I just tore my lettuce in pieces, hubby decided he needed a tortilla and sour cream, and he added the fried rice to that and made a type of taco. He thought it was awesome that way. So, even though we didn’t eat it quite as intended, we all loved it! Thanks for another great recipe!
Wow! You can definitely tell that these are healthy, but they were ridiculously delicious. They were really filling, as well. My husband and I were surprised at how full we were after just one. My husband feels like the dipping sauce could be a little sweeter, but I thought it was good.
Made these the other night and wrote about them on my blog! Thanks, they were delicious!
Made these for dinner the other night – they were a hit! I loved the lemon on the chicken and the dipping sauce was fabulous!
Ooh..this looks sooo yummy. And believe or not, its looks easy enuf for someone like me try making..hehe
Look at you with a “Print This” box!!! Woo-hoo! Can’t wait to make this for dinner…I’m starving just looking at the pictures. I think I’ll have to add toasted cashews to add a little of the guilty-pleasure quality!
OMG!!! I love these! And the leftovers are great too! They have quickly become a staple on my menu!!!