Asian Lettuce Wraps
The original recipe: Healthy Turkey Lettuce Wraps by eat yourself skinny
Serves 4
INGREDIENTS
2lbs extra lean ground chicken
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp ground ginger
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup + 1/8 cup unsalted, roasted peanuts (crushed if you want smaller pieces)
2 heads of Boston/butter/bibb lettuce
For the sauce:
2 tbsp unseasoned rice wine vinegar
1 overflowing tbsp soy sauce
Splash of fish sauce
1.5 tsp sriracha
1/2 tsp sesame oil
6 scant tablespoons of hoisin sauce
DIRECTIONS
1. Heat a large pan with 2 tbsp olive oil to medium heat. Add in the ground chicken, garlic powder, ground ginger, and black pepper.
2. Cook the chicken, breaking up the large pieces with your spatula, until cooked through and no longer pink.
3. While the chicken is cooking, in a small bowl whisk together the sauce ingredients.
4. Once the chicken is cooked through, add the sauce and the peanuts, and cook for another 3-5 minutes until heated through.
5. Pick the leaves off the heads of lettuce and wash. Pat dry, and serve alongside the ground chicken.
My Changes & Notes:
1. Doubled.
Whenever we make this recipe for dinner, we usually double it and have it two nights in a row. So my notes below result in either two separate servings for 2 people, or four servings total. Also I have no idea how the original recipe says it serves 6. Like... six ants? I would be so hangry if I only got 2 of these for dinner.
2. Chicken vs. Turkey.
Unless you're incredibly focused in on the nutritional facts or can only eat one or the other for whatever reason, I swap lean ground chicken with lean ground turkey all the time, depending on what's available/cheaper. In this case, I ended up using 2lbs of extra lean ground chicken.
3. Garlic & Ginger.
This is already a wonderfully quick weeknight meal, but to speed things up even more we used powdered garlic and powdered ground ginger. For the 2lbs of extra lean ground chicken used, we used 2 tsp garlic powder and 2 tsp ground ginger. And because you're supposed to season everything, some black pepper to taste (skipped the salt because of sauce - see #4 below). On a side note (mostly because I don't want to make a whole # for it), I didn't use any green onion. I think I've used it like once and it didn't add that much (only aesthetically).
4. Sauce boss.
For the sauce, I whisked the following ingredients in a small bowl:
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar (unseasoned)
1 overflowing tablespoon of regular soy sauce (original recipe calls for low sodium, but I don't have that so I just cut back on the amount)
1 splash of fish sauce (I know it smells gross but it adds so much depth of flavour!)
1.5 tsp sriracha
1/2 tsp sesame oil
6 scant tablespoons of hoisin sauce
5. Peanuts.
I loathe waterchestnuts, so to fill in for the crunchy texture, we added 1/2 cup + 1/8 cup of unsalted, roasted peanuts. Not recommended if you're allergic to nuts.