A few days when I was glancing through some cookbooks I saw some chicken lettuce wraps that looked delicious, so I put butter lettuce on the shopping list but neglected to mark the recipe. I sat down tonight and couldn’t find it, but I went online and found this as a starting point. I made a few changes and added a second dipping sauce because one of my girls really doesn’t like peanut butter.
The picture does not show butter lettuce because I forgot to take a picture of it! But this tastes good with Romaine lettuce, too. You just can’t roll them up very well.
The girls sat down to dinner and looked at the food a bit dubiously, but after trying it they both said it was really good and I should definitely put it on the repeat list (the highest praise). I had poached a bunch of chicken thighs the other day so I could make King Ranch Chicken, a request by my youngest who wanted her friend to try it when she stayed for dinner. (And it was so good the two of them had it for lunch the next day again after finals since they had half days.) I used the rest of the meat from the chicken thighs although most recipes seemed to call for chicken breast meat. I left out the green onions just because I didn’t have any, plus my girls are not fond of onions. Same for the almonds. Next time I’d use more water chestnuts and more chow mein noodles. But here’s what I did.
Chicken Lettuce Wraps with Two Dipping Sauces
Ingredients
- for the wraps
- 2 cups chopped cooked chicken I used thighs
- 3 Tbs rice vinegar
- 1 1/2 Tbs sesame oil
- 1/4 cup chow mein noodles consider using more
- 1/3 cup chopped water chestnuts consider using the whole can
- 1 carrot, shredded
- 1/2 cup shredded red cabbage
- 1/2 cup shredded green cabbage
- butter lettuce leaves
- Dipping Sauce #1
- 1/3 cup peanut butter
- 3 Tbs hot water
- 1 tsp lime juice
- 2-3 tsp plum sauce
- Dipping Sauce #2
- Penzey’s Bangkok spice blend a few BIG shakes
- soy sauce maybe a tablespoon
- lime juice maybe 1/2 a tablespoon
- plum sauce maybe 1 teaspoon
Instructions
- Mix the vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, water chestnuts, noodles, and cooked chicken in a bowl. Set aside.
- Mix up one or both of the dipping sauce and set aside.
- Pull the lettuce leaves off and rinse and dry.
- Heat the chicken mixture until warm, in a small saucepan. It doesn’t need to be hot, just warm.
- Serve everything at the table and let everyone build their wraps, laying a lettuce leave on the plate, spooning some chicken mixture on that, then topping with some cabbage and carrots. Roll up like a burrito and dip into the sauce(s) of your choice. Or spoon some of the sauce down the top and then roll it up.
This is pretty kid-friendly, although yours may roll their eyes at first like mine did.
I’ve been sooo meaning to try lettuce wraps some time — thanks so much for the reminder! Who says a sandwich must have a starch?
mmmm this looks good! The peanut butter/plum sauce sounds yummy. I think this would be perfect to serve my neighbors Clark and Karen – they’ve done some other lettuce wraps for us using pork and pineapple and some really nice spicy sauce. I’ll try to get that recipe for you.