Chicken Lettuce Wraps – y’all!
Alright so I’ll admit right off the bat that Chicken Lettuce Wraps aren’t exactly Southern, which is why I added a “y’all” on the end of this post title. That just made it look like it fit better on Southern Plate, didn’t it? ~grins~ I knew you’d agree.
I’ve developed a raving addiction to these things. You see, Ricky and I don’t get to go out much. We’ve actually been out twice without the kids in the past four or five years. What we do instead is pick a night each week and eat a very light supper, then after we send the kids to bed one of us (he usually draws the short straw here) goes to get takeout for our dinner. A Chinese restaurant is very near us and chicken lettuce wraps are one of their signature dishes. This is one of those things that didn’t sound too appealing to me at first but my mother kept insisting that I try them and once I did, I was about as hooked on that as I was the first time I tried poutine.
However, shelling out the money for them on a regular basis got old quick and last night I just up and decided that I could make these little suckers myself. Never stand in the way of a woman when she “up and decides” to do something. I looked up several recipes online and they all seemed far too complicated for what I felt should be a simple recipe so I just set out to wing it on my own.
We found the finished product to be every bit as good, a little more filling, and a WHOLE lot cheaper than the restaurant version. Even Bradybug, at ten years old, gave these a resounding thumbs up. They easily made enough for four people and the cool thing is that I had enough filling leftover to eat one now as I write this. ~grins~
You’ll need: Rice sticks*, Soy Sauce, Small can Water Chestnuts, Brown Sugar, Mushrooms, Green Onions, and a head of lettuce.
*Rice sticks aren’t nearly as hard to find these days as they used to be. I just picked these up at the grocery store in the Asian foods section. These add a lot of “coolness” to the recipe if you let your kids watch you cook them. Okay, so I think they’re pretty cool, too! I’ve even included a video later in this post to show you how they work!
You’ll also need chicken. I am using 3 boneless, skinless breasts but this is an excellent recipe to use leftover chicken on. I’d also keep it in mind for turkey leftovers as well!
Place a tablespoon of oil in a skillet and add your chicken. Cook on medium heat, stirring often, until cooked through.
While the chicken is cooking we can assemble our other ingredients. Chop mushrooms up really fine.
Add water chestnuts and continue chopping.
Until it looks like this
Chop and add green onions.
To our brown sugar, add about 3 Tablespoons of soy sauce and stir that up well.
Once your chicken is cooked, dice it up well.
Place all of that back in the skillet.
ADD SAUCE
Stir and cook over medium heat just until heated through.
I didn’t picture me adding the sauce because that picture needed editing a bit and my computer and I are not getting along very well right now. In fact, I am seriously considering asking Santa to leave coal in it’s stocking.
~purses her lips and narrows her eyes at her computer~
This is the cool part.
Place about an inch or two of oil into a small pot. Heat on medium heat for several minutes before using.
Break off some rice noodles, make sure they are small enough that they will fit entirely in your pot. You don’t want any part not going in the first batch because it won’t cook.
As soon as you put them in they will bubble and then PUFF up like this.
The Coolness of Rice Sticks from Christy SouthernPlate.com on Vimeo.
This is SO cool in my mind that I even did a video of it to show you.
This post is just filled with neat tricks! See this head of lettuce with the stem in the middle?
Turn that over and get a good hold of it and hit it on the counter really hard, right on that stem.
and it will just pop right out!
like this.
Place chicken mixture on lettuce leaves and sprinkle crispy rice noodles on the top.
Fold that up and eat it like a taco.
MY GOODNESS THESE ARE GOOD!
This recipe made enough chicken lettuce wraps for four people.
Ingredients
- 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts (can substitute leftover ckn or turkey - about three cups)
- 3 green onions
- Small can water chestnuts
- 1 Cup mushrooms
- 2 T brown sugar
- 3 T Soy Sauce
- Rice Sticks and oil to cook them in
- Head of lettuce to serve them in
Instructions
- In large skillet, heat one tablespoon of oil over medium heat. Add chicken, cut into pieces, and cook while stirring until cooked through. While chicken is cooking, finely dice mushrooms, water chestnuts, and green onions. Remove chicken from heat after it is done and dice.
- Combine soy sauce and brown sugar, stir well. Add chicken, mushrooms, water chestnuts, and green onions back to skillet. Stir in sauce. Cook and stir over medium heat until heated through.
- For Rice Sticks, Place one to two inches of oil in a small sauce pot. Heat over medium heat for several minutes. Break off a handful of rice noodles and drop into pot, immediately removing to a paper towel lined plate when they puff up.
- Serve chicken mixture in lettuce leaves, topped with crunchy rice noodles. Eat like a taco. Repeat as necessary :) .
Schema/Recipe SEO Data Markup by ZipList Recipe Pluginhttp://www.southernplate.com/2009/11/chicken-lettuce-wraps-yall.html
Ingredients
- 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts (can substitute leftover ckn or turkey - about three cups)
- 3 green onions
- Small can water chestnuts
- 1 Cup mushrooms
- 2 T brown sugar
- 3 T Soy Sauce
- Rice Sticks and oil to cook them in
- Head of lettuce to serve them in
Instructions
- In large skillet, heat one tablespoon of oil over medium heat. Add chicken, cut into pieces, and cook while stirring until cooked through. While chicken is cooking, finely dice mushrooms, water chestnuts, and green onions. Remove chicken from heat after it is done and dice.
- Combine soy sauce and brown sugar, stir well. Add chicken, mushrooms, water chestnuts, and green onions back to skillet. Stir in sauce. Cook and stir over medium heat until heated through.
- For Rice Sticks, Place one to two inches of oil in a small sauce pot. Heat over medium heat for several minutes. Break off a handful of rice noodles and drop into pot, immediately removing to a paper towel lined plate when they puff up.
- Serve chicken mixture in lettuce leaves, topped with crunchy rice noodles. Eat like a taco. Repeat as necessary :) .
Print This Recipe
Sometimes joy is the source of a smile-
sometimes your smile is the source of joy.
Submitted by Elaine. Submit yours by clicking here (and fuel up on a little encouragement while you’re at it!).
Related posts:
Posted by Christy Jordan
on Nov 5 2009. Filed under Chicken, Main Course.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
[...] reading the full recipe, check out Christy Jordan at Southern Plate! Christy Jordan of Southern Plate specializes in [...]
[...] Chicken Lettuce Wraps, Y’all! [...]
Hubby and I made these for dinner last night. Very yummy and just like those expensive restaurant lettuce wraps! Hubby was also impressed when I smacked the lettuce on the counter and easily pulled off the stem. Way to go, Christy!!!
Christy, I am looking forward to trying these tonight! I know I will love them because I love everything else I’ve tried from your website! Keep the recipes coming, you’re making my family happy night after night!!:)
[...] Chicken Lettuce Wraps [...]
i love to eat freshly picked lettuce.~~;
[...] reading the full recipe, check out Christy Jordan at Southern Plate! Christy Jordan of Southern Plate specializes in [...]
My daughter has these at PF Changs Chinese restaurant in MI. She love them. Not sure if this is the same but I know I will try these real Soooooonnnnn~
Gonna try these tomorrow. Can’t wait. Sounds so yummy and easy. Perfect for livingroom gatin’ watching football (Go WVU) tomorrow afternoon. Thanks Christy and hope you and your family have a wonderful weekend.
I’m a college student at the University of Mississippi and my roommate and I made this tonight for dinner. This was the best meal we have had all semester, we can’t wait to make it for our friends. Thanks so much!
i really love the taste of lettuce on my homebrew russian salad*`’
FYI these are even better with ground chicken or turkey!!! They taste like PF chang’s lettuce wraps. Thanks so much for the great recipe Christy, it’s low fat and delicious
[...] Chicken Lettuce Wraps [...]
We love Lettuce Wraps at our house!!
Christy, I love all my sandwiches wrapped in a couple of lettuce leaves. Eliminates the bread and the mayo.
Just finished these for dinner. They were awesome!
Yummy!!! Now I am hungry.
My mom turned me on to this site and I have discovered one of our most fav recipes….chicken lettuce wraps. They are so close to PeiWei’s that we don’t need to go there for them anymore. We had to add a bit more soy sauce, no onions and some heat (in the form of pepper sauce), but so yummy! So glad I found this recipe!
No PRINT RECIPE option Christy! Cant wait to make these!!
What are rice sticks…can you name a few cauz I cant find them at Kroger? Is it the same as rice noodles?????
My sister went to Korea. She bought me some rice noodles. Neat seeing the video. These would be low carb meal without the brown sugar and noodles. Yum!
These just look yummy! Going to have to try them out.
Gonna try those out. Look wonderful. Will probably use store brand soy sauce though. Kikoman soy sauce and my tummy do not get along. Loved the video. Watched it 3 times. Tooo cool!
I did these tonight, and they were quite good. My rice noodles didn’t do as well as in your video, but at least they finally did something similar. My kitchen was more of a mess than it had seen in a long time, but that’s more because I don’t generally do as much cooking as I would like. Thanks for the inspiration to make a nice meal for myself.
I had lettuce wraps at PF Changs for the first time a couple weeks ago. My friend just passed this recipe along to me and I can’t wait to try them tomorrow!!
[...] Friday: Chicken Lettuce Wraps [...]
[...] Southern Plate, Inspired by P.F. [...]
Made these for dinner last night!!! So yummy…..make sure your oil is HOT and I mean HOT for the rice noodles to puff up like they should!!!!!
Sounds yummy. I’m gonna add ginger and garlic to the sauce. I’m not sure my hubby will go for this just cuz of the lettuce leaves but I’m gonna give it a try.
I think you might be surprised Desiree. Let me know what he thinks.
[...] Lettuce Wraps adapted from Southern Plate, inspired by P.F. Chang’s, as seen on The Cooking [...]
I made these for the first time tonight. 21 yr old son assisted me because he watched the noodle video and wanted to be in charge of those
We had fun and boy are these delicious!!! Will definitely be making a regular appearance on the menu around here. I had also seen recipes online for chicken lettuce wraps that made me tired just reading all the steps. Simple and delicious is always my goal, and thanks for making that happen one more time Christy!
Oh Jessi, what fun in the kitchen with your son!! I am so glad to hear that you like the chicken lettuce wraps, now you have me wanting some!
[...] time I bite into one so I try to avoid them and really only use them in my cooking when I make Chicken lettuce wraps(click here for that recipe), but they’re dice pretty fine for that so they aren’t as [...]
[...] – Well I’ve posted before about how much my son loves making the chicken lettuce wraps. He likes to be in charge of those noodles He recently had a friend over and wanted to make them [...]
Is there anything that you can substitute for the mushrooms in this recipe since I’m allergic to them? Please let me know. Thanks
Just leave them out altogether and it’ll still be great!
I’m glad you said you could leave out the mushrooms because I just don’t care for them. This sounds so good. I love chicken wraps.
Gonna make this as a salad instead of a wrap since my lettuce is the precut.
I made these tonight and aside from not letting the oil warm up enough at first (and dousing my first batch of noodles in semi-warm oil and having nothing happen) =) they were amazing! I made myself two, not sure if I’d eat both, and then ended up enjoying twice that many. They’re so GOOD! My husband added siracha sauce (b/c he puts it on pretty much everything) and declared them a new favorite and Oliver (the baby) devoured about twice as much as Zoe (the toddler) =) overall definitely a great recipe and one of our new family go-tos. Thanks!!
I am so glad to hear that you liked them Liz!!!
These little babies are a new favorite of mine! I cant wait to make them for the Ladies at Bunco, next time I host! Thanks so much!
I use ground turkey and the texture is really close to PF Changs lettuce wrap. A little spicy sriracha sauce tops it off!
Try it with red leaf lettuce. My mother is Korean and I grew up eating what is now known as lettuce wraps but we always used red leaf lettuce. Also, try it with a little rice with the meat mixture (omit the rice noodles). Yummy!!!
We like to make these too but we top ours with peanut sauce. They are so yummy!
Oh, I bet that is yummy!
LOL – “seriously considering asking Santa to leave coal in its stocking.” Tooooo funny! And I’m curious if you’ve ever done a version without mushrooms. I hate the nasty little things – lol!
I’m a HUGE fan of not forcing yourself to eat things you hate (Ie. me and seafood). Leave ‘em out and they’ll be just fine!
Never cooked rice sticks before..do they HAVE to be cooked in oil??