Lettuce wraps are delicious and surprisingly simple to put together. Butterhead lettuce acts as a great substitute for taco shells, tortillas or pita bread. It's also an easy way to sneak veggies into your kids' meal in a creative and aesthetically pleasing way...because if you ask me, lettuce wraps are pretty beautiful! You can also be super creative with your fillers, changing up the meat and veggies based on your family's preferences.
We served our lettuce wraps with edamame because recently we discovered that our kids LOVE this vegetable! We ordered them at a restaurant and our kids completely devoured them. They seem to love the salty seasoning on the pods and the act of biting or extracting the soybeans from their shells.
It's super simple to steam edamame. It can be hard to find fresh edamame at the grocery store, so we opted for frozen, and the vegetable turned out great.
🌈 KIDIFY THE MEAL 🌈
Have picky eaters? Read More...
🍅Kids choose the meat. If your kids don't like ground chicken, you can swap the chicken for beef, pork or turkey.
🍅Serve the meat on the side. If your kids think it's strange to put meat on top of lettuce, simply serve the meat on the side. Kids can treat the lettuce like a salad and add their favorite dressing.
🍅Serve the meat over rice or rice noodles. As an alternative to making lettuce wraps, kids may prefer having the meat and veggie mixture over rice or noodles!
🍴 MODIFY THE MEAL🍴
Make the meal fit your dietary lifestyle!
🍅Make it Gluten Free! Replace Soy Sauce with Tamari. The soy sauce you're used to seeing on the shelf contains wheat, but nowadays you can find gluten-free soy sauce at the market. The product I always see is San-J's Tamari Gluten Free Soy Sauce. In fact, I'm not gluten-intolerant and I always buy the San-J brand anyway. Kikkoman also now makes a gluten-free soy sauce, but I haven't seen this one around quite as much.
🍅Make it Vegan/Vegetarian! All the sauces in this recipe are vegan. So, all you have to do is replace the meat with pea protein crumbles. I'm a huge fan of Beyond Meat Beefy Crumbles. I've used them for years to make vegetarian chili and it is soooo delicious. I'm definitely a meat eater and I can't tell the difference. Worth noting is that these crumbles are high in protein and also gluten-free.
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Chicken Lettuce Wraps with Edamame
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 T sesame oil
- 1 lb ground chicken
- 1 small onion (chopped)
- 1 cup carrots (shredded)
- 2 ribs celery (chopped)
- 2 cloves garlic (minced)
- 1 inch fresh ginger (chopped)
- 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
- 2 T soy sauce
- 8 oz package of frozen, in-shell edamame
- 1/2 t salt
- 1 handful peanuts (crushed)
- 1 head butterhead lettuce (Bibb, Boston, or Butter) (rinsed and leaves broken apart at the core to form wraps)
- a couple leaves of hand torn fresh cilantro (optional)
- sriracha hot sauce (optional)
Instructions
- Heat sesame oil in a medium pan on medium heat. Add ground chicken and cook, breaking apart into small pieces, until chicken is no longer pink (about 5 mins).
- Add onion, carrots, celery, garlic, and ginger to chicken, and cook for 5-6 mins (or until onions are translucent). Add hoisin sauce and soy sauce to chicken an stir until mixed in. Keep heat on low until ready to serve.
- Cook edamame according to directions on package (either in hot water over stove or in microwave). Put edamame in a bowl and evenly season with salt.
- Scoop chicken mixture onto open lettuce leaves.
- Crush a handful of peanuts in a plastic bag and sprinkle atop the chicken wraps. OPTIONAL: sprinkle wraps with a few pieces of torn cilantro and sriracha.
Notes
*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. While we are not certified nutritionists, we work with a Wordpress-integrated nutrition API to calculate our recipes' ingredient values.
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