Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Last week, I got a head of butter lettuce from Bountiful Baskets. If you've used or purchased this stuff, you know it can be a little unsettling to put a living head of lettuce, complete with dirty root ball, into your refrigerator. The perfectly cup-shaped leaves made my mind immediately think lettuce wraps. Here is how I made them:

Ingredients:
1 head of butter lettuce or 1/2 head of iceberg lettuce
1 chicken breast
salt and pepper
1/2 yellow onion--diced
2 carrots--diced
2 stalks celery--diced
1/2 cup mushrooms--diced
a handful of cashews--roughly chopped

For the sauce:

1/4 cup soy sauce

2 tbsp brown sugar

a squirt of siracha, depending on how hot you like it

2 garlic cloves--minced

1 tsp. fresh grated ginger

1 Tbsp. peanut butter

a splash of rice wine vinegar 

1/2 lime--juiced

 

Directions:

1. Season both sides of the chicken breast with salt and pepper and sear it on both sides in a tsp. of canola oil on a medium-high wok. Once the chicken is seared on both sides, "grind" it up. I use this fancy meat tenderizer/breaker-upper that I got from The Pampered Chef, but you could just use a regular meat tenderizer or a knife. I really like the texture of tiny chicken bites in my lettuce wraps. You could also just use ground chicken, turkey, or beef.

2. Add the veggies and some salt and pepper to the ground chicken and saute until the veggies are soft.

3. Mix all of the ingredients for the sauce in a separate container. When the veggies are soft, add the sauce and cook until it comes to a bubble.

4. Serve inside washed lettuce leaves. Adding rice makes it a complete meal.