Healthy Chicken Lettuce Wraps is another 30 minute dinner we make regularly. It all started with a visit to PF Chang’s in Seattle.
Easy filling made with chicken breast, ground chicken or turkey cooked in tasty savory sauce and loaded up on crispy lettuce leaves. Way better than any restaurant’s. Not to mention way more healthy. Are you in?
Chicken Lettuce Wraps
Chicken lettuce wraps are on the menu of most restaurants these days. Truth is I never order them anymore because of the price. Even more truth – we rarely eat out except for sushi. That’s what happens when you learn how to cook.
Instead when I get a craving, I make healthy lettuce wraps with low fat chicken or turkey, always cashews (always!), firm veggies I have on hand and fair amount of delicious healthy sauce.
This chicken lettuce wraps recipe beats any restaurant’s menu. Flavorful, crunchy and saucy low carb dinner or appetizer. Can be prepared ahead and served with a side for extra hungry people like my husband.
Once you make these easy chicken lettuce wraps, you will stop eating out too!
Ingredients for Lettuce Wraps
To make teriyaki chicken lettuce wraps you need simple ingredients you probably have on hand already. I swear I cook with same 30 ingredients over and over.
- Chicken breasts or thighs, or ground chicken or ground turkey
- Cashews
- 1 head of lettuce
- Firm veggies like zucchini and bell pepper
- Onion, garlic, ginger and green onion
- Soy sauce, maple syrup, vinegar and cornstarch
Don’t feel intimidated if you are missing something. Just use what you have on hand and like.
Healthy Chicken Lettuce Wraps Sauce
When it comes to Asian dishes like beef stir fry, chicken stir fry and teriyaki chicken, I always make my own sauce. I never buy pre-made sauces because they are loaded with sugar, sodium and preservatives. They are the worst of all processed foods!
All there is to a healthy Asian sauce is:
- Cold water so cornstarch dissolves.
- Soy sauce or liquid aminos.
- Any sweetener like maple syrup, honey, agave, sugar etc.
- Any light colour vinegar like rice vinegar or just white or white wine vinegar.
- Cornstarch or arrowroot powder or none. Not the end of the world.
What Kind of Lettuce Works?
The best lettuce choices for cashew chicken lettuce wraps:
- Iceberg lettuce – It is what PF Chang’s serves their ground chicken lettuce wraps in. It is not my favorite for a few reasons. Its leaves are hard to separate and I find them tasteless and watery. It is also hard to find organic and you know me and my Dirty Dozen.:)
- Romaine lettuce – It is the same lettuce you use for making Caesar salad. It is often sold in plastic bags, hearts only. Super easy to separate and buy organic. Romaine leaves are also sturdy which are perfect for holding the filling. I don’t love the long boat look though.
- Butter lettuce – Also known as Boston bibb lettuce is my favorite. It has soft texture paired with sweet taste and pretty round shape. Easy to separate and you might need to stack a few leaves on top of each other. It is not always available and can be pricey off season but I still buy it for lettuce wraps.:)
I feel like the butter lettuce I grabbed (pictured) had leaves a bit too small. But hey, it worked and was locally grown.
How to Make Chicken Lettuce Wraps
- Make sure all ingredients are ready before cooking. It is kind of like stir fry situation.
- Toast cashews first and set aside.
- Cook onion, garlic and ginger for 1 minute. Then add chicken and cook for 10 minutes.
- Whisk sauce ingredients in a bowl and to the skillet with chicken. Also add zucchini and bell pepper at same time. Cook for 1 minute.
- To assemble chicken lettuce wraps, use 2-3 stacked lettuce leaves and spoon desired amount of filling on top.
Tips for Best Lettuce Wraps
- Make sure chicken and veggies are diced and minced where required.
- If you don’t have cashews use almonds or skip. I did not like the taste of walnuts.
- Use well pre-heated skillet.
How to Store
Chicken lettuce wraps taste best fresh. Obviously. Because of the nature of my job where I cook dinner at lunch time, I just reheat filling in the skillet before dinner. I place skillet in the fridge, remove straight to the stove and voila. Saves washing dishes.
You can refrigerate filling for up to 3 days.
What I also like to do is to separate, wash and dry leaves from entire head of lettuce. Then I wrap them in a linen towel. And it kind of will be moist from the leaves because it’s impossible to dry lettuce completely. And it’s perfect. You can refrigerate lettuce this way for up to 3 days too. When it’s time to eat, healthy dinner becomes easy-peasy.
Serving Ideas
Asian lettuce wraps recipe is perfect low carb dinner. I stack 2-4 layers of leaves to load up on fiber and avoid late night hunger.
If someone in your family is very hungry, serve over a bed of brown rice or quinoa. My husband would never consider lettuce wraps a meal. And appetizer, yes.
So serve as an appetizer too. Perfect for a hot summer day or equally amazing at winter Super Bowl party.
Kids love-love the filling in warm flour tortilla. Just heat tortilla in a cast iron skillet until bubbles appear on each side. Your teenagers will be kissing you “Good night, mom!”.
Hope you enjoy these healthy chicken lettuce wraps! ANd I would love to hear below oh, how much you enjoy them.:)
More Healthy Quick Dinner Ideas
- Healthy chicken stir fry
- Thai chicken curry
- Healthy beef stir fry
- Korean ground beef and rice bowls
- Browse all 30 minute meals.
Healthy Chicken Lettuce Wraps
30 Minute Healthy Chicken Lettuce Wraps with chicken cooked in tasty savory sauce and loaded up on crispy lettuce leaves.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Stove
- Cuisine: Asian
Ingredients
- 1.5 lbs chicken breast, diced
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1/2 inch knob ginger, minced
- 1 small zucchini, diced
- 1 small bell pepper, diced
- 1 cup cashews, coarsely chopped
- 2 green onion sprigs, chopped
- 1/4 cup cold water
- 2 tbsp soy sauce (I used aminos)
- 2 tbsp maple syrup or honey
- 1 tbsp rice vinegar
- 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 head of butter, iceberg or Romaine lettuce, leaves separated
- 1 tbsp avocado or any oil, for frying
Instructions
- Make sure all ingredients are chopped and ready.
- Preheat large ceramic non-stick skillet on medium heat and add cashews. Pan fry until toasted, stirring constantly. Transfer to a bowl and set aside.
- Return skillet to medium heat and swirl oil to coat. Add onion, garlic and ginger; cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
- Add chicken and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Right before chicken is done cooking, in a small bowl add cold water, soy sauce, maple syrup, rice vinegar and cornstarch; whisk with a fork. Add to the chicken long with zucchini and bell pepper; cook for 1 minute or until sauce has thickened. Stir in cashews and green onions.
- Serve chicken lettuce wraps immediately. To assemble, use 2-3 stacked lettuce leaves (depending on its thickness) and spoon desired amount of filling on top. If someone is very hungry, serve over a bed of brown rice or quinoa.
Store: Refrigerate filling in an airtight container for up to 3 days. Reheat on a skillet before assembling lettuce wraps. You can also refrigerate washed lettuce leaves wrapped in linen towel for up to 3 days.
Notes
Instead of chicken breast you can use diced chicken thighs, and ground chicken or ground turkey.
Did you make this recipe? Please give it a star rating in the comments.
OH. MY. GOSH. This is AMAZING! I made these tonight, and they are so yummy! I will definitely be making this much more often.
★★★★★
Awesome!
There’s so many good reviews! I can’t wait to try this.
Hi Adelyn! I hope you enjoy it.
So good! I made this recipe tonight, and it is AMAZING!
★★★★★
Thank you for the awesome review!
It’s delicious! I think a trick is dicing everything, including the chicken, into small pieces. I’ll definitely make this again. I did not have rice vinegar on hand (it’s here somewhere!), so I used white wine vinegar which worked. I’m trying to eat more healthily, and this recipe fits the bill!
★★★★★
That’s so great Margie! Thanks for taking the time to leave a review.
This recipe was delicious!! I’m going to double the recipe next time (except cashews) so we can have left overs! Very good and loved the flavor. Next time I’m going to try it with your fried cauliflower recipe instead of the lettuce wraps. Yum! Thank you Olena! We can’t wait to cook up more of your recipes!
★★★★★
I am thrilled that you liked this recipe so much Jessica! Please don’t hesitate to let me know what you think of any of my other recipes 🙂
We used ground turkey. My son is allergic to all nuts so we omitted those. I didn’t have zucchini so I used asparagus. And I used apple cider vinegar instead of rice vinegar. They were delicious. My 7 year old couldn’t stop eating them and my 2 year old was eating up the filling. Definitely a new regular at our house.
★★★★★
Glad the recipe was a hit for you and the substitutions worked out!
My husband loves these. This has become a weekly meal at our house. Easy and delicious!
Thank you!
★★★★★
So happy this is part of your go-to dinner rotation!
Even my picky eater ate these!
★★★★★
Delicious and easy to make.
★★★★★
Love hearing that Kelli!
How many pounds of ground turkey would you use if you did not use the 1.5 pounds of chicken breast?
Same or 1 pack, it’s just a little over 1 lb.
Wonderful. what is the caloric content?
★★★★★
Oops sorry. Will add tomorrow.
I love this recipe thank you! Also, how many calories is in this meal? And what’s the serving size?
You are so welcome, Nichole! Nutritional info card is located inside each recipe card. 🙂
I still cant find the calories anywhere
Nutritional information is located at the bottom of every recipe. Sometimes you have to wait a minute or so for the info to load on the webpage. For the Chicken Lettuce wraps, there are 328 calories per serving (a serving size is 2-3 wraps depending on the size of lettuce you use.) Hope that helps.
This recipe was pretty good. I didn’t have zucchini so I substituted with other vegetables. Also, I didn’t have chicken breasts so I used chicken parts and left it as parts. So I had one piece of chicken with each lettuce wrap. Three wraps was able to fill me up.
★★★★
Glad you made this chicken lettuce wraps work and enjoyed it. 🙂
Yummy!! Full of flavour and very satisfying !
★★★★★
I’m so glad you enjoyed it, Karen! Thank you for the wonderful review!
I found this recipe as we are trying to eat healthier. We made them tonight and they were so good! And I’m the type of person who never ends up like what I make. We will be making this over and over again. Thanks!
You are very welcome, Burke!
Delicious!! I doubled the recipe and it was gone almost instantly. I also added some all spice to give it an extra something.
★★★★★
Yay! So happy to hear.:)
If you mention PF Chang – I am in!! 🙂 Yes, butter lettuce is a perfect variation – it looks and tastes superior to any other lettuces. Loved your sauce too! Thanks, Olena!
★★★★★
You are very welcome!
sounds very good where are the nutrition facts or how many servings
Inside the recipe card.:)
OH MY!! Absolutely DELICIOUS!!!
★★★★★
Wahoo!!!!! First review and it’s a keeper.:) Awesome.
Delicious and so easy!!!
★★★★★