Every now and then I get these crazy cravings for lettuce wraps, I don’t know why or where it comes from but I hardly make them because it’s just so much easier to go out and order them. I think I’ve made them once for J last year so last week I decided to just suck it up and make them again!

I used 2 different recipes, one from a fitness website, and another on foodnetwork.com and blended them together. The reason I wanted to reference the fitness site is because these unsuspecting little wraps can be really high in calories and sodium. Blame the beef and all the sauces for that. Substituting chicken or turkey for the beef and making your own sauce controls those levels and making a lettuce wrap healthy again.

Ingredients

For the Chicken:

  • 1 large egg white
  • 1 tsp cornstarch
  • 1 tsp Chinese rice wine vinegar or dry sherry
  • 1 tablespoon white wine (I added this because I reduced the amount of rice wine, due to sodium but if you don’t have it add t tbsp of rice wine vinegar)
  • 2 boneless chicken breasts, diced (I used my food processor and lightly ground them, or buy pre-ground)

For the Stir-Fry Sauce:

  • 1/4 cup water
  • 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
  • 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
  • 1 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce
  • 1 tsp Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
  • 1 tsp toasted sesame oil
  • 1  teaspoons cornstarch

For the Stir-Fry:

  • 2-3 table spoons of light cooking oil
  • 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 teaspoon minced peeled ginger ( I grated mine with a rasp)
  • 1/2 pound shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and diced (or any mushrooms you like)
  • ½ large red pepper diced small
  • 1/4 cup diced water chestnuts
  • Small lettuce leaves, for serving
  • grated or peeled carrots

Directions

Prepare the chicken: Whisk the egg white, cornstarch and rice wine in a bowl. Add the chicken and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate at least 30 minutes (or while you’re making everything else)

Make the stir-fry sauce: Whisk 1/4 cup water, the oyster, hoisin and soy sauces, the rice wine and sesame oil in a bowl, then whisk in the cornstarch until dissolved. Set aside.

Make the stir-fry: Heat 1 tablespoon cooking oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook, stirring, 2 to 3 minutes (until no longer pink). Remove to a plate. Add the remaining cooking oil to the skillet; stir in the garlic, ginger, red pepper, mushrooms, stir fry for about 4 min. Add the stir-fry sauce, water chestnuts and chicken and cook for 2-3 minutes, until sauce thickens. SERVE!

**Other things I omitted was salt (soy sauce and hoisin sauce are FULL of salt so it’s not needed), sugar, onion, jalapeno, scallions (I didn’t have any, but that would be nice touch.

To prep the lettuce take off the outer 1-2 leafs or 3 if needed to make sure there isn’t limp old lettuce, chop off the big nub on bottom, then cut in half. Serve one of the halves and people can just peel off a layer for their wrap. Bring out the second half if needed.

I also peeled some carrot and put in out so it could be added to the wrap. Carrot would be a great addition to the actual stir fry mixture but I got lazy and just peeled it quickly and threw in a small bowl.

I also put out some dry chow mien noodles. I like the addition of the crunch, not that the lettuce isn’t crunchy, but this added just a bit more.

I like my food spicy, J not so much, so I made a small dish of sriracha sauce, soy, and hoisin to drizzle on top. This isn’t necessary since the sauce on the chicken is great as is, but I just wanted the extra heat.