The filling is full of veggies, protein and a delicious thai/sweet chili/peanut sauce everyone that will leave everyone at the table feeling satisfied. You can watch your hungry family load their plates with seconds, thirds, or even fourths and smile that they’re not only loving these Thai chicken lettuce wraps, but they’re eating healthy!
Start by chopping your chicken into very small pieces, and chopping all of your veggies.
Add the chicken, onion, garlic, salt and pepper to a large skillet and cook until no longer pink. Add the chopped veggies and saute until tender.
Make the sauce (this can be made in advance and stored in the fridge). Fresh chopped ginger really tastes the very best in the sauce (you can buy a small piece of ginger root for this recipe, and store the extra in your freezer for another day).
Add the sauce and cilantro to the skillet and toss everything to combine.
What is the best lettuce to use for lettuce wraps?
You can use any type of green leafy lettuce for lettuce wraps, but popular types of lettuce include Boston bib lettuce and romaine hearts. The great thing about lettuce wraps is that they are easily modifiable when it comes to the filling and the wrapping. Cabbage leaves would also be a yummy substitute.
A few tips for this recipe:
Substitutions:
This recipe is easily adaptable to use what you have in your fridge. You could add other chopped veggies, like celery, bok choy, bean sprouts, shredded Brussels sprouts, zucchini or summer squash. Saute the veggies until tender, when you add them to the skillet. If you add a lot of extra veggies to this recipe, you may want to make a little more sauce.
You could also substitute the chicken for ground turkey, pork, or tofu, or leave it out completely for a vegetarian option, adding extra veggies instead.
Ingredient prep:
I use a box grater to shred my carrot. Then I use a paper towel to scoop up the pile of shredded carrot and squeeze the liquid out of it.
I also pat the chicken dry with paper towels after I’ve chopped it into small pieces. Removing the excess liquid helps the chicken brown better when you saute it in step 2.
The sauce for these lettuce wraps can be made 2-3 days in advance, making for even faster dinner prep!
Consider trying these delicious lettuce wrap recipes:
- Avocado Chicken Salad Lettuce Wraps
- Cashew Chicken Lettuce Wraps
- Asian Turkey Lettuce Wraps
- Greek Yogurt Chicken Salad Lettuce Wraps
- Spicy Chicken Lettuce Wraps
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Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps
Video
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 1/2 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts (or tenders), chopped into very small pieces*
- 4 cloves garlic , minced
- 1/2 cup yellow onion , chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 carrot , shredded
- 1/2 cup cabbage , finely shredded (red, green, or napa)
- 3 green onions , chopped
For the sauce:
- 1/3 cup sweet chili sauce
- 1 heaping Tablespoon peanut butter , smooth or crunchy
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated ginger (or 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger)
- 2 teaspoons low-sodium soy sauce
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro , chopped
- crushed red pepper flakes to taste
- 1 head Boston Bib lettuce (or romaine)
Instructions
- Heat oil in a large skillet over medium.
- Add chicken, garlic, onions, salt and pepper and cook, tossing occasionally, until chicken is cooked through.
- Add the carrots, cabbage, and green onions, and cook for 2 more minutes.
- In a small bowl combine the sweet chili sauce, ginger, peanut butter, soy sauce, and crushed red pepper. Stir until smooth.
- Add sauce to the pan. Add cilantro. toss everything until combined.
- Spoon mixture into individual lettuce cups. Should fill about 8 lettuce cups.
- You might also like Cashew Chicken Lettuce Wraps!
Notes
Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?!
RATE this recipe and COMMENT below! I would love to hear your experience.
I originally shared this recipe in January 2014. Updated January 2018
wendy says
Just made these after a search to satisfy my desire to eat healthy and still appeal to my household filled with boys! HEB does carry a wonderful sturdy lettuce wrap as mentioned above, and I decided to use the packaged slaw shredded veggies to save some time. I was a bit short on some of the ingredients, so I whipped cashew butter together with water and the ACV–it was delicious and did the trick along with the rest of the ingredients–I omitted the sweet chili sauce and my family still loved it–very forgiving and versatile dish! Absolutely delicious and the chicken was superb! Thank you for the inspiration!
Gay Kelsey says
I tried this recipe for the first time and it was delicious. My preparation time and effort were minimal, the presentation was impressive, the dish was very tasty and mildly spicy but it was definitely a 5 star meal according to my husband. Will definitely have this again.
Brenda says
Quick, easy and delicious!😋
Erica Parsons says
Delicious and simple recipe! Husband loved it. Only adjustment I made was using 2 cloves of garlic instead of 4 and it still tasted great. I used a head of ‘butter lettuce’ which has nice big leaves and they worked well and was quite good. Definitely keeping this recipe and making this again!
Tonya says
Made this with ground turkey and romaine. I also sautéed 2 Thai Chile’s (whole) instead of pepper flakes and removed prior to serving. It was awesome! Thank you so much for the recipe.
Jasmine Bellon says
I love this recipe so delicious. I made it a couple times.
DeeAnn says
This was quick to prepare and had excellent flavor. I left out the red pepper flakes and still ended up a tad on the spicy side. Served over rice but I’m sure the lettuce would have added a wonderful crunch!