Lettuce wraps

 

I’m on a lettuce wrap kick.

Particularly in the last few days, in an effort to eat lighter after a week eating everything I could get my hands on in New York, I have been trying different combinations of lettuce wrap meals.

My first foray was a chicken salad wrap. We had some leftover chicken breast, which I cut into chunks and mixed with a bit of mayo, a quirt of Dijon mustard, some green onions and fresh ground pepper. I rolled it into a few romaine lettuce hearts and voila! It was delish.

Next up was a taco wrap from scratch.

I decided to make an ultra-light meal by starting with ground turkey instead of beef.
I assembled my ingredients – ground turkey, onion, jalapeno and red peppers, cheese, and for additional toppings, avocado, tomato, and sour cream.

I have this delightful Mexican lime olive oil that my mother brought me from a trip to Arizona. You can improvise by using oil with some garlic and a squeeze of lime. You can also squeeze lime into the meat as you cook.

Now to get down to business. Fry the onions and jalapeno pepper, adding pepper and garlic. Add the meat and chop it up as you fry. I have this handy Pampered Chef mix and chop that is great for just that. Add the red peppers (this can be done earlier depending on what consistency you like the peppers).

While the meat is cooking, prepare your toppings of grated cheese and chopped tomatoes and avocado, as well as the lettuce. I opted for green leaf, thinking it would be a little softer and easier to roll than romaine for this wrap.

 

I then decided to put the cheese in the pan and mix it slightly with the meat before serving. I didn’t want to put ultra-hot meat into the lettuce. So after melting the cheese lightly, I took the meat off the heat to let it cool slightly.

I then spooned the mixture into the lettuce, rolled it and ate it. For my second helping, I opted for two smaller leaves, and tried sour cream as an additional topping.

While this may not seem appetizing for the bread or tortilla lovers out there, I thought it was a great option to the standard wrap or taco. The lettuce adds a crispy, tasty touch to the meal.

I will say lettuce wraps are messy, but when I didn’t use as much filling, it rolled tighter and wasn’t as bad. And my experience with wraps in general is that they can be messy. Besides, what’s wrong with having to lick my fingers after a meal?

I did not do a “handy dandy printable” for this one, since it really is all about experimenting with what flavours you want.

PS – A handy tip about peppers. Apparently if you use them from the bottom up, never removing the stem and seeds, they last longer in the fridge…