Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps {Quick and Delish}
You can have these quick and delicious Asian chicken lettuce wraps ready to serve in 20 minutes and the flavors are astounding!
These wraps. Oh, these wraps! How do I adequately convey their deliciousness?
Should I tell you that when my sis-in-law, Kylie, told me about them, she confessed they had eaten them twice in one week? Or should I alert you that after I made them, they haunted my dreams until I made them again (er, two days later)? Exaggeration = off. Promise.
They are so delicious, I’ve already made a specific note to Brian that these will be my birthday meal request this year. That’s saying a lot, because I love me a good birthday meal request and have been known to think (read: obsess) all year long about what I want to eat that day (come on, it only happens once a year!).
Will it further convince you of their tastiness if I add that if you put your game face on, you can have these ready to serve in 20 minutes. Do you hear angels singing? Do you?
The flavors are astounding. The crisp lettuce is the perfect vehicle for the refreshingly light chicken mixture and the rice is just a little bit of decadence in a very healthy meal.
I have made these, oh, I don’t know, probably 10 times in the last few months. And I’m still looking forward to them on my birthday next month. Major love. (And Major Smugness for providing you with such a healthy, actually-delicious meal this soon in the new year. Don’t worry, true diet failure coming next week. I am who I am, what can I say.)
What To Serve With This:
An Asian-inspired side salad like Asian Noodle Salad or this Asian Salad
Baked Southwest Egg Rolls with Creamy Chipotle Dipping Sauce
Fresh fruit
One Year Ago: Coconut Shrimp Curry
Two Years Ago: Pineapple Salsa Chicken {Slow Cooker}
Three Years Ago: Tortellini Spinach Salad with Balsamic-Tomato Vinaigrette
Four Years Ago: Quick and Delicious Clam Chowder
Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps {Quick and Delish}
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups water
- 1 cup short grain rice, i.e. sushi rice, rinsed
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon reduced-sodium soy sauce
- 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice plus 2 teaspoons fresh lime zest, from about 3-4 limes
- 1 ½ tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1 pound ground chicken
- 2 teaspoons vegetable or canola oil
- 1 jalapeno stemmed, seeded, and minced (leave in the seeds if you like more heat)
- ¼ cup chopped fresh basil
- 3 green onions, finely chopped
- 12 Bibb or Boston lettuce leaves, about 1 head, washed
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan, bring the water, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and rice to a boil high heat. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and cook for 10 minutes. Remove the rice from the heat and let sit, covered, until tender, another 10-15 minutes.
- Whisk the fish sauce, soy sauce, lime juice, brown sugar, and cornstarch together in a small bowl and set aside.
- Heat the oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium heat until shimmering. Add the chicken, jalapeno, and lime zest and cook, breaking up the meat into small pieces with a wooden spoon, until the chicken is no longer pink, about 5 minutes.
- Whisk the fish sauce/lime mixture to recombine; add it to the skillet and cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until the sauce has thickened, a minute or two. Off the heat, stir in the fresh basil and scallions. To serve, open up a lettuce leaf, place a small scoop of rice on the bed of lettuce and top with some of the warm chicken mixture.
Notes
Recommended Products
Recipe Source: adapted slightly from America’s Test Kitchen Light and Healthy 2010
93 Comments on “Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps {Quick and Delish}”
Delicious! I got lazy one day and made them as bowls. Rice or cauliflower rice on the bottom, then the chicken, topped with “shredded” romaine. Yummy and easy! Thanks, Mel, I can always count on your recipes!!
This was so good! I used less chicken, added a handful of shredded carrots and a finely chopped bell pepper. I also put some of the chicken in a separate pan with some of the sauce for the kids, and then I made the rest with the jalapeños for the adults. The spice level was very mild so I think they would be able to handle even the jalapeños by the time they are 5 or 6. How do your kids do with mild-spicy food, Mel?
Hey Kate – my kids have varying levels of spice tolerance, but I can usually add at least one jalapeno to a recipe with no complaints (I take the seeds out). Anymore than that and a few of my kids insist they are going to die.
Tasted great! Not an easy meal for little kids but I liked it!
We make this recipe at least three times per month. I love how quickly it comes together and the fresh way it tastes. Thank you!!!
Love this recipe, I make it all the time. I made this a lot when I was doing whole 30 without the sugar. Delisous and EASY!
Very unique taste. I have discovered that I must not be a fish sauce type of person even though I love fish. My family and I had a hard time eating this. The first recipe on here that I have not liked and I have made several of Mel’s amazing recipes.
Oh! These were really refreshing! So glad we tried them! As I was putting my plate on the table they looked so green and springlike….beautiful….but even more importantly they tasted fantastic. My husband and I enjoyed these new flavors and being little piggies almost finished the whole batch! I think there’s enough for 1 person’s lunch tomorrow. Oh well! We can make more…. I happen to have a bag of frozen brown rice from Kroger and used that….super easy! Will try the short grain rice as suggested next time. Thanks, Mel!
Finally made these last night and they were so delicious. My 6 year old thought the fish sauce smell in the kitchen might actually kill her, but other than that it was another winner. Can’t wait for the leftovers at lunch. I’ve never been able to find ground chicken so I always sub Costco ground turkey and it seems to work great.
These look delicious! I’m one of those weird people that actually like the fish sauce smell and taste. Haha. I grew up with my mom making dishes with it. Thanks for the recipe!
We’ve been a super fan of Mel’s recipes for sometime. She did not disappoint with this one either. I was surprised what the basil brought to the flavor! So Delish! My husband said this is definitely in our top 10 recipes. Easy to make. Everyone loved them. I made extra sauce in the side and we ate rice separately. Sooooo good!!!!
I made these tonight and loved them! So fresh and different! There was no ground chicken at our local grocery store, so I used two big mostly-thawed chicken breasts and ground them in my food processor. I was pleasantly surprised how well that worked! I also used half coconut milk and half water to make the rice, and it was really yummy. Thanks Mel!
Thank you for the delicious, easy and healthy recipe. We topped them off with a bit of siracha-wonderful.
Yum!!!!! I was expecting to just make quesadillas for the kids after they tried dinner because they are picky and don’t like onions or peppers. Sadly they all asked for seconds which didn’t leave as much for me and the hubby. They were a big hit with the whole fam and my oldest requested this for her birthday in two weeks. Love your recipes!
Hi Mel, any suggestions other than lettuce to serve this mixture?
Over rice and quinoa would be delicious too!
These were fantastic! I made exactly as the recipe states and we loved them. I served them with egg rolls and it made a wonderful meal. I love your recipes!
I made these for a large group of Thai friends and everyone enjoyed them. Just FYI, we think the best brand of fish sauce is the kind that is actually made in Thailand but you can buy it in Asian markets here. It has a yellow label with red edges and a red circle with Thai writing on it (if you translated the Thai letters into English letter– which the label does not– it would read something like “Tip rote”) but the key thing to look for is that on the original label there is NO English. It is the real deal! As sold in my current American town, they stick a tiny label in English on the side saying Fish Sauce “Tiparos”. The brand has authentic Thai flavour. (No, I do not have stock in the company– just have lived in Thailand for many years!) This is a good recipe–very adaptable and delicious. thank you, Mel!
Marvelous! Thanks for another great meal idea!
These are on my meal plan for next week but I just got back from the store and realized I didn’t buy fish sauce. Is there a substitute? Also how hot is the jalapeño seeded? What are the chances my three and one year old (fairly good eaters who eat what we eat) and myself who can’t handle super hot things can handle it?
Jane – You can probably just leave out the fish sauce or up the soy sauce just slightly. I don’t think these are spicy at all – my kids eat them up with no complaining. Just be sure to seed the jalapeno (and discard the seeds). Good luck!
We had these AGAIN tonight. Thank you so much for giving us this recipe.
I can’t wait to try these! We LOVE getting these from PF Changs (which is about 45 minutes away) so it will be great to be able to make them. Can you recommend your favorite brand of fish sauce?
I made your firecracker chicken tonight and it was great! Thanks!
Heather – I don’t really have a favorite brand because I only have one option in my little town but when I can find it, the Tiparos brand is what I look for.
These are delicious! I had to make a few substitutions, so it seems really versatile too. So in case others are reading thru comments without all of the ingredients… Only had Napa cabbage leaves, but they worked fine. And didn’t have ground meat, so just diced up chicken breasts. And i was out of limes and used lemon juice. I’m partial to limes and am sure it is way better with limes, but lemon was fine in lieu of a trip to the store. Okay, so I was missing a couple more things too…but these sounded so good so we went for it. And they’re great! Can’t wait to try it again when we have it all on hand, but I think you could pour that sauce on shoe leather and I’d go back for seconds. Thanks for another winner, Mel!
These were really good. I didnt have fish sauce so I used more soy sauce. My husband felt that the lime zest was too overwhelming. I will ease up on the lime as well. Also, (dumb question are we supposed to hold the leaves and eat from the leaves or with use a fork?
Ava – you can really eat them however you feel but we just pick them up (like a taco) and go at it. 🙂
The sauce for this had a great flavor, but I think used too much lime zest because there was an overwhelming lime flavor. Can’t wait to give it another try and ease up on the lime.
Oh and for future reference, it’s also called butter lettuce. I stood in the store forever staring at the choices and finally figured that out. I’ve heard you can get a package of chicken breasts and ask the butcher to grind it up too…
I made these tonight, and hubby loved them! I think they were pretty good, but I’ve had a cold for a week and a half, so I can’t taste much… It seemed a bit spicy though… We liked them but our kids didn’t as much
So for those of us in 100+ summer temps…this needs to be on your bi-weekly (heck, weekly menu) It is THAT good! Really refreshing! PS. I dont “do” fish sauce, just up’d the soy sauce and served without rice and was completely filled up. Thanks Mel!
Maybe you can shed some light for this ignorant “chef.” Why does it need to be stirred with a wooden spoon? Does the wood really make a difference, I’ve never understood this when reading recipes as to why it would matter to specify.
Maureen – I don’t think it’s that the wood itself makes a difference, I think it’s more the shape of the spoon so if you have another spoon (silicone or otherwise) that has a similar shape to a wooden spoon it should work. I think the shape helps break it into clumps but not pulverize into extremely small pieces.
WOW. I have been using your blog for years (thank you for all of your amazing recipes, by the way!), but this recipe is definitely my new favorite. As an American living in the Middle East, it is often quite difficult to find all of the ingredients to match your recipes exactly — I often have to improvise with substitutions — but what I LOVE about your website is that almost everything is made from scratch. Since fresh mushrooms and cream are much easier to find here than, say, condensed cream of mushroom soup, it is a joy to come to your website and only have to substitute corn flour for cornstarch, rather than make up something completely on my own. And just so you know, my husband loves you almost as much as I do because I would never have been able to work up the courage to make bread without your step-by-step tutorials — now I make bread all the time, and my husband is a very happy man.
I ended up having to substitute this weird orange fruit (looks like an orange, tastes sour like a lemon/lime — actually it’s been so long since I’ve had a lime I’m not even sure what they taste like anymore!) for limes in this particular recipe, but I had everything else on the list. And WOW. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I will be making this many.more.times.
oh my goodness! I made these last nite and cannot stop dreaming of them! They were amazing! I wanted more veggies in them like the OBB version, so I added toppings in bowls to sprinkle on and called them asian tacos for my kids! I used diced cucumber, shredded carrots, red pepper, and chopped almonds. Delicious!
Made these the other night….my husband has a workshop, so he didn’t get home until 10:30 or so. When he came up to bed he said “those lettuce wraps were delicious…probably the best thing you’ve ever made!” I said “did you heat them up?” he said he ate them cold lol. The next day, he had them for lunch and heated them up and fell in love all over again! Love your site and thanks for this great recipe!
My three-year-old daughter took one bite, smiled, and said, “Yummmmmm!” She gobbled up three wraps and then groaned because she was so full. My finicky 16-month-old ate a big bowl of the chicken mixture with rice without any coaxing. Wow! The 6 of us ate a whole head of lettuce and everyone loved it but my 5-year-old who only likes bland food with no texture but she ate it anyway. Thanks for the great recipe!
My family just loves these;delicious, quick, and easy!!!!
These were very different from the recipes I usually try. I have never made an Asian or Thai dish before. We ablsolutely loved them. The flovors were wonderful. Glad we will be able to use up the rest of the fish sauce!
I got everything for these today- with the exception of fresh basil. My store had it, but it was $4 for a little bunch!! I’m hoping it still tastes good without it! I’ll make these in the summer and use thai basil- it’s so yummy! Thanks Mel!