Healthy, fresh, and DELICIOUS
If you’re looking for a refreshing, light lunch that you’ll feel good about, you’ve found the right recipe. These ginger-garlic chicken and rice lettuce wraps are made around the clock in our house and I just adore them. They’ve got a great crunch from the lettuce and pickled cabbage and some real substance with grilled chicken and steamed rice. But the secret sauce to this recipe is actually the secret sauce.
A little food prep
Grilling, slow-cooking, or boiling chicken to have ready on hand is such a helpful task to make eating healthy WAY easier. I do this a few times a week so we have fresh chicken ready to throw into any recipe. A food scale makes measuring proportions much easier, too! 1 lb of chicken can make 4-5 servings!
Same goes for rice! I love white jasmine rice and cook about 2/3 cup of dry rice with 1 1/2 cups water and a little bit of Better than Bullion chicken base. This yields about three servings, and what’s great about these lettuce wraps is you eat the rice cold, so there’s no need to heat it up later.
The recipe I have listed is for a single serving, but I more often make the secret sauce in bulk because I use it so often. If you’d like to do this, too, just multiply everything by four, and remember 3 tsp = 1 tbsp.
Eating healthier
I have been in self-improvement mode lately, trying to recalibrate and reach some inner peace. A large part of that is affected by whether I’m eating a healthy, balanced diet. Using a calorie-counting and macronutrient-tracking app (Lifesum), I’ve been able to apply my creative cooking knowledge to developing some healthier recipes. These ginger-garlic chicken and rice lettuce wraps are one of my favorite creations.
Eating a diet with balanced macronutrients (macros) means keeping your carbohydrate, protein, and fat calories within designated limits, such as 50-20-30. That is, 50% of your calories come from carbohydrates, 20% from protein, and 30% from fat. At the onset, this was very difficult for me to achieve! I realized a disproportionate amount of my caloric intake came from fats (hello butter, olive oil, and cheese…). Thankfully I’m figuring it out and these lettuce wraps hit the spot perfectly–they’re delicious and they’re within the macro count I need. I hope you love them, too!
Try these recipes, too!
Ginger-garlic Chicken and Rice Lettuce Wraps
Ingredients
Quick pickled cabbage
- 2 tsp White vinegar
- 1 cup Shredded cabbage
- pinch Salt and sugar
Secret Sauce
- ¼ tsp Fresh ginger grated
- 1 clove Fresh garlic grated
- ½ Lime zested and juiced
- 1 tsp Toasted sesame seed oil
- ½ tsp Honey
- ¼ tsp Everything but the Bagel seasoning
- ¼ tsp Seasoned rice vinegar
- 4 dashes Worcestershire sauce
- ¼ tsp Soy sauce
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- ½ tsp Creamy peanut butter
Everything else
- 3-4 oz Chicken breast cooked and shredded or chopped
- 3 giant leaves Lettuce Romaine hearts or iceberg
- 1 tbsp Lightly salted peanuts
- ⅓ cup Cooked rice
Instructions
Quick Pickled Cabbage
- In a medium-sized bowl, toss together cabbage, vinegar, salt, and sugar. Refrigerate while you make the sauce.
Secret Sauce
- Grate fresh, peeled ginger into a small bowl. Grate a clove of garlic and half a lime.
- Slice open the lime and juice one half into the bowl.
- Add sesame seed oil, honey, everything bagel seasoning, soy sauce, peanut butter, mustard, vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce. Whisk together.
Final Assembly
- Add chopped chicken to the secret sauce and toss to coat.
- Assemble three large lettuce leaves on a plate with the thick, outside vein face down. Distribute cooked rice on top of the leaves. Follow with the chicken and pickled cabbage. Sprinkle peanuts on top and serve.
