My family loves (loves loves) any and all asian cuisine, from authentic chinese hot-pot to pho to cheap foodcourt fried rice- we love all of it. And we all love this recipe. I am too disorganized and spontaneous a cook to have things like meal plans (this is jordan- kirst is the opposite!), but this meal is definitely in our monthly rotation.
Chicken Lettuce Wraps
Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts
1 medium yellow onion
1 can water chestnuts*
1 carrot
1.5 cups diced mushrooms (a variety is delicious!)
2 cloves garlic
4 TBS soy sauce
3 TBS brown sugar
1 TBS rice vinegar
Serve with:
1 head iceberg lettuce (peel the leave off the head carefully so that they don’t break. And look for a head a lettuce without too many creases)
white rice
toasted ramen or can of rice noodles
special dipping sauce (recipe following)
green onions
crushed peanuts
chile paste (or more sriracha!)
soy sauce
* Water chestnuts are located in the oriental/import section in most grocery stores, if you can’t find them, add another carrot.
Directions:
Chop all vegetables into pea size pieces. Place in the bottom of the crockpot. Place chicken breasts on top on the vegetable mixture. Salt and Pepper. Stir together brown sugar, vinegar and soy until the sugar is dissolved and completely combined, then pour over the other ingredients.
Cook on low for 4 hours or high for 2 (until chicken is cooked through) stirring halfway through to coat the chicken in the vegetables and keep moist. (Mine didn’t need any additional liquid, but if it is seeming dry, add a cup or two of chicken stock.) When the chicken is cooked through, remove the breasts and dice them into the same size pieces as the vegetables. Recombine with the veggies.
While the chicken cooks, (or even the night before- this stuff is better the more time it has to combine) make this special dipping sauce. Kirst thinks this sauce makes the meal. And you might want to double the batch and keep some in the fridge. It’s so good.
Dipping sauce:
Ingredients:
1/4 cup sugar
2 TBS soy sauce
2 TBS water
2 TBS ketchup
1 TBS lemon juice
1 TBS hot mustard
1 TBS sriracha (more if you like spice, less if you don’t)
Directions:
Dissolve the sugar in the soy and water, then add the other ingredients.
Set out all of the optional toppings in small bowls and the chicken mixture and rice in larger bowls. Let people build their own wraps based on personal preference starting with rice and chicken, then adding in all the other goodness. YUM!
