PF Chang’s Lettuce Wraps

PF Chang Lettuce Wraps- This copycat recipe tasts amazing and is ready to serve in just 20 minutes. Perfect as an appetizer, or great for lunch or dinner.

PF Chang's Lettuce Wraps~this super easy copycat recipe is unbelievably delicious, healthy, and ready in 20 minutes! Great for a quick weeknight meal!

Course Appetizer, Snack

Cuisine Chinese

Keyword copycat recipes, ground chicken recipes, lettuce wrap recipes, PF Chang’s Lettuce Wraps

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 10

Total Time 30

Servings servings

Calories 299kcal

Author Kathleen

Ingredients

Filling:

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup chopped yellow onion
4 cloves garlic minced
1 pound ground chicken
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon Sriracha sauce
8 ounces water chestnuts drained and diced

Lettuce and Toppings:

6 green onions thinly sliced
1/2 cup shredded carrots
1 head butter lettuce or romaine

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

In a 12-inch skillet, add vegetable oil (2 tablespoons) and saute the onion (1 cup) and garlic (4 cloves) until they begin to soften. Add chicken (1 pound) and cook, crumbling as it cooks, until it's browned. Drain off any excess fat.
Add hoisin sauce (1/4 cup), soy sauce (3 tablespoons), rice wine vinegar (1 tablespoon), mirin (1 tablespoon), ginger (1 tablespoon), Sriracha sauce (1/2 teaspoon), and water chestnuts (8 ounces) and stir to combine. Continue to cook, until heated through, 2-3 minutes. Adjust seasoning.
When ready to serve, spoon about 1/4 cup of filling into the center of the lettuce leaf. Garnish with green onions and carrots.

Notes

The Meat: Ground chicken is my first choice to use in this recipe. I love the way it tastes in the filling. Fortunately, it’s become relatively easy to find at most supermarkets. If for some reason it’s not available in your area, you can always grind your own or chop very finely chop it.
- Try using turkey as a substitute if you want to mix it up. Turkey lettuce wraps will taste significantly different, but really delicious, in another way.
- In my ever so humble opinion, chicken and turkey are really the only acceptable meats for this dish. They’re both types of meat that are light and mild—they’ll absorb the flavor of the sauce nicely. Other meats are just too rich to blend in well.
- Truthfully, in this recipe, the chicken is really just a method for consuming the amazing sauce. It’s like a delivery truck for delicious. So don’t worry too much about prepping the chicken “just right.” You don’t need to make it fancy or use crazy spices. Just make up solid ground chicken (or turkey), and let the sauce do the rest.
The Sauce: In this dish, the sauce is king. No joke! Without the sweet, slightly spicy sauce mixture that makes this dish what it is, you’d just be eating lettuce and chicken. Not so great. But, with the wonderful sauce, you get a delicious, satisfying meal that’s an excellent cure for a boring weeknight meal routine. Here’s the trick, though: don’t skimp on the sauce. Period ♥
Hoisin: is the key to this excellent sauce mixture. For those who don’t know, hoisin is a sweet Asian sauce with just a tiny bit of a kick. Remember when I said don’t skip on the sauce? Don’t skimp on the hoisin either.
Mirin: This is a rice wine that’s similar to sake. It gives the sauce a subtle, clean, sweet, and salty gentle flavor and helps to create a nice complexity.
Sriracha: This is an Asian hot sauce that has just a wee bit of sweetness to it. It rounds out the flavor of the sauce but ironically doesn’t really add any “heat” to the sauce when used in the quantity called for in this recipe.
The Lettuce: Because lettuce is such a big part of this dish, you’ll want to use the freshest darn lettuce your local grocery store has. I recommend bib or butter lettuce if you can find it. However, even something as simple as romaine lettuce will do as long as you buy it really fresh. Look for small heads of lettuce that have really fresh outer leaves. I found beautiful butter lettuce heads individually packaged at Costco. Fabulously fresh, delicious lettuce at a really great price. I’m in! (and No. this isn’t a paid endorsement 🙂 ) These will give you the best end results. Avoid heads with any—any—signs of wilting. Only use iceberg lettuce in a pinch.

Nutrition