Healthy chicken lettuce wraps

Healthy chicken lettuce wraps come together in 20-minutes and are super healthy with ginger, lime juice and smoked paprika.

Near the beginning of January, like so many others, I did a little bit of a “detox”, when I say a little bit, I mean a 5-day clean-up and reset sort of thing (ok, honesty hour: I lasted three days–one of the best sandwich places in Toronto happened to deliver to my office that day and I couldn’t say no). I did this mainly as a way to reset my eating habits and curb some serious sugar cravings I found myself having in the afternoons.

I eliminated alcohol, sugar (other than naturally occurring sugars), caffeine, gluten, dairy, soy, red meat and corn. The hardest parts for me were the caffeine and sugar. I told one of my friends I was doing this and she answered “Lou without black coffee?!?!”. Black coffee is part of me. But I needed to break up with caffeine for a few days, if only to show myself that I don’t actually need it.

Mind you, that first day sans-caffeine was tough, especially when it involved waking up at 4:45am for a particularly early day at work. But like I discussed in my last post, this was where I began to start my days with warm lemon water, so cutting out caffeine ended up being a good thing!

Now, this wasn’t a smoothie or juice only sort of deal, but it was more about eating real foods with minimal, real ingredients. It helped me get back to the kind of food that I should be eating more often than not. A good benchmark for being more conscious with my choices. I eat a pretty healthy diet to begin with, tons of vegetables make up most of my meals, but it’s the in-between snacking and the late night Netflix watching snacks that really get to me. Switching that up for whatever produce is in-season is gold.

These smoky chicken lettuce wraps are a recipe that I developed while I was on this healthier kick. You may be surprised by the minimal ingredients in here but they pack a ton of flavour. I have another recipe for ginger chicken lettuce wraps which are one of my absolute favourite dishes, so this is a play on those, but a little bit cleaner.

There is no added sugar in here and fewer ingredients–which means these healthy chicken lettuce wraps do not use hoisin, sriracha or any of those secret sugar-laden condiments. The star of the show is the smoked paprika along with grated fresh ginger and lime juice which add a depth of smoky flavour with hints of spice and zing to these lettuce cups. Add an onion, a few cloves of garlic and you’ve got yourself a super healthy and quick dinner! I like to top mine with avocado and scallions.

Louisa Clements

Yields 4 servings

Healthy chicken lettuce wraps

5 minPrep Time

12 minCook Time

17 minTotal Time

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Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp finely chopped ginger
• 1 tsp chili flakes
• 1 lb (450g) ground chicken or turkey
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• Romaine lettuce for serving
• 2 green onions, thinly sliced
• 2 avocados, thinly sliced

Instructions

1. In a large pan heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook for 3-5 minutes or until translucent. Add garlic, ginger and chili flakes. Cook another minute. Crumble in ground chicken, cook for 5-6 minutes or until fully cooked.
2. Remove from heat and stir in soy sauce, lime juice and sesame oil. Serve in lettuce leaves (I like romaine), top with avocado, green onions and sprinkle with additional chili flakes.

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Let me know if you give these healthy chicken lettuce wraps a try in the comments below.