Well, it’s happened again. I’ve gotten to that point where my weight has crept up from all those holiday carbs and I need to lose a few pounds so I feel more comfortable in my clothes.
My sister, Terri, is also watching her carbs and the other day she asked if I knew of a good chicken lettuce wrap recipe similar to P.F. Chang’s. We looked online and were shocked that the one we both thought sounded really good had super high carbs – pretty surprising for a lettuce wrap! So she went to work and came up with this tasty recipe instead which has MUCH fewer carbs. She said, “Tell your readers that they may be ordering those chicken wraps at P.F. Chang’s thinking that they’re being ‘good’, but they’re really not.”
(We served these with leftover fried rice and egg drop soup.)
Terri’s Chicken Lettuce Wraps
- 4 oz. cooked chicken (preferably pasture-raised chicken), cut up small
- Celery-about 2 ribs, chopped small
- 4 green onion, chopped small
- 1/2 can sliced water chestnuts, chopped
- 8 crispy almonds, chopped
- Crushed red pepper to taste
- 2 T fermented soy sauce
- 1 T balsamic glaze
- I also added some organic sesame oil
Cook everything on the stove until hot. To serve, place 2-3 T. of mixture in a cold romaine leaf or red leaf lettuce. Makes about 7 wraps.
Thanks, Sister!
My notes: We use organic lettuce and can’t wait to get it from our garden again this summer! The Romaine leaves aren’t as easy to roll up and eat, so I tossed it in a bowl like a salad. If you like extra sauce, you could mix up a little more fermented soy sauce and balsamic glaze.
If you make these, please tell us how your recipe is different, or let us know if you have any other ideas for how to make extra sauce? 
- More Chinese Food recipes for those that love it like we do, but would rather make it ourselves so we know what’s in it.
- You’ll need this recipe for deep fried heaven to make some of the above Chinese recipes.
- More posts on dieting and cutting carbs.
- An unrelated topic: What’s Wrong with Breakfast Cereals?
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Sara 01.19.10 at 6:54 am
That sounds yummy; I love the lettuce wraps, and while I do order them, I knew they were way too sweet to be healthy!
Last night we had pork fried rice and I substituted cauliflower for the rice—just steamed it and put it through the grater on my food processor. I’ve done it before and no one can even tell that it’s not rice! I can tell because I feel so much better after eating it!
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Carolyn 01.19.10 at 8:02 am
WOW!! I am craving this now and have no lettuce or cabbage up yet. I do have one question, at the of sounding ignorant, what is basalmic glaze? I have allergies to basalmic vinegar and is there perhaps a substitute I can come up with? We use greens ffor wraps as we have given up rice, corn and gluten containing products due to celiac.
Sara, thanks for the great idea of ricing cauliflower. I mash it for fake mashed potatoes and love it. We gave up rice a year ago and since then have not made “Chinese food” as it is not very fun without the rice. LIFE IS GOOD AGAIN!
Kelly, Thank you for all the leg work you do!!!
Carolyn
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NancyO 01.19.10 at 8:15 am
I was just thinking about a recipe for this yesterday. I’ve never had P.F. Chang’s, but have had it from another restaurant, and loved it. I’ll be trying it as soon as I get a chicken cooked! Thanks!
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Laryssa @ Heaven In The Home 01.19.10 at 9:48 am
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! The lettuce wraps are very tasty, I’m excited about making them at home…and low carb to boot!
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Lilia 01.19.10 at 10:09 am
Sounds delicious, can’t wait to try it!
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Naomi 01.19.10 at 10:11 am
Thanks, Carolyn, I was wondering the same thing about the balsamic glaze, I’ve never heard of it. Unless it’s a glaze you prepare with balsamic vinegar or something like that.
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Naomi 01.19.10 at 10:24 am
Oh, by the way, when I entered this recipe in my MasterCook program, which gives a nutritional analysis of the recipe, and it lists 39 grams of carbs per serving, based on 7 servings. And that’s without the balsamic glaze since MasterCook does not have that item in its ingredient list. The carbs come from the almonds – 37 grams for 8 almonds. Do you think some of the carbs are removed through the soaking/dehydrating process?
Well, before I finished this post I googled balsamic glaze and the first thing that came up was that it’s another way of saying “balsamic vinegar which has been reduced down” to a concentrated form. If that’s true, Carolyn, you’ll need to definitely find a sub for that.
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Carolyn 01.19.10 at 12:48 pm
Naomi, Thank you for looking that up. I should have done that, instead of taking a walk with hubby & kiddos. I think I will give my kombucha vinegar a try, I have never reduced it down, but it ought to work.
Thanks again!!
Carolyn
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KitchenKop 01.19.10 at 5:25 pm
Hi everyone!
Yes, balsamic glaze is a reduced balsamic vinegar, and my sister found it at her grocery store. (I just used balsamic because I couldn’t find it.)
Kelly
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Naomi 01.19.10 at 6:42 pm
Carolyn, will you post how that comes out? You could probably add a couple of things to give it more flavor than just vinegar flavor. In fact, I think I might try that myself.
Naomi
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Roxie 01.19.10 at 9:35 pm
I looked up the carb count for almonds and I found that there are 5.6 grams of carbs per 24 raw almonds, not 37 per 8 almonds. I wonder if maybe you inadvertently input the wrong type of almonds….
Hope this helps,
Roxie
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Ginny 01.20.10 at 12:32 am
Thanks so much for the great recipe! I can’t wait to try it. One of my favorite things to use for these kinds of recipes is ground chicken. I wish I had a way to grind it myself, because I’ve never seen free-range ground chicken. We’ll just have to give it try this week.
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Naomi 01.20.10 at 8:51 am
I checked to see why MasterCook’s ingredient analysis was delegating so many carbs for the almonds, and it is because it can’t count carbs based on quantity of almonds, as in “8 almonds”. It is based on cups of almonds, as in ” 28.96 grams per cup”. Since I don’t have any almonds at the moment, I estimated 8 almonds to be about 1/8 cup and inserts that amount into the recipe. Voila! Now it tells me that each serving has 2 grams carbs. Yay!!! I’m so glad I figured it out, and I sincerely apologize for the misinformation I posted earlier.
Kelly, I too want to tell you how much I appreciate all the legwork you do to garner information for us. I’m sure it must be like a full-time job for you. You are truly a blessing to me and all others who come here to read. Thank you so much!
Naomi
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Lilia 01.20.10 at 12:08 pm
Hi Ginny, I love to use ground chicken too, do you happen to live in WI? I buy my ground organic free range chicken and ground turkey from a private farm near Milwaukee, matter of fact I have some thawing in my fridge right now for this recipe that I hope to make on Friday. They don’t ship so if you’re not from the area then maybe you could try finding a chicken farm close by. Also, I’ve never tried this but I remember seeing an episode on Alton Brown where he used a food processor to grind his meat. I guess it might be worth a try.
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