Homemade Lettuce Wraps

In a quest to eat healthier and get in shape I experimented with making my own healthy lettuce wraps and they turned out really good! I thought I'd share the recipe in case any of you want to try them yourselves!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup instant brown rice (not pictured)
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil (or olive oil)
• 1 pound 93%-lean ground turkey
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
• 1 large red bell pepper
• Mushrooms (I used about 10 slices)
• Half a white Onion
• 1 8-ounce can water chestnuts, rinsed and chopped
• 1/2 cup vegetable broth (or reduced sodium chicken broth)
• 2 tablespoons garlic pepper sauce
• 1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon five-spice powder
• 2 heads Boston lettuce, leaves separated
• 1 large carrot (or in my case 6 tiny carrots)
• 1/2 tsp Sesame Seeds

Instructions:

Bring water to a boil in a small saucepan. Add rice; reduce heat to low, cover and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat.

 

Meanwhile, heat oil in a large nonstick pan over medium-high heat. Add turkey and ginger; cook, crumbling with a wooden spoon, until the turkey is cooked through, about 6 minutes. 

 Chop all your veggies (red pepper, onion, water chestnuts, mushrooms and carrots) and mix them together

Stir rice and veggies in to ground turkey. Add soy sauce, garlic pepper sauce and Five-Spice and mix well.

Scoop 1/2 cup of meet mixture in to lettuce cups, sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve!

 

 Each lettuce wrap is approximately 175 calories!!!

Notes:

-I went to target and they did not have Boston lettuce so I got romaine....do not do this! It's impossible to get lettuce cups from the romaine. I got the three pictured above and J had to have a salad because I made a mess of the lettuce. 

-Five-Spice is a blend of cinnamon, cloves, fennel seed, star anise and Szechuan peppercorns, used often in Asian cooking. If you don't like cinnamon (WHICH I DONT! AT ALL!) then don't use this spice! The cinnamon is so pungent. Next time I make this I will probably use chili powder to season.
-This used a lot of soy sauce and even though it's low sodium I can tell I could tell the next day that there was toooo much. I think next time I may use a Teriyaki sauce or something with more flavor so I don't need to use as much.