Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps (better than P.F. Chang’s)! A quick (less than 30 minutes), easy, and healthy dinner that tastes delicious! Gluten and dairy-free!
I know that’s a pretty bold claim…Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps you can make at home that are better than the beloved dish from P.F. Chang’s?! It may be bold, but it’s true! This Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps recipe is one that took me years of trial and error, and lots of taste-testing, to get it just right.
These Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps wraps are one of my favorite dinners (along with this cashew chicken stir fry). They are quick and easy and my whole family loves them. Even my kids eat them, and have tons of fun doing it!
How to make Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps
Let’s walk through the process of making this chicken lettuce wraps recipe step-by-step. Don’t forget to watch the video too!
Make the sauce
The first step in this lettuce wrap recipe is making the sauce. The sauce is the key to the flavor of this recipe. And I beg you not to tamper with the sauce. It is the part of this recipe that took me years to perfect, and is absolutely delicious as-is!
It’s really simple to make! Just whisk all the ingredients together. If you use a thicker peanut butter that is solid at room temperature, you may need ot warm it slightly before using it to make this Asian lettuce wraps recipe!
Make the Lettuce Wrap Filling
- Brown the ground chicken! This recipe is very straightforward! There is, however, one very important step and that is to brown the ground chicken. Making sure the chicken is nice and crispy and brown is essential to the overall flavor and texture of this dish!
- Use a Wok, Sauté pan, or a cast iron skillet. For traditional Asian recipes I love pulling out my wok. But as you can see in the photo above, a regular sauté pan or cast iron skillet works perfectly!
- Dice the vegetables very small. This is one of the keys to making sure every bite is bursting with both texture and flavor! Sometimes I even let my food processor do the chopping for me!
What lettuce is best for wraps?
There are three varieties of lettuce that I recommend to use when making these chicken lettuce wraps:
- Butterhead lettuce
- Green Leaf Lettuce
- Romaine Lettuce
Just be sure to choose a head of lettuce that has large and flexible enough leaves to use as a wrap!
How do you cut lettuce for lettuce wraps?
It’s actually very simple! Just cut the bottom part of the head of lettuce off. Then carefully peel away each lettuce leaf! Don’t forget to wash and dry the lettuce leaves before serving!
Serving Suggestions
I prefer to eat them the traditional way…as lettuce wraps! However, I usually serve these Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps to my kids over noodles or rice, or with a side of our favorite homemade fried rice, because it’s much easier for them to eat with a spoon than wrapped in a piece of lettuce!
Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps: Ingredients & Substitutions
As always I recommend making this recipe exactly as it’s written! Like I said, I tested and retested this recipe more times than I can count to achieve lettuce wrap perfection! However, here are a few potential substitutions!
- Ground chicken: Finely diced chicken breasts are a great substitute for ground chicken! You can also use ground turkey or ground beef!
- Peanut Oil: Any oil can be used here if you don’t keep peanut on hand or if you have a peanut allergy. I recommend olive oil or avocado oil!
- Soy Sauce: If you have a soy allergy you can substitute coconut aminos for the soy sauce.
- Peanut Butter: If you have a peanut allergy any nut or seed butter could work here, but peanut butter definitely gives the best results!
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Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps (better than P.F. Chang's)!
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground chicken
- 1 TBS peanut oil
- ½ onion minced
- 1 cup red or green pepper diced
- 1 8 oz can water chestnuts drained and minced
For the Sauce:
- 3 TBS soy sauce*
- 3 TBS hoisin sauce**
- 1 TBS sesame oil
- 1 TBS rice vinegar
- 1 TBS peanut butter
- 1 TBS honey
- 2 tsp sweet chili sauce (Trader Joe’s!)
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- ¼ tsp powdered ginger
To serve
- ¼ cup peanuts crushed.
- Lettuce or your favorite Asian salad
Instructions
- Whisk together sauce ingredients until well combined. If you use a firmer peanut butter you may need to microwave the mixture for 30-60 seconds in order to melt it and ensure everything is well-mixed.
- Heat 2 TBS peanut oil in a frying pan. Once hot, add ground chicken.
- Cook until some pieces are starting to brown. Add onion and cook for 5 minutes or until the onion is becoming translucent.
- Add the peppers and water chestnuts and cook about 5 minutes or until peppers are becoming soft.
- Add sauce and simmer on low heat until the chicken and veggies are evenly coated and everything is heated through.
- Serve in lettuce leaves, on top of your favorite Asian salad, or over noodles or rice!
Video
Notes
- Ground chicken: Finely diced chicken breasts are a great substitute for ground chicken!
- Peanut Oil: Any oil can be used here if you don't keep peanut on hand or if you have a peanut allergy. I recommend olive oil or avocado oil!
- Soy Sauce: If you have a soy allergy you can substitute coconut aminos for the soy sauce.
- *be sure to choose a gluten-free soy sauce to keep this asian lettuce wraps recipe gluten-free, like this one.
- Hoisin sauce: **be sure to choose a gluten-free hoisin sauce to keep this recipe gluten-free, like this one.
- Peanut Butter: If you have a peanut allergy any nut or seed butter could work here, but peanut butter definitely gives the best results!
Nutrition
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Caroline Brace
So very delicious. i had 3 different recipes for chicken lettuce wraps – i decided to make all 3 and do a taste test. This was the winner, hands down.
Second time i made a few adjustments – as i am not a huge water chestnut fan i substituted it for chopped mushrooms. So very good!
Laurie Miller
Perfect recipe! Easy and super delicious!!!
Barbara Culton
I love this recipe! I’ve made this several times in the past few months. I first used ground chicken, but have also since used ground turkey when I couldn’t find the chicken. It still came out great! I do like the sauce and personally I wanted more, so after the first time I started making a recipe and a half of the sauce it was perfect! Thank you for sharing!
Angie
Question should I use all natural rice vinegar or the seasoned rice vinegar?
Lory
Seriously one of the best recipes I have ever run across of any kind. Thank you so much for posting this. Outstanding!!
Lily
These lettuce wraps are delicious, and very easy to make! Thank you!!
Joselyn
This recipe was so delicious and simple to make. Once everything was cooked to perfection (at the very end), I turned the heat up to medium-high and let the sauce and veggies caramelize with the chicken (I used a non-stick pan), it came out tasting and smelling so good. This will definitely be one of our weekday meals. Thank you so much for the recipe!
Shelley Kay
Oooh I just recently went to PF Chang and we ordered the lettuce wraps 👌 followed recipe exactly, I just doubled it since we were having as a main dish and oooh my goodness haha my dad had asked if I ordered takeout! Haha great recipe thanks for posting!!
Julie Safarik
This recipe is the best!!! It will be the only one I use from now on. Thank you!!!
Laurie Craig
We loved this! Very tasty. We subbed olive oil for the peanut oil, but otherwise followed the recipe exactly. We will definitely make this again. Thank you!
David R
I just made this for the second time and added a tablespoon of pomegranate paste to the sauce and it just brought it alive. Fruitier and a touch of sweet, it’s a fantastic addition
Robin Simons
I dont have hoisin sauce, what can i substitute?
Dawn
This is much better than the PF Chang’s recipe floating around the Internet. And it’s the best recipe I’ve tried so far! We made two significant changes though. We didn’t have peanut oil so we substituted a mix of canola and sesame. Instead of the sweet chili sauce, we wanted a spicier version so we used Sambel Oelek, which is a lot like Sriracha if you want to try that. No need for us to look further. This is our new favorite lettuce wrap recipe.
Jaymccee
Good to know about the samba olek. I was actually wondering about it. I have both it and sriracha but no sweet chili sauce and like to use what I have.
Jessica
Just made this for my family for dinner and they loved it! Great recipe! Will be using this again.
Kathy
I’ve tried lots of good recipes that I’ve found on the internet but this is my first review — because this sauce is FANTASTIC. We made this recipe last night, and made the sauce exactly as called for, and it is packed with flavor. Wow!! We can’t wait to finish the leftovers today! We added raw red cabbage on the bottom of the wrap, did not put sauce in pan but used it for drizzling (we’re dieting), and left the peppers and water chestnuts raw. The photos on the recipe include scallions, I think I will add those next time. Laura, you should bottle this sauce! Thank you very much!
Ella
I’m allergic to nightshades, onion, and garlic so I’m going to modify this recipe a little to suit my dietary needs, and then wrap them in rice spring roll paper. I’m so excited to try them!!
sydney
Made them with my boyfriend and we ate the whole thing!! so good!! perfect light but filling meal that is easy to make.
Kristie
Made these tonight and they were so good. I will definitely recommend them to my family and friends. I forgot to take a picture because we were too busy eating.