P.F. Chang's Lettuce Chicken Wraps - Zack Contla

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 pound ground chicken
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 onion, diced
• 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoons freshly grated ginger
• 1 teaspoon Sriracha, or more, to taste
• 1 (8-ounce) can whole water chestnuts, drained and diced
• 2 green onions, thinly sliced
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 head butter lettuce

First of all I decided to make this dish because it's always been a family favorite. I don't remember the first time my family went to P.F. Changs, but I remember that when we did we fell in love with the Lettuce Wraps and we've been in love ever since. I seriously recommend them to everyone. It's a fairly simple dish as well. According to the recipe I found online it said it would only take about 20 minutes to make and that proved to be true. It's hard not to enjoy something so delicious that's so easy to make.

1. The taste is great! It's an interesting combination of flavors. It's an Asian dish so it calls for ingredients that I otherwise wouldn't ever know how to use like Hoisin sauce and rice vinegar. The main ingredient is chicken which you cook in various sauces and spices to give a nice authentic flavor. After preparing the "stuffing" for lack of a better word, it's wrapped in nothing but a piece of iceberg or butter lettuce, giving it a nice healthy crunch.

2. The dish was really easy to prepare actually. All that was really required when it comes down to it was a big enough pan to throw all the ingredients in while they cook and prepare. You start out by browning a pound of ground chicken and as it cooks hoisin sauce, soy sauce, rice vinegar and other herbs and spices are thrown in. It also called for onion, green onion, ginger, and water chestnuts. Once the onion became translucent as the chicken browned it was just a matter of throwing everything else in to cook and mix along with everything else. Nothing but stirring required.

3. I think what's cool about this dish is that it's chicken based. So you're getting a fairly high protein count even though you're not eating that much. Chicken is great because like I said, high protein and on top of that it's pretty low on fat. Nutritional values from this dish seem to vary pretty easily because of the different ways it can be prepared. Some recipes I found called for turkey, some for chicken, some changed out certain vegetables for others or completely got rid of them. So it's kind of hard to calculate based off of other reviews the exact nutritional content, but based on what I used for my recipe one serving of Lettuce Wraps contains about 36g of protein. According to a source I found online one of the healthier benefits from this meal is the dietary fiber that comes from the Lettuce Wrap itself. One serving will leave the customer with about 5.37g of dietary fiber which ends up being about 21% of the daily recommended value.

4. I think the most healthy nutrient from the Lettuce wraps would be once again, the protein. You really get quite a bit of it for a pretty small sizer serving. Protein is important because it can be considered sort of a building block for a lot of the functions of the body. Not only is hair and nails made largely of protein but much of the tissue and cartilage necessary to move are built from protein. It does a lot of repair and maintenance work in the body which allows for healthy movement, strength, and overall function. Dietary fiber is essentially the stuff that your body can't quite digest like it would with anything else. Instead of being absorbed and used by the body, material such as this just ends up passing through the body. It's a health benefit because it promotes healthy bowel movements and digestion of other nutrients that pass through the digestive system. Fiber can help a person maintain a healthy weight and actually over time can minimize risk of heart disease and diabetes.

5. Probably the most unhealthy thing that comes from the lettuce wraps is the high sodium content. It's very flavorful considering it's just a few ingredients, but what that means is it takes quite a bit of the sauces in order to give it that taste. Between the Soy sauce and Hoisin sauce after everything is made you're looking at about 2,090mg of Sodium. Compared to a lot of other recipes this is actually one of the lower ones, however this is probably the most unhealthy aspect of the dish. Sodium is good for the body in certain doses, like everything, but a high amount can cause lead to high blood pressure and even a risk of things like kidney disease if sodium is taken in in high amounts for a long period of time, meaning that this dish is perhaps best used sparingly.

6. The first thing I really notice that's missing is some of the basic nutrients and vitamins that you would get from most fruit. This is a very meat and vegetable based dish and contains zero fruit product. I think it would be good to get some of those natural sugars and even something like Vitamin D that you'd get with something simple like an orange. Being that this is an Asian dish I think it would be good coupled with something kind of citrusy. Maybe just a glass of orange juice or even a fruit salad on the side could help a lot. There's no grains here either. Something simple and very complimentary here would be some white rice. It's easy and would go really great with the flavor of the Lettuce wrap.

This is ultimately a fairly healthy dish because of the high vegetable count. You're getting a lot of necessary Biotin that comes from the onion. Biotin is actually very healthy nutrient that can support things like skin health and the body's maintenance of blood sugar. Again, protein is another great aspect here. Some recipes call for chicken and some call for turkey but regardless of what's used the protein content can vary from upwards of 24g. Again, this is a high protein, low fat meal. Great for anyone looking for something easy, fast and nutritious!

Contla Z