Diana and I are champion sandwich eaters. Everything, and I mean everything, can be turned into one and it’s all about creating the perfect bite throughout. While sandwiches are amazing, we crave bright, fresh crunchy vegetables and salads after travels or just a rich food bender. This is the kind of stuff we make at home: lettuce wraps full of tasty things!
For this round, we used ground pork and had a Thai twist because we do love Sriracha and Kecap Manis, but anything works! I’m not a huge fan of ground poultry because of the fat/flavor it lacks but with acid and a bit of spice, it will be light and delicious. If you’re not game for handling the sauté situation with ground meat, feel free to use rotisserie chicken, the leftover steak from your salad at lunch or keep it straight up vegetarian. You do you. Just wrap it all up in some beautiful Bibb or butter lettuce and you’re following the incredibly flexible rules we establish here.
xo
ab + DZ
- 1 pound ground pork (or poultry plus 2 tablespoons oil)
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon Sriracha, plus extra for serving
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar (start with half if using poultry since the acidity is needed to cut through some of the richness of the pork)
- 1 head Bibb lettuce, leaves separated, washed and thoroughly dried
- 2 scallions, thinly sliced
- 1 carrot, julienned
- 1/2 English cucumber, thinly sliced
- 1/4 head red cabbage, shredded
- Kecap manis, optional (this is a thick, Thai condiment that's pretty awesome)
- Fried garlic, optional (you can buy pre-fried garlic crispies at your favorite Asian grocery store)
- In a large skillet, brown ground pork using a spoon to break it up into small pieces. Drain any excess fat. Stir in soy sauce, Sriracha and rice vinegar. Set aside.
- To assemble, spread Kecap manis on the inside of a lettuce leaf. Add ground pork and top with a mix of raw veggies that makes you (or your next Instagram post) happiest. Top with Sriracha and fried garlic. Dip in more Kecap manis if you need to...
