Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Well, Boot camp is officially over and I didn’t come in first place. Sigh. For weeks now, I’ve been mad-dogging my competition “Robin” by keeping my weight loss totals hush-hush and slowly hacking 2 minutes off my incredibly slow mile. She knew I was after her and she really wanted first prize as well. There may or may not have been a picture of me in her fridge every time she opened it for a snack. It was a friendly competition and we kept each other motivated till the end.

You can imagine my surprise when at our awards dinner over the weekend I heard “Robin’s” name announced as 3rd place winner. How could it be? When I came in second, “Robin” and I realized that all the time we’d been focused on beating each other, we neglected to notice the dark horse that came from nowhere to beat us both. Serves us both right. That’s ok, because all three of us are signed up for a second session and I anticipate things are going to get interesting…

The 8 weeks went by surprisingly fast. So fast, that I decided I probably needed to extend to 16 weeks. Turns out, this boot camp really works. The food portion of the program wasn’t nearly as traumatic as I’d feared. Really, it just emphasized eating whole, natural foods, which I was already doing.  Bonus, was I got to eat 5 small meals a day, which I quickly realized meant I was eating more than I had been and still losing weight. Brilliant.

One of my early boot camp friendly favorite meals for Hubs and I was this tasty Chicken Lettuce Wrap. It’s a take on the gigantic appetizer at Cheesecake Factory. I suspect mine is lower in calories. With so few ingredients it’s important to make sure you have good quality lettuce. I use the fresh butter lettuce from my CSA that literally melts in your mouth. The weeks that I don’t get butter lettuce I substitute with Romaine as seen above.

Chicken Lettuce Wraps

I make two side dipping sauces which are pantry staples.

1 lb organic chicken tenders

1 cup island soyaki

1 cucumber, thinly sliced

1/2 pkg bean sprouts

1/2 pkg shaved carrots

1 bunch cilantro

1 head Butter or Romaine Lettuce

3 Tbl. Peanut Butter

Soy Sauce

Rice Vinegar

Siracha

sesame seeds

Marinate chicken tenders in cup Island Soyaki for at least 3 hours. In a separate dish, marinate sliced cucumbers in soy sauce, rice vinegar and sesame seeds. For the spicy peanut sauce– whisk together 3 Tbl. peanut butter, 1 Tbl. Soy Sauce and 1 tsp siracha. For the spicy soy sauce– whisk together equal parts soy sauce and rice vinegar and add 1/2 tsp of Siracha for every 1/4 c. of sauce. Whisk in sesame seeds and  diced cilantro to taste. You can make both sauces ahead and refrigerate, just bring to room temperature before serving.

I grill my chicken tenders on an All-Clad grill pan until cooked through. This is mainly because I’m still somewhat scared of our bbq. You can use either.

Assemble lettuce leaves, chicken tenders, shaved carrots, bean sprouts, fresh cilantro sprigs and sauces on a large serving platter. Enjoy!

Serves 2