Sweet and Spicy Turkey Lettuce Wraps
Winter in our home means comfort food. It must be natures way of prepping us for the looooooong, cold months ahead! But I actually really love cooking comfort food. I love the whole process of it and I love eating it! One of our comfort meals are tacos, complete with all the trimmings!
So when the Turkey Farmers of Canada challenged myself, along with some other Canadian bloggers, to make a comfort dish from turkey, I immediately thought of tacos. But I wanted to make a more healthy and modern version of them! I started thinking about what to make, and my mind turned to the Lettuce Wraps at Joey Tomatoes. Have you ever had them? They’re the BEST. So, so good. And I’ve always wanted to try to make them at home, so this was the perfect time to do that! I just knew that they’d be SO good with ground turkey! So I took to the internet in search of the perfect recipe for lettuce wraps, and after a bit of trial and error, this recipe is what I came up with!
These are so flavourful! And messy. Very messy. Did I mention they’re messy?! But they’re worth it. The kids loved them, and thought they were so fun to eat.
Sweet & Spicy Turkey Lettuce Wraps
- Yield: 6
Ingredients
Sauce
- 3/4 cup Hoisin sauce
- 1 1/2 tsp rice vinegar
- 1 tbsp liquid honey
- 3 tbsp sweet chili sauce
- 2 tbsp water
- 1 tbsp fresh lime juice
- 2 tsp sesame oil
- 1 large clove garlic (minced)
- 1 tsp freshly grated ginger
Meat Mixture
- 2 tbsp oil
- 1 1/2 lbs ground turkey
- 1 clove garlic (minced)
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp brown sugar
- 1 red pepper (chopped)
- 1 orange pepper (chopped)
- 1 small onion (chopped)
Toppings
- handful cilantro
- 3 green onions (sliced)
- 1 head iceberg lettuce (separated into whole leaves)
- 1/2 cup chopped peanuts (toasted if you like)
- dry steam-fried Asian noodles
Instructions
Make the sauce first.
- In a sauce pan, combine the Hoisin sauce, rice vinegar, honey, sweet chili sauce, water, lime juice, sesame oil, garlic and ginger. Stir and cook until well blended, then remove from the heat and set aside.
Cooking the turkey.
- In a frying pan, heat up 2 tbsp of oil, and add the turkey and garlic.
- Cook until the meat is no longer pink and the moisture is gone (you may have to drain it).
- Mix together the soy sauce and brown sugar in a little bowl, then add it to the ground turkey. Stir and cook for about 2 minutes.
- Add the Hoisin sauce mixture that you had set aside, along with the bell peppers and onion. Stir and cook for about 3-4 minutes, or until the vegetables are cooked but still kind of crunchy.
Putting it all together.
- All in separate bowls: Set out the lettuce leaves, turkey mixture, peanuts, chopped cilantro, sliced onions and noodles.
- Let everyone put together their own wrap!
- Enjoy!
Notes
One thing we found was that the noodles were a bit too crunchy for our liking. They could be tossed into the final meat mixture and have them sit for a few minutes before serving, just to soften them up a bit.
So for your next taco night, think of these turkey lettuce wraps! They’re so good! Don’t just wait for the holidays to serve turkey – it’s so lean and very versatile! Really really good!
Have a delicious day!
In full disclosure I was compensated by the Turkey Farmers of Canada in exchange for writing this post. But as always, all opinions are my own. I really, truly do love me some turkey! 😉
I love turkey chili!
I liked Tasty Turkey on FB!
Those look soo good! I’ve actually made a very similar recipe for turkey lettuce wraps. The recipe I used called for orange marmalade. They were very tasty. And yes, very messy to eat! I’ll have to try yours, my little girl didn’t really like the ‘orangey sauce’. haha
If you’re not part of the Ferrero Rocher holiday blogger program, stop by my blog and enter to win a box!
~ Catie
Love your blog and have tried a few of your recipes. Can’t wait to try this turkey one as well!
I make individual sized turkey meatloves all the time. They cook in half the time and are so tasty.
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I like turkey farmers of canada on fb
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turkey meatballs….turkey soup…these wraps look awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can’t wait to try them!!
I made a Turkey Egg White Strata on the weekend, it was really good. I also made this awesome Turkey Meatloaf the weekend before. Also extra awesome.
Made these last night for the family. We had to fight over the leftovers today. Awesome recipe. I have made many lettuce wrap recipes but these are by far my favorite. I will double the sauce recipe next time. Thanks for the wonderful recipe!
Delicious and fresh dinner idea! Similar to our Mu Shu Turkey recipe! We love it!