Lemongrass, pineapple, and ginger add up to deliciously zingy Lettuce Wraps. Fast and versatile, they easily swing vegan or omnivore-friendly with only one simple variation in the recipe. Super quick to prepare, you can easily make both versions in under 30 minutes, making them perfect for lunch, dinner, or appetizers. You can make the filling and toppings ahead of schedule too.

Ingredients

These Lettuce Wraps are seasoned with onion, ginger, lemongrass, soy sauce, brown sugar, and pineapple juice.

Lemongrass may be an unfamiliar ingredient. You should be able to find it in the produce section of well-stocked grocery stores, or in an Asian grocery. Look for pale-green stalks with a citrusy scent. For the pineapple juice, you can just use the juice from a can of pineapples, and the pineapple itself as one of the toppings.

Making Spicy Lettuce Wraps

If you want them spicy, you could also add in fresh red chilis, such as a Thai Bird’s eye chili, or even some red pepper flakes.

Choosing Lettuce

You can make these with a variety of different lettuces, but we recommend romaine, butter or iceberg if you’re in a pinch. Romaine and butter lettuce are both strong enough to hold the filling and provide a nice crunchy bite. Iceberg is good as well, and it has an awesome fresh crispiness factor, but its bulkiness means you’ll likely want to increase the filling to lettuce ratio.

When you’re choosing your lettuce, consider whether you’re making the Lettuce Wraps for a meal or for an appetizer. You’ll want larger leaves for a meal version, and smaller ones for an appetizer version. If you’re making it ahead, you’ll also want to choose sturdier leaves. Romaine is ideal for that.

About TVP aka TSP or Soy Meat or Soya Chunks

TVP, aka textured vegetable protein, is a meat substitute made from soy. It’s high in protein and is fat-free. You buy it dry and then rehydrate it with boiling water. This takes about 5 or 10 minutes and it will approximately double in volume when rehydrated. For this recipe, we used Bob’s Red Mill TVP (not a sponsored post). You may also find it labelled TSP (short for textured soy protein), or soy meat or soya chunks. While none of these sound particularly appealing, the flavour is quite innocuous. TVP makes a very good medium for adding seasoning and spices too, which is exactly what we’re doing with our Lettuce Wraps.

You should be able to find TVP/TSP in a well-stocked grocery, or in the bulk bins of natural food stores. It’s inexpensive. We paid about $4 Canadian for a 10 oz (283 gram) bag, which is about 11 servings.

Using Meat in Your Lettuce Wraps

For the non-vegan version of these lettuce wraps, we used lean ground pork. While we haven’t tested it, it would work equally well with ground chicken or turkey. If you use chicken or turkey, you may need to add a little additional fat to the frying pan, or alternatively add a little extra pineapple juice if you’re finding the mixture to be too dry.

Toppings for Lettuce Wraps

The toppings are simple: grated carrot, diced pineapple, and cilantro. We’ve also used spiralized raw butternut squash in place of the carrots, and that’s what you see in the photos. Fresh pineapple would be delicious but canned will be fine too, and you can use the pineapple juice from the can when making the filling.

Making Lettuce Wraps: Under 30 Minutes

You can make these Lettuce Wraps in less than half an hour:

• If you’re using the TVP, get it rehydrating and set aside. Rehydrating it takes about 5 or 10 minutes.
• Meanwhile, put the onions, ginger, and lemongrass in a small chopper or food processor.
• Next, measure out the soya sauce, pineapple juice, and brown sugar.
• Finally, organize your toppings: grate the carrot, chop the pineapple, and cilantro.
• Once you’ve done your prep, it’s just a matter of heating a little bit of oil in a frying pan, and adding the TVP or pork and the other ingredients and heating it through, or cooking it until no longer pink, in the case of the pork.

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