Asian Lettuce Wrap Chicken Chopped Salad

This Asian Lettuce Wrap Chicken Chopped Salad has all the delicious flavors of those lettuce wrap appetizers but in a yummy, easy salad. It's a grain-free, healthy, and easy quick weeknight meal!

 

Happy new year! A group of my friends and I decided to kick off 2017 with a recipe challenge: one of us picks a recipe she likes and the rest of it have two weeks to try it (or at least a version of it, since different people have different dietary requirements). This way, no one gets stuck in a dinner rut, making the same meals over and over again.

My friend selected this Asian Lettuce Wrap Chicken Chopped Salad from Skinnytaste. It looked fabulous, healthy, and easy—my favorite kind of meal! My only issue is that I have a weird aversion to ground chicken. I don't know, it just grosses me out. I don't have the same issue with ground turkey but turkey with Asian ingredients just didn't sound that appealing to me.

So, I decided to use chicken thighs and broil them—one of the best, yummiest, and easiest ways to cook up chicken quickly! They're marinated for maximum flavor, then broiled for just a few minutes on each side. They get wonderfully caramelized and are still super tender and tasty. Slice or dice the chicken thighs and toss on top of a big salad and you're good to go!  

This Asian Lettuce Wrap Chicken Chopped Salad recipe has a lot of ingredients, but the marinade and the dressing have most of the the same ingredients. And if you want to just buy a bottle of Hoisin barbecue sauce for the chicken instead of making a marinade, go for it!

 

Asian Lettuce Wrap Chicken Thighs Chopped Salad
serves 4

Broiled Hoisin Chicken Thighs
adapted from SlenderKitchen

• 1.5 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs (about 5 or 6 thighs)
• 3 Tablespoons Hoisin sauce
• 2 Tablespoons lime juice
• 1 Tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon honey
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil

Preheat the oven on broil. Place an oven rack at the top of the oven, 4-6 inches from the broiler.

Whisk together the hoisin, lime juice, vinegar, honey, garlic, and oil. Marinate the chicken thighs in this mixture for at least an hour, or even overnight!

Take the chicken out of the marinade and let the excess drip off. Place the chicken on a foil-lined, rimmed baking sheet. Put the sheet on the top oven rack under the broiler and broil for about 5 minutes on each side, or until the chicken is cooked through. Remove from the oven and let the chicken cool a bit.

Asian Chopped Salad
adapted from Skinnytaste

• 3 Tablespoons rice vinegar
• juice of 1/2 lime
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons canola or olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• salt, to taste

• 1 head Boston or Bibb lettuce, chopped
• 1 romaine head, chopped
• 2 carrots, grated
• 4 Tablespoons roasted, lightly salted cashews, roughly chopped
• 2 scallions, chopped
• 4 to 6 Broiled Hoisin Chicken Thighs, sliced (recipe above)

For the dressing: In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, oils, honey, ginger, garlic, and salt to taste. Stir the carrots into the dressing. Set the dressing aside.  

To assemble the salad: In a large salad bowl, combine both of the lettuces and the carrots. Toss the salad with the dressing and divide to 4 large plates. Divide the chicken—you can serve it warm or room temperature—and top each salad with the slices. Serve the Asian Lettuce Wrap Chicken Chopped Salad immediately.

Look at the delicious char on that chicken! Of course, you can serve it with rice and maybe some steamed edamame beans, but this salad is a wonderful, grain-free, low-carb option. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!