Healthy eating isn’t easy. For me, the best way to eat healthy, but feel satisfied, is by cooking very flavorful dishes. And I also can’t skip on carbs or else I feel cheated (that’s why I had to include some rice noodles in these wraps, but they could easily stand without).
Hopefully this recipe does not come across as complicated, it’s really not! When I developed it, it was basically me just throwing things into the slaw and marinade that I had on-hand. So if you are missing an ingredient, just improvise. There are no hard and fast rules – just make sure you have a good mix of acid and salt for the slaw (it helps it soften and get flavorful), and some citrus and spice for the shrimp. And I apologize for the mediocre photography on this post – it’s hard for me to get good pictures at night (and wouldn’t you know it, dinner happens at night. Boo.).
Shrimp Lettuce Wraps
Yield: 2 servings, Time: 30 min inactive + 20 min active
Slaw
- 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, fresh ground pepper to taste
- 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar (a mild Asian vinegar that’s worth having – red or white wine vinegar will work in a pinch)
- 1/2 of a lime, juice and zest
- 1 tablespoon oil (vegetable or canola)
- 3 cups rainbow slaw (pre-shredded cabbage, broccoli, and carrot mix)
Combine all ingredients and let sit, refrigerated, until flavors combine, 30-60 minutes.
Shrimp:
- 1/2 of a lime, juice and zest
- 1/4 cup finely diced yellow onion
- 1/4 teaspoon each: salt, cayenne pepper, cumin, ground ginger and coriander (or whatever you have on hand!)
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 8-12 ounces of thawed, raw, peeled and deveined shrimp, tails removed (*see below for shrimp-buying tips)
Combine all ingredients and allow to marinate in the fridge for 20-30 minutes. After marinating, heat a tablespoon of vegetable oil in a medium-sized skillet. Pour shrimp and marinade in the pan, and cook until shrimp are pink and cooked through. Remove shrimp and let marinade cook to reduce if too liquidy.
Wraps
- Lettuce leaves, 2-4 per person, depending on the size. Ideally I would use Bibb/Boston lettuce, but it wasn’t looking great in the store, so I substituted iceberg
- Rice noodles (or whatever kind of Asian noodle you like), cooked according to package directions and cooled (optional – I needed some carbs in my wrap ;-))
To assemble, place a generous heap of noodles, then slaw, then shrimp in the lettuce leaf and top with more sauce. Healthy and delicious :)
*Shrimp Recommendations for Beginners
I like to buy frozen, raw, peeled and deveined shrimp with the tails on:
I like to buy them raw, because then you can control how you season them and how you cook them. I prefer the already peeled and deveined shrimp, because it saves a lot of time, and quite honestly, deveining grosses me out. Here’s a how-to video if your shrimp are not already peeled and deveined. Usually I buy medium to large-sized shrimp, or whatever’s on sale ;-)
