Oh good, the first Monday after Christmas break and there's a big football game tonight and honestly WHY ARE WE EVEN HERE?
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I know it's not this way everywhere, but people around here are pretty dang excited for the National Championship tonight. I don't give a hoot, but Jay and I both went to Clemson and our neighbors are Alabama fans BUT we are adults so they're coming over for Korean beef bowls made with fake beef.
Naturally.
And in case you need some fun-but-healthy food to keep your resolutions in check tonight or for any upcoming snacky events, I give you this: buffalo chicken lettuce wraps, seasoned with ranch flavors, super flavorful and spicy, with minimal-but-necessary butter to keep everything together. I use ground chicken to make things go quickly, so less than 30 minutes to your new favorite bar food!
For the wraps, we use ground chicken - I like the blend with some dark meat. The meat is seasoned with dried dill, parsley, onion powder, garlic powder, and salt, then sauce comes together with hot sauce and butter. For the wraps, lettuce, blue cheese/gorgonzola, cilantro, and green onions. Easy!
Start with the chicken. Use a large skillet over medium-high heat with some olive oil. When the skillet is hot, cook the chicken for about 7 minutes, crumbling it as you go with a spoon. Then, add all the spices to the skillet and stir them around with the chicken for another minute or two.
When the spices are incorporated into the chicken, add the butter and hot sauce to the skillet and turn the heat off. Let the butter and wing sauce melt into the chicken, then taste the mixture. Add more wing sauce for spice, more salt for flavor, more butter if the mixture seems dry.
When the chicken is cooked, gather up the rest of the lettuce wrap ingredients and build + eat + enjoy!
That's seriously it. I love these for the flavor, of course, I'm so into all things buffalo, but I also find that these don't quite feel healthy because of that buffalo factor that inherently feels like a party and slightly indulgent. The food itself, though, is good and good for you - exactly what we need more of to kick off our new year.
I serve everything separately when I make these so that the lettuce doesn't get soggy and everyone can build whatever version of these they'd like. That also makes them super easy to make and prep ahead (you can legit microwave the chicken if you make it in advance and it is delicious) and take places for eating while yelling at sportsball.
And, PS, if you weren't necessarily trying for a low carb sitch, how delicious would this chicken mixture be stuffed into baked potatoes?
Enjoy!
Recipe
Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wraps
Ingredients
- 2 pounds ground chicken
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon EACH onion powder garlic powder, dried dill, dried parsley, and salt
- ¾ cup cayenne pepper hot sauce such as Frank's
- ½ cup butter (1 stick)
- ¼ cup torn cilantro leaves
- 2 scallions thinly sliced
- butter or romaine lettuce leaves for serving
- gorgonzola or blue cheese crumbles for serving
Instructions
- Preheat a large skillet to medium-high heat with the olive oil. Add the ground chicken and cook, stirring as you go, for about 7 minutes. Break up the chicken into little bits during this time.
- Add all of the spices to the chicken and stir for two minutes more to coat the chicken in the spices.
- Add the butter and hot sauce to the chicken mixture. Turn the heat off and stir gently to melt the butter and create a sauce. The butter mixture should coat the chicken but not be too soupy.
- Taste the chicken mixture and add more salt if it seems bland or more hot sauce if you like extra spice.
- Serve the chicken with lettuce cups and the cilantro, scallions, and cheese crumbles for building lettuce wraps. Enjoy!
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