Asian Ground Beef Lettuce Cups

    

     When we're looking for a starchless meal, I always go to Lettuce Cups. They're super easy, and full of flavor. I typically use chicken, and cut it up into small pieces. I found a new recipe that looked pretty good and thought I'd give it a shot, but, I didn't have any chicken, only ground beef. Still, I thought I'd try it and hope for the best. Well, my wishes were realized as this dish was super tasty! 

     The first time I made it, I didn't measure my soy sauce, and it was super salty. The second time I made sure to measure my soy sauce and it turned out much better. It was still really good the first time, just really salty. So, just make sure to measure that bad boy out.

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp oil

1/2 - 3/4 C shredded carrots

1 celery rib, finely diced

1/2 red bell pepper finely diced

15 sugar snap peas, finely diced

1/2 C red onion

1 - 1 1/2 ground beef

Iceberg lettuce leaves (I usually use butter lettuce, but this was good too)

2 tbsp diced scallions (green onions)

Sauce:

1/2 C soy sauce

3 tbsp minced garlic

3 tbsp minced ginger

3 tbsp sambal hot sauce

3 tbsp apricot preserves

1/4 C rice vinegar

3 tbsp hoisin sauce

1 tsp minced cilantro

2 tsp sesame seeds

1 tsp sesame oil

(Mix ingredients together and stir well before serving)

Directions:

In a medium saucepan, brown the ground beef. Drain the beef and set aside. 

Add a tbsp oil to the skillet and add the vegetables and saute for a few minutes. 

Add the ground beef and mix together.

Add the Apricot Sambal sauce and scallions and let simmer for a few minutes so that the juices get all yummy together in the meat and veggies.

Add the beef mixture to a bowl. Place your lettuce leaves onto a plate and serve. 

I serve this out of one bowl, and give each of us a plate for our lettuce leaves. It makes it really easy to dish up, rather than trying to split the mixture between two plates, then one might want more or less than I served,  so one bowl works well for us. 

I know I said I use lettuce cups as starchless meals, but with this one I did make some white rice. I layered my rice then the beef mixture into the lettuce cup, rolled it up and chowed down. The rice helped to cut the saltiness of the soy sauce. It was really good. 

Super easy, super good, super flavorful! 

Recipe Courtesy of: Guy Fieri