Nutella one day, quinoa the next. This is what I call balance. Tasty balance.
Last week, I had this huge head of red lettuce. After a few days of salads, I worked my way down to the small rounded leaves in the center. I thought they were just too cute to tear apart into another salad, so I thought… lettuce wraps.
This could be a lovely spring appetizer, or a light meal for two. Especially if you’ve been over-indulging lately like we have been.
mushroom & quinoa lettuce wraps
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Author: Jeanine Donofrio
Serves: serves 4 as an appetizer (approx. 8 lettuce wraps). Peanut sauce makes about 1.5 cup (you may have extra)
Ingredients
- 8 butter lettuce leaves (small-ish ones)
- ¼ cup peeled cucumber strips
- ¼ cup peeled carrot strips
- ¼ cup crushed peanuts
- serve with extra lime wedges
Mushrooms & Quinoa Filling
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 2 cups chopped mushrooms, mix of shiitake & cremini or whatever you like
- 1-2 teaspoons soy sauce or tamari
- a squeeze of lime
- a splash of rice vinegar
- 1 cup cooked quinoa
- ¼ cup scallions
Peanut Tofu Sauce
- ¼ cup smooth peanut butter
- 5 ounces silken tofu (soft or firm)
- 1 teaspoon soy sauce or tamari
- 1 small clove of garlic, minced
- splash of sriracha
- splash of rice vinegar
Spicy Sauce (optional)
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar (more if you need to temper the spice level)
- 1 tablespoon sriracha
- 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
- pinch of sugar
Instructions
- Mushrooms & Quinoa Filling: Heat oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add mushrooms, and 1 teaspoon of soy sauce. Let them cook down, stirring occasionally, about 5-8 minutes. Add a good squeeze of lime juice. Stir in the quinoa. Add another splash of soy sauce and a slash of rice vinegar (about 1 teaspoon each). Remove from heat and stir in ¼ cup scallions. Taste and adjust seasonings.
- Peanut Tofu Sauce: Blend all ingredients together in a small food processor. Taste and adjust seasonings.
- Spicy Sauce: Mix all ingredients together, taste & adjust
- Assemble everything separately on a platter & assemble as you eat.
Adapted from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
Loved it! Changed up the sauce a bit, but we really enjoyed this one! 🙂
I’m so glad you enjoyed it, Rachel!
This is one of my absolute favourite recipes in the whole world!! We love making this and it’s a very special meal. Cravable. Easy. Healthy. Delicious. Can I rate it a million stars?? Thank you!!
I’m so glad you love this one so much 🙂
These are amazing! They are our new favourite lettuce wraps! Love that they are vegetarian!
I substituted cream cheese for the tofu in the peanut sauce, as we don’t tend to keep tofu in stock. It was a bit thick but tasted amazing! Tonight we are going to sub sour cream instead, to make the sauce a bit less thick. Greek yogurt would no doubt work as well.
Thank you for this recipe, we will be making these regularly from now on. 🙂
Made this tonight and it was huge success! The combination with the sauces was absolutely delicious and will definitely become a regular in our house. I just had one question – I’m stuck with quite a bit leftover tofu and peanut sauce and was wondering what you would recommend doing with it? It was so delicious I definitely do not want to throw it away, so any suggestions would be great 🙂
PS Thanks for all the amazing recipes – I am intolerant to a lot of foods and find that I can make almost all of your recipes, so thank you!
Hi Alysha, I’m so glad you liked it! I would put the peanut sauce over cold noodles (with other veggies, whatever you like), or toss it in a salad with crunchy things – shredded cabbage, cucumber, tofu, crushed peanuts, that sort of thing.
made these tonite…loved the mushroom-quinoa filling BUT the peanut sauce was very bland and need major tweaking including: lime juice, ginger, thai chili paste, and a splash of coconut milk…
Spicy Sauce was perfect as written tho!!
thanks for the helpful feedback! Glad you liked the spicy sauce – I’ll check the tofu-peanut sauce again (I’ve made a few newer/favorite peanut sauces since this post, like this one: http://dailycove.info/2013/10/06/easy-peanut-noodles/%3C/a%3E%29%3C/p%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv class=reply>
I made these lettuce wraps as the first course in a three course Asian meal for friends, and although the other dishes were also really good, we all agreed that we could eat these wraps as an entire meal all night long. So tonight that’s what I did! More friends over and more lettuce wraps. I use 1 Tbsp fermented black bean paste in the mushroom mix, and just use warm water in place fo the silken tofu in the peanut sauce. Otherwise, used your recipe as written. So delicious! Thanks ever so much!
Hi Meg,
Ha, I’m so glad they were such a hit! I almost picked up black bean paste at the asian market the other day, I’ve never used it but was thinking about experimenting with it. I’ll have to try it that way next time.