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three crisp butter-lettuce cups filled with long cooked chicken shreds, fine orange carrot matchsticks, fine pale green cucumber matchsticks and small chopped peanuts on an ordinary plate, with no ground meat, mushrooms or garnish
Andre Lewis

Slow Cooker Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Whole breasts cook into a pull-apart filling for these lettuce wraps, with hoisin and ginger in the crock and crisp cucumber and carrot added at the table. This isn't a ground-chicken stir-fry. Drain the warm shreds before spooning them into the leaves, then use just enough reduced cooking sauce to keep them juicy. Dry the lettuce well so the filling sits in a crisp cup instead of sliding through water collected at the bottom.
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Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 4 hours 30 minutes
Total Time 4 hours 55 minutes
Servings: 6
Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

  • 1 1/2 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts
  • 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
  • 2 tbsp reduced-sodium soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp rice vinegar
  • 1/4 cup orange juice
  • 1 tbsp finely grated fresh ginger
  • 2 garlic cloves minced
  • 1 tsp toasted sesame oil
  • 18 large butter lettuce leaves washed and dried
  • 1 medium carrot peeled and cut into fine matchsticks
  • 1 small cucumber seeded and cut into fine matchsticks
  • 1/4 cup roasted unsalted peanuts chopped

Method
 

  1. Whisk hoisin, soy sauce, rice vinegar, orange juice, ginger and garlic in a 4-quart slow cooker. Add whole chicken breasts and turn them through the sauce.
  2. Cover and cook on low for 3 to 4 hours, checking from 3 hours and removing chicken as it reaches 165°F.
  3. Pull chicken into long coarse shreds. Pour cooking liquid into a saucepan and simmer for 6 to 8 minutes until reduced, then stir in sesame oil.
  4. Toss chicken with only enough reduced sauce to moisten it without leaving liquid pooled in the bowl. Keep any extra sauce separate for another use.
  5. Fill the 18 dry lettuce leaves with chicken and divide carrot, cucumber and peanuts evenly over them. Serve 3 wraps per person while the chicken is warm and the leaves are crisp.