Low-Carb Sriracha Beef Lettuce Wraps

Low-Carb Sriracha Beef Lettuce Wraps are one of my favorite quick dinners, and this tasty recipe is also keto, gluten-free, dairy-free, and South Beach Diet friendly. And with a few different ingredient choices it could easily be Paleo or Whole 30!

You may have noticed I have quite a few recipes for lettuce wraps on this blog, and they're on the menu often at my house.  But despite the abundance of lettuce wrap recipes to choose from, these Low-Carb Sriracha Beef Lettuce Wraps are a quick dinner that I find myself making over and over. 

There are so many favorite flavors here that go perfectly with the beef and Sriracha Sauce, like fish sauce, lime, green onion, and cilantro, and if you like Thai flavors at all, you're going to love this recipe as much as I do.  And for cilantro-haters, I recommend just doubling the amount of green onions and this will still be amazing without the cilantro.

I recently got a wonderful new camera, so one day when I was making these lettuce wraps again I decided to snap a few photos. If you've been reading my blog for a while but have never tried this recipe, I hope the new photos will get you to try it. It can be on the table in well under 30 minutes, and Sriracha Beef Lettuce Wraps just might become your new favorite dinner!

Cook one pound of lean ground beef until it's completely done and starting to lightly brown. While the beef cooks, mix together the fish sauce, Sriracha Sauce, and water. Also zest one large lime and squeeze the juice, slice the green onions and chop the cilantro (or double the amount of green onions if you don't want cilantro.) Prepare the lettuce cups in the size you prefer. 

When the beef is nicely browned, stir in the Sriracha sauce mixture and cook until the water evaporates. Turn off heat and stir in the lime zest, lime juice, green onions, and cilantro (if using). That's it! Put it inside a lettuce wrap and devour!

Please come back and let me know if you end up making this over and over. And this is so flavorful, I'd say this is one time when the cilantro is 100% optional!

Finally, just for historical purposes, here's the original photo from 2012!

Low-Carb Sriracha Beef Lettuce Wraps
(Makes 3-4 servings or 6-8 lettuce wraps; recipe adapted from Nigella Fresh.)

Ingredients: 
2 tsp. neutral-flavored oil like grapeseed or peanut oil
1 lb. lean ground beef
1 T fish sauce (I like Three Crabs Fish sauce or Red Boat Fish Sauce.)
1-2 T Sriracha Sauce (depending on how much heat you want)
2 T water
zest from one large lime
juice from one large lime (about 1 1/2 T juice)
1/4 cup thinly sliced green onion (or double that amount if you're not using the cilantro)
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1-2 heads iceberg lettuce, washed and cut into cups

Instructions:

Heat the oil in a heavy frying pan over medium-high heat, then cook the beef until it's cooked through and starting to brown, breaking apart with a turner as it cooks.  

While beef cooks, mix together the fish sauce, Sriracha Sauce, and water in a small bowl.  Zest the skin of the lime and squeeze the juice.  (You may need two limes to get enough juice, but only use the zest from one lime.)  Thinly slice the green onions and chop the cilantro. Most iceberg lettuce doesn't need washing, but remove the outer leaves. Cut out the core and cut the lettuce into quarters to make "cups" to hold the beef mixture.

When the beef is done, add the Sriracha Sauce mixture and let it sizzle until the water has evaporated, stirring a few times to get the flavor mixed through the meat.  Turn off the heat and stir in the lime zest, lime juice, sliced green onions, and chopped cilantro.

Serve meat mixture with iceberg lettuce leaves to fill with meat and wrap around it, to be eaten with your hands.

This was definitely still good when the meat mixture was kept in the fridge and reheated for a very short time in the microwave, but I liked it best freshly made.

South Beach Diet / Low-Glycemic Diet / Low-Carb Diet Suggestions:

As long as you use ground beef with less than 10% fat, this is a great recipe for any phase of the  South Beach Diet. It would be great for other types of low-glycemic or low-carb diet plans as well. The recipe could also be easily adapted to be Paleo or Whole 30 by using Red Boat Fish Sauce, an approved hot sauce, and an approved oil.

Find More Recipes Like This One:

Use the Recipes by Diet Type photo index pages to find more recipes suitable for a specific eating plan. You might also like to Follow Kalyn's Kitchen on Pinterest to see all the good recipes I'm sharing there.

Nutritional Information? 

I chose the South Beach Diet to manage my weight partly so I wouldn't have to count calories, carbs, points, or fat grams, but if you want nutritional information for a recipe, I recommend entering the recipe into Calorie Count, which will calculate it for you. Or if you're a member of Yummly, you can use the Yum button on my site to save the recipe and see the nutritional information there.