Prawn Lettuce Wraps with a Spicy Peanut Sauce

I once knew someone who refused to eat with her hands. Generally, this is a good habit to have, since basic manners are so important (and there seem to be less and less people with manners these days), but when I say she wouldn’t eat with her hands, I mean she wouldn’t eat anything with her hands.

Tacos. Wraps. Burritos. Nachos. Chicken wings. Burgers. Meals that are made for hands, she would refuse to eat.

At the time, this blew my mind. It still does, to be honest. How could anyone give up such good food simply because they didn’t require a knife and fork? I think she had some weird association with germs, but still. Anything that you have to eat with your hands is pretty much guaranteed to be the most delicious thing.

These wraps are one of those meals: get your hands dirty, have a stack of napkins at the ready, because things are probably going to get messy.

There’s no graceful way to eat a lettuce wrap. Maybe I’m just buying the wrong type of lettuce to do the wrapping, but finding a perfectly shaped piece of lettuce to hold all the fixings without it ripping or spilling is a very difficult feat.

Despite the struggle, though, I love them. If the filling is flavourful enough, even a carb-o-holic like myself can’t even tell I’m basically eating a salad.

The filling for these wraps consist of flavourful rice, big fat prawns, fresh cilantro, juicy mango, crunchy chow mein noodles, and a creamy, spicy peanut sauce that packs quite a bit of heat. The mangos balance out the spice and the flavour combination is really very tasty.

This peanut sauce is really simple to make and it’s so good, I’ve been using it on a ton of other recipes. I can’t get enough of it, and it might make another appearance on this blog (a pizza sauce, perhaps?) in the near future.

So grab your napkins and eat these wraps with your favourite peeps. Peeps who won’t judge you for scooping up fallen bits from your plate with your fingers!