Paneer Lettuce Cups

Delicious and bursting with flavor, Paneer lettuce wraps are a great idea for a quick and easy family style meal with a healthy twist on the wraps. The recipe I took inspiration from and tweaked to suit my palate was Lettuce Wraps by Chef Sanjyot Kheer. 

Do watch the video as the  process of making the wrap shown is in very simple and quick steps and plus does not require any pre-planning and can be made with even ingredients lying in your fridge right now. Ofcourse the lettuce-iceberg would not be something we commonly find in all Indian households but incase your looking for an iceberg recipe or looking to incorporate greens, try this and you will not be disappointed at all. 

So the  ingredients used by Chef Sanjyot Keer are-

Ingredients 

Lettuce medium  1 size bunch

 Rice noodles/ vermicelli a handful 

Oil for frying 

Oil 1 tbsp Garlic 1 tbsp (finely chopped) Ginger 1 tbsp (finely chopped) 

Carrot 1/2 cup (chopped) 

Capsicum 1/2 cup (chopped)

 Red bell pepper 1/2 cup (chopped) 

Yellow bell pepper 1/2 cup (chopped) 

Sweet corn 2 cup 

Red chilli sauce 

1 tbsp Schezwan sauce 

1 tbsp Ketchup 

1 tbsp Soy sauce 

1 tsp Salt & pepper to taste 

Paneer 1 cup (chopped) 

Vinegar 1 tsp 

Basil leaves 8-10 nos. 

Spring onion greens 1 tbsp (chopped) 

Substitutes to suit low carb diet - 

To make it on the low-Carb side ditch the carrot and corn and additionally add 1/2 cup of more paneer and 1/ 4 cup of grated cheese to the filling. One can even keep the capsicums to just 1 cup in total and add around 1/2 cup chopped onion in place of spring onions. The basil leaves were substituted with celery stalk and after trimming the side portion of the lettuce( to make cups) add it to the filling mixture, it makes a good addition to the filling as soaks the flavour. The vermicilli/rice noodles adds a crunch which is a must hence we can substitute it with  either peanuts, mixed seeds or even low-carb bhujiya. 

So thus, you get a double crunch dish, not only the crunch from the lettuce cups but also the nuts or bhujiya. 

The most important step is to keep the cups in ice water as makes the cups extremely crunchy and if greens are your friend you will definitely not miss the wheat based wraps. 

The method is fairly simple and very well shown and explained in the YouTube video - 

1. Trim the lettuce leaves for them to replicate cups 

2. Make the filling with the veggies, paneer and sauces. 

3. Serve the cups with the filling and garnish with some fresh coriander/celery leaves and nuts/bhujiya. 

The ingredients can definitely be played around with and can be suited to one's palate. Out of the vegetarian recipes for lettuce wraps found online this was one which was quick, easy to execute and delicious to eat.