Vegan Mushroom Lettuce Cups

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These Vegan Mushroom Lettuce Cups are delicious, easy, and adapted from an episode of Struggle Meals—so you know they are budget friendly.

If you are a person with a fully stocked Struggle Meals packet drawer, I applaud your moxie, kid. It’s been a minute since I’ve walked into a Taco Bell and shoved handfuls of hot sauce packets into my bag—but I’m not above it. Here’s how to eat vegan at Taco Bell.

I’d proudly serve these lettuce cups to Paul Fleming and Philip Chiang, the founder’s of P.F. Chang’s.

Enough restaurant chat, let’s talk lettuce cups!

Walnuts or Peanuts?

Peanuts are more traditional. However, I really like dry pan toasting some chopped raw walnuts and sprinkling them on top of the finished wraps.

Cabbage or Brussels Sprouts?

Yes! Both are fabulous.

If you use cabbage, you can use the leftover cabbage to make grilled cabbage or sauerkraut.

I like using Brussels Sprouts because they are basically little cabbages. They are easy to shred with with knife by slicing into thin shreds. You could also use a mandolin (be safe), grater or fancy food processor attachments to shred.

If you buy a 1/2 of a pound loose at the store, you won’t have to worry about any leftover unused Brussels. You will have enough after removing the stumpy stem bits and shredding for this recipe.

You can also buy them pre-shredded from the grocery store.

Salt level & Spice

If you use full sodium soy sauce or tamari (gluten-free soy sauce), I recommend starting with 2 TBSPs.

Do you like things hot & spicy? Then you will want to use more crushed red pepper flakes. If you are a spice wimp or you are serving kids, go light or skip the crushed red pepper flakes.

Using a bullet food processor for easy prep

Sometimes I enjoy practicing knife work. Other times, I like saving time by pulsing things in my small food processor.

For this recipe, I put the peeled ginger knob and garlic cloves into the small bullet food processor and pulsed until minced. It feels like I’m getting away with something when I don’t have to mince things.

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Other Easy Prep

I love having a bag of shredded carrots around. I put them in burritos, salads and bowls. With this recipe you can skip shredding or grating the carrot if use pre-shredded carrots.

Prepping Shrooms

If you are thinking about a magic mushroom trip—there is different prepping for that. I’m talking about prepping the portobello, shiitakes, and baby bellas a.k.a creminis.

Gently wipe down the shrooms with a damp paper towel. Avoid getting them wet because they can get wicked mushy.

If you really aren’t into knife work, you can pulse the shrooms in a food processor after removing the stems from the portobello & shiitakes. You can just cut any hard bits of of the baby bellas a.k.a creminis and use the stems. I love chopping in food processors. You saw how I minced the garlic & ginger. I mince the shrooms for Easy Seasoned Mushroom Mince in my big food processor, just be careful not to over pulse and end up with a weird mushroom colored liquid.

I like rustic and minced sizes of chopping mixed together for this recipe because it adds nice texture.

Portobello

If the gills look mushy or just sick you out, then you can use a spoon to remove them. I’m usually good with gills.

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Shiitakes

Cut stems off of the shiitakes before chopping.

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You can use discarded stems in vegetable stock if you want. We remove them from the portobello & shiitakes because they have more wooden textured stems than the baby bellas a.k.a creminis.

Baby Bellas a.k.a Creminis

No need to fully remove these stems. Just cut off any hard end bits.

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Butter Lettuce

Cut off 8 or more good-looking leaves rom the outer part of the butter lettuce head for cups. I’ve used 13 leaves with this recipe, it realIy depends on their size. Extra leaves also work to double-ply leaves with holes.

Leftover Butter Lettuce?

This could be used to make other wraps or salads. Sometimes I wrap lettuce or collard greens around store bought vegan burgers or vegan chick’n patties. You could also make Spring Rolls with Oven-Baked Sriracha Tofu with leftover butter lettuce.

Let’s Make Vegan Mushroom Lettuce Cups

In a small bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, Sriracha and maple syrup and set aside.

Heat oil in a large skillet or sauté pan over medium heat. Add the red pepper flakes followed by the garlic & ginger. Cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.

Stir in mushrooms and cook until very soft and deeper in color, about 15 minutes.

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Add to the soy sauce mixture from the small bowl to the pan and stir to combine.

Stir in cabbage and carrots, toss to coat. Remove from heat. Set pan aside.

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Dry toast the chopped walnuts in a small pan over medium heat for about 5 minutes tossing every minute or so, to avoid burning. The walnuts will become warm and fragrant.

Fill butter lettuce leaves with mushroom filling and garnish with scallions & chopped dry roasted walnuts. Serve & Enjoy!

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Recipe adapted from Struggle Meals in the Mushroom Mania Episode.

If you enjoyed this recipe, you might also enjoy

• Vegan Noodle House Ramen with Tofu
• Cold Soba Noodle Bowls with Sriracha Tofu & No-Peanut Sauce
• Spring Rolls with Oven-Baked Sriracha Tofu
• Pan-Seared Vegan Gnocchi With Brussels, Kale, Toasted Walnuts & Garlic Shake
• Carrot Ginger Miso Dressing
• Miso Rice Cake Soup
• Veggie Tofu Fried Rice

Did you make Vegan Mushroom Lettuce Cups?

How did it go? Any fun veggie variations or twists? Tell me all about it in the comments section below! If this recipe went well for you, pretty please leave a 5-star rating on the recipe card to help others find it.