Lettuce Wraps

Bright, crunchy and spicy, this fun assemble-your-own dish from chef Ben Ford is perfect for a hot day.

This Korean-inspired dish is great for people trying to cut down on carbohydrates, because the meat is wrapped in lettuce instead of served on bread.

Small Bites by Jennifer Joyce takes the popular restaurant trend of small plates and turns it into a fresh style of entertaining. Joyce's party recipes are clever but extremely doable: She gives chicken meatballs a heavenly sticky glaze, for instance, by rolling them in sugar before baking.

The rich and luscious sesame sauce is key to these quick Middle Eastern-flavored lettuce cups.

A recipe from Emeril Lagasse, from the 2007 Classic in Aspen.

This is a very traditional Cantonese-style recipe from southern China that you will recognize instantly if you are a late-night prowler of Asian markets or have any experience at all with Asian street food. The combination of pork and shrimp is a familiar one, but when I went to Guangzhou one year, I tasted a version of the forcemeat made with chicken, and I was hooked. And when I got home from that trip, I knew I had to make them. Serving this dish in the Thai style, with lettuce wraps and vegetable garnishes, seemed the way to go. Once skewered you can grill, saute, fry, poach or broil them--just make a double batch of the sauce, because it will fly out of your house faster than my son on a late summer night.--Andrew Zimmern

These pan-Asian lettuce wraps are sweet, spicy and refreshing. Poached shrimp and diced mango are tossed in a light ginger-lime vinaigrette, then served family-style as a colorful appetizer. You can turn these wraps into a meal by serving them with jasmine rice.

These chicken patties spiced with Thai red curry paste come together in minutes.

A sweet Asian-inspired sauce lends the tilapia loads of sweet and savory flavor, while the butter lettuce wraps add crunch and texture. 

At Plum Alley in Salt Lake City, chef Ryan Lowder makes what he calls "American Asian food," which includes delicious versions of his favorite Thai dishes. He especially loves this northern Thai pork salad wrapped in lettuce leaves.

These lettuce cups are filled with surprising and boldly flavored ingredients--crisped balls of sushi rice wrapped in paper-thin sheets of lardo (pork fat) and topped with fresh uni (sea urchin).

Pork sauteed in this sweet-and-spicy marinade from chef Hooni Kim of NYC's Danji and Hanjan is delicious in lettuce wraps or soft steamed Asian buns.