Mango and Black Bean Quinoa Lettuce Wraps

A little sweet, a little spicy, a lot tasty!

If you read Monday’s post, you know that my recent attempt to make mango salsa was thwarted by some far-from-ripe fruit. But it’s been a few days, the mangoes are soft and ready to be eaten, and I keep running across this lettuce wrap recipe on Pinterest, so it must be fate, right?  

I used the original recipe as a base and just started tossing stuff in. The cinnamon was a last minute addition on a whim and even though it sounds a little odd, it tasted DIVINE!

Here’s what I came up with.

Mango and Black Bean Quinoa Lettuce Wraps
Serves 4

Ingredients:
1 cup dry quinoa
2 cups water
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 ripe mango, diced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
½ cup green onion, sliced
½ jalapeño pepper, diced
1 lemon juiced (about 2 tablespoons lemon juice)
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
¼ teaspoon pepper
Dash salt
Dash cinnamon
1 head of butter or Bibb lettuce, separated into leaves, washed and dried
1 avocado, diced

Directions:
In a medium saucepan, bring dry quinoa and water to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 9-12 minutes until water is absorbed. Stir and put cooked quinoa aside to cool.

In a large bowl, combine black beans, mango, bell pepper, green onion, and jalapeño. Stir in cooked quinoa and set aside.

In a small bowl, combine lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, pepper, salt, and cinnamon. Whisk or stir well. Pour mixture over the quinoa mixture and stir to combine. Place “stuffing” in refrigerator and chill for a minimum of 30 minutes.

Wash and dry lettuce leaves. Remove quinoa mixture from refrigerator. Stir well. Spoon even amounts of mango-quinoa mixture into each of the lettuce leaves. Garnish with avocado and serve immediately.

Results:
I’m really excited about how well this meal turned out. It was full of colorful, crunchy vegetables and packed with protein thanks to the quinoa and beans. The mango and cinnamon added a subtle spicy-sweet undertone that really complimented the other flavors.

The hubs gave it a perfect 10 and his comment was, “It’s hard to make healthy food taste this good.”

These “wraps” were a little messy. In fact, we used forks to eat most of the “stuffing” before attempting to pick them up. Which brings up a good point…this would make an excellent salad or side dish. It would be really tasty paired with chicken or fish in a citrus glaze. (Hmmmmm….might have to test something like that soon!)

A great side dish or salad too!

If you like to dip your lettuce wraps, a sweet chili sauce (Trader Joes makes a good one!) would pair nicely with these. We ate them “dry” and they were delicious.

Until next time,
Ryann