Vegan Peanut Tofu Lettuce Wraps

Vegan Peanut Tofu Lettuce Wraps! Better than P.F. Changs! If you are looking for a yummy and healthy vegan dinner idea, this is it!

P.F. Chang’s was our fancy date place when we lived in Sacramento almost 20 years ago. For two grad-school kids on limited budgets, walking the 10 blocks down to P.F. Chang’s to split an order of their tofu lettuce wraps was living high on the hog. It felt very adult to dress up, sit at a night bar, and maybe even order a glass of wine depending on how much tutoring I had done that week.

I wish my 23-year-old self would have known that you could make them at home! And have plenty of leftovers for the next day.

If you like a sweet hoisin chili sauce, chewy tofu and crisp lettuce then these tofu lettuce wraps are for you! They are also fairly easy to whip up and both vegan and gluten-free.

Ingredient Notes and Substitutions

The sauce for these tofu lettuce wraps is a mixture of hoisin sauce, soy sauce, rice vinegar, ginger, and a single chili pepper for spice. If you don’t want to use the pepper, then you can substitute sriracha.

You can skip the sriracha if you want for a less spicy taste.

I like the addition of mushrooms for a more umami, meaty flavor and chopped water chestnuts for crunch. You can skip the water chestnuts if you’d like.

Lastly, the peanuts and scallions make for such a nice contrast to the tofu and mushroom filling and the peanuts really take these tofu lettuce wraps over the top with flavor and texture– don’t skip unless you must!

Butter lettuce is my favorite, but iceberg or even romaine will work.

How to make these Vegan Peanut Tofu Lettuce Wraps

Crumble the Tofu

Crumble the tofu with your hands until it looks like the above. Some larger chunks are OK, but it should have the consistency of ground meat.

Prep Other Ingredients Next

As these lettuce wraps come together fairly quickly, prep all your ingredients before cooking. Chop the mushrooms,

Cook tofu until very chewy

Cook the tofu in a large skillet until very chewy and golden brown on some of the edges. This will take about 10-15 minutes, depending on how much moisture is in the tofu after pressing.

Cook the Mushrooms

Cook the mushrooms until browned, and most of the liquid has been cooked out. Add back the tofu, the water chestnuts and the sauce.

Assemble!

These don’t sit well after being added to the lettuce, so when you are ready to enjoy, spoon into the crisp lettuce and then top with scallions and peanuts.

Is Tofu healthy?

As a Registered Dietitian, I get this question often when I bring up tofu– so, let’s break it down.

Nutrition science is complicated, mostly because we don’t eat in silos. Some research, like mice and other animal studies, are done with large amounts of a single food. Which, obviously, isn’t how we eat. Other studies are done by asking about food patterns and relying on individuals to be truthful in their responses while weeding out other factors like genetics, age, and other lifestyle factors contributing to overall health. It’s also hard to make causation claims based on these studies.

That said, let’s take a deeper dive into what is said about soy.

 Soy and Breast Cancer

A lot of panic over soy and breast cancer stemmed from a single 1998 study in mice, which showed that soy isoflavones, which act similarly but are NOT estrogen, caused existing breast tumors to grow. They concluded that then eating soy could make breast cancer worse.

Since then, several more studies have looked at the effect of eating soy on breast cancers and found that consuming soy after diagnosis actually reduced recurrence and survival—meaning that survivors who ate soy were less likely to have cancer come back. This is also what we see when we look at the population studies done in Asian women who eat traditional Asian diets (soy foods are common); they have reduced risk of breast cancer.

A 2006 meta-analysis that involved 11,224 survivors also showed that eating soy after a breast cancer diagnosis reduced overall mortality. It’s why the American Cancer Society and the American Institute for Cancer Research say that breast cancer patients can safely consume soy.

Soy and Fertility

This topic is obviously dear to my heart, with our personal fertility struggles. People hear phytoestrogen and of course, estrogen and fertility comes to mind. And, some research has fueled these fears: a 2009 study analysis found that pre-menopausal women who eat soy products saw a slight decrease in two important hormones for fertility. And a 2008 study found that soy’s estrogen-mimicking compounds can reduce fertility in female mice.

However, this connection is still pretty tenuous, and most other research suggests that eating moderate amounts of soy can be helpful if you’re looking to conceive. What doesn’t help? Animal protein.

One of the most significant long-term studies, the Nurses’ Health Study II (NHS II), found that women who ate larger amounts of animal protein were more likely to have fertility problems. The researchers concluded that adding one serving of beans, peas, nuts, peanuts, tofu, and soybeans may protect against ovulatory infertility.

How much soy is safe?

Like anything, I don’t recommend eating just one food. That’s true for all foods—broccoli, raspberries, beans, etc. Eating too much of a single food can crowd out other nutrients, as no food contains every nutrient the body needs.

I probably include two servings of soy a day because it’s a great source of lysine, which can be a limiting amino acid in a mostly plant-based diet. It’s also a good source of choline, calcium, healthy fat, iron, and protein. Most research bodies say 2-4 servings of soy a day is safe and health-promoting.

More Healthy Vegan Dinner Recipes

• Buffalo Chickpea Lettuce Wraps
• Plant-Based Sheet Pan Ranch Bowls
• 15-Minute Pad Thai
• Impossible Chili
• Copycat Chipotle Sofritas Tacos

If you try these tofu lettuce wraps recipe, let me know! Leave a comment, rate it, and tag your Instagram photos with #delishknowledge . I absolutely love seeing your creations. Happy cooking!