Mexican Inspired Chicken Lettuce Wraps

With all of the snow that we've been getting, I wish I could trade in my winter coat for a bathing suit and sunglasses in Mexico!  Since it is unlikely that I'll be waking up in Cozumel anytime soon, I'll just have to make do with cooking and eating meals that remind me of sunny days in Mexico.

My inspiration for this dish came from a lonely avocado.  On a whim, I bought an avocado about a week ago and threw it in the fridge to prevent it from softening.  I found the avocado sitting in the fridge on Wednesday night and I wanted to find a creative way to put it to use.  On Thursday morning, I trimmed and cubed two boneless chicken breasts.  Now normally I leave this job for Bret but he was off at work before I even woke up and I just had to deal with trying not to gag as I handled raw meat early in the morning.  I threw the cubed chicken breast in a storage bag with a few tablespoons each of  roasted chili oil, spicy chipotle rub, garlic powder, and crushed red pepper flakes.  I also added healthy dashes of Tabasco sauce and Mexican hot sauce, along with a pinch of salt and fresh cracked black pepper.  I gently tossed all of these ingredients together in the sealed storage bag and then put the bag in the fridge to marinate while I was at work.

After an invigorating gym session, I was famished for dinner and couldn't wait to put this meal together!  First, I warmed up a wok with some vegetable oil and when the wok was hot, I added the marinated chicken.  One by one, I then added a chopped red onion, three cloves of minced garlic, two chopped red Fresno chiles (loosely de-seeded) and a can of drained and rinsed black beans.

While all of these great ingredients started to come together, Bret cubed up the avocado and gave it a good squeeze of lime juice to prevent it from browning and a pinch of salt.

While these ingredients would have made a great filling for taco, I instead decided to wrap it in my new favorite finger food - lettuce wraps!  I layered the spicy chicken mixture with a slice of avocado and a squeeze of lime juice.

The chicken mixture was seriously spicy but the avocado provided cool relief!

I'm seriously becoming addicted to lettuce wraps and could definitely use some more inspiration for fillings.  Do you have any lettuce wrap ideas you'd like to share?