My friend Shelley recently posted a recipe that intrigued me–Korean Beef Bowl. I looked up the recipe and had to try it. Yummy! It reminded me of when I went with Shelley to Pei Wei and had their lettuce wraps. But I thought maybe there were more vegetables in their beef combo. So I tried the recipe again, and added some vegetables. Oh so yummy, and I used half the amount of beef from the original recipe. I added carrots, mushrooms, and onions that I chopped up in my mini food processor, and some water chestnuts from a little can that I just chopped up by hand. I also used half the amount of brown sugar–1/8 of a cup still made it plenty sweet.
Here’s what I subbed in:
- 3 carrots
- 1/2 large onion
- 7 brown mushrooms
- 1 small can water chestnuts
- cilantro
I cooked the veggies first in the 1 Tbsp of oil, and then I took the veggies out of the pan and cooked the beef. I use the 90/10 ground beef, 1/2 pound.
Here’s how I ate it. It took me a while, but I finally figured out how to make lettuce wraps.
And just for fun, here are some pictures of the dogs.
Sophie LOVES popcorn.
debby weighs in 
Debby, this sounds so good!! Thanks for posting it.
So, with all your substitutions, your version reminds me more of Chrissy Tiegen’s Asian Lettuce Wraps, which I actually prefer to that Korean Beef recipe. Her version also uses ground chicken, which I prefer over ground beef. You should give it a try!
https://www.nostimokitchen.com/chrissy-teigens-chicken-lettuce-wraps/
I love that you used the recipe as a starting point for customization…I’m going to add more veggies next time I make it. And yes, the amount of sugar definitely can be reduced – it still tastes amazing. 😊
I love love love the lettuce wraps at PF Changs – they use ground chicken but otherwise I think it is exactly like what you made above. And now that I think about it, isn’t Pei Wei owned by PF Changs???