Hand Held BLTA Chicken Sandwich

Mmmm!  This “sandwich” type lettuce wrap takes the BLT (Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato – very popular in Canada) to a whole new level!  Healthy and delicious and when you can marry those two things together in a hand held, well you’ve got something good going on!

There are a few steps, though, to this creation, but trust me, it will be worth it. Start with prepping the pickled onions – so easy!  Slice the onions and put in a canning jar, add the heated apple cider vinegar, salt and maple syrup and let it cool.  Presto, pickled red onions are ready.  These are also good on anything – burgers, salads, etc.

Prep the chicken.  Anytime you take time to marinate chicken is a good time!  Marinating chicken not only adds extra flavour, but it makes your baked or bbq’d chicken tender!  Combine the marinade ingredients in a plastic baggie then place the chicken in the baggie.  Marinate for 2 hours to overnight.

Pan fry the outside of the chicken to brown it.  This will help keep the juice in the chicken breasts as well.

Place chicken on cookie sheet or pan – use parchment paper if you like. While the chicken is baking, prepare the other ingredients.  For the iceberg lettuce, cut out the core and place the entire head in a big bowl of ice water.  Let it sit for a bit and then separate the layers.  This method makes it easier to separate the layers of lettuce and the icy water makes the lettuce crisp and juicy!  As an alternative, you could use romaine lettuce instead and make it “boat” style, where you just put all the toppings on a leaf of the romaine lettuce – an open face sandwich.

Place all the sandwich fixings in the lettuce, drizzle the ranch dressing and roll like a tortilla, folding in the ends as you roll.  You could also use tortillas for this recipe, but lettuce works well, it tastes great and it’s lower carbs!

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Hand Held BLTA Chicken Sandwich

A delicious hand held chicken sandwich wrap with low carbs!

Course Main Course, Snack

Cuisine American

Keyword hand held, chicken, BLTA, ranch dressing, lettuce wraps, pickled red onions, low fat, low carb

Servings 4

Ingredients

• 1/2 sliced red onion
• 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 tsp maple syrup or honey or erythritol
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 3 chicken breasts
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 tsp pepper and salt
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 sliced avocado
• 4 slices cooked bacon
• 1 head of lettuce
• 1 field tomato, sliced
• 1-2 tbsp ranch dressing
• salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Start with prepping the pickled red onion. Thinly slice the red onion and push into a small mason jar, or a jar that withstands heat. Combine salt, apple cider vinegar and maple syrup in a small saucepan. Heat through, till it starts to bubble a little, then remove from heat and pour over the onions in the jar. Set aside. Refrigerate for a couple of hours, or better yet, over night.

2. Prep the chicken. Combine olive oil, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, garlic, and salt and pepper. Pour over chicken and let it marinate over night or for at least 2 hours.

3. Prepare the dressing. See attached recipe.

4. Cook the chicken. Preheat oven to 400 F. Heat skillet over med-high heat. Sear both sides of the chicken. Once both sides are seared, place on pan and bake for 20 minutes in oven. You could bbq the chicken too - that would also be delicious. Once chicken is cooked, cover and let sit 5 minutes.

5. Prep the contents of the chicken sandwich. Simply slice the avocados, tomatoes, and chicken.

6. Now you're ready to assemble your hand held sandwich. Place ingredients in layers. Place the avocado first, then tomato (sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste), bacon, your red pickled onions and then the chicken into one layer of iceberg lettuce. Drizzle with homemade Ranch Dressing* and then roll the lettuce so the innards are covered - like you would if you were using a tortilla (which you could also use). I would recommend wrapping the hand held in parchment paper as this sandwich is quite messy - but good messy! Cut in half and enjoy!

7. *Be sure to make the ranch dressing. See attached recipe. This dressing is lower in fat than a store bought dressing and really makes this sandwich taste great!

Recipe Notes

Use this recipe for the homemade Ranch Dressing!