Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wraps with Celery and Blue Cheese

To say that we love buffalo chicken is an understatement. In fact, we had it earlier this week again for my husband's birthday dinner. When I was asked to develop a recipe with celery, I immediately thought of my boneless buffalo chicken recipe. I always serve it with celery.

The folks at Duda Farm Fresh Foods have just been so awesome. Their products are sold under the brand Dandy Fresh and I just love that a lot of the celery I buy is grown right here in Florida. Before I even worked with Duda Farm Fresh Foods, their celery has always gone into my shopping cart just about every week. We are always cooking with celery and I can pretty much guarantee you that there's always a bag of Dandy Fresh celery in my crisper. We have it with cream cheese and paprika for an appetizer and whenever I'm putting a chicken or a roast in the slow cooker, celery goes in there as well.

This recipe is very simple to make and you can even simplify it even more by using store bought boneless fried chicken and/or store bought buffalo wing sauce.

I always chop all of my vegetables before cutting up raw meats. So the first thing I do is cut up the celery and start the buffalo sauce. The buffalo sauce is really quick and easy to make as it utilizes store bought hot sauce (I prefer Frank's hot sauce).

Before cutting up the chicken into strips, I slice and then crumble the blue cheese so that's all ready. Put this back in the refrigerator before you go onto the next step.

After frying the chicken, I chop it up on a completely different cutting board (a clean one). Place chopped up chicken into a large bowl and mix in the buffalo sauce. Now you're ready to arrange your lettuce wraps.

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Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wraps with Celery and Blue Cheese

Ingredients:

Sauce Recipe
1 stick of margarine
1/4 tsp celery salt
1/4 tsp red pepper seasoning
1/4 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp salt
11.5 oz hot sauce, or more to taste (I prefer Frank's red hot sauce which ends up being 1/2 a bottle)

Chicken
2 cups flour, all-purpose, unbleached
1/2 - 1 tsp cayenne red pepper
1 tsp each salt and pepper
2 - 3 eggs
1 1/4 pound chicken breasts, cut into cutlets and then into fingers, whatever sizes you prefer
vegetable oil for frying

Lettuce Wraps
3 celery stalks, chopped
2-3 oz. blue cheese, sliced and then crumbled
12 Boston or bibb lettuce leafs, separated, washed and dried with a paper towel

Directions:

Sauce

1. Melt margarine in sauce pan with all seasonings, then add hot sauce.
2. Leave covered on warm heat setting while preparing chicken.

Chicken

1. In frying pan or skillet, add enough 1 1/2 to 2 inch layer of vegetable oil and heat on low.
2. Prepare plastic zip bag with all dry ingredients. Close bag and blend together ingredients with your hands.
3. Place eggs into a shallow dish and beat them. Add 1-2 tsp of beaten egg to plastic bag, close and blend together with your hands.
4. As you're cutting up the chicken, add to dish with eggs. When finished, add to plastic zip bag and close. Blend chicken with flour mixture with your hands making sure each piece of chicken is evenly coated.
5. Adjust heat of pan up to medium or medium-high. Brown chicken pieces for 4-6 minutes on each side. Cook in batches if needed.
6. Drain on plate with paper towels. Allow to drain for a couple of minutes before cutting cooked chicken on a clean cutting board into bite-sized pieces.

Lettuce Wraps

1. In batches, put some pieces of chicken into a glass mixing bowl and add 1/4-1/2 cup of the sauce mixture. Toss gently with tongs.
2. Make lettuce wraps by adding chicken, celery and blue cheese. Serve on a platter or place ingredients on platters to allow everyone to make their own.

Notes: You can use butter as I have before but I prefer margarine for this recipe.

Recipe for buffalo sauce came from a friend.

Have you tried this recipe?

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Do you have a favorite dish or appetizer that you make with celery? I want to hear about it. If you have a link to your blog or your favorite recipe, please share!

PS You should head on over to their facebook page, they are giving away Vidalia onion prize packs. They are awesome, I just received one in the mail this week. Can't wait to share with you what I'm making with them.

Disclosure: Duda Farm Fresh Foods is a sponsor of mine. Opinions are always my own and I only share with you my favorite products and brands.