Introducing: your new favorite lunch for the foreseeable future!
These are Ang’s chicken wraps: basically a quick summer lunch that my friend Ang got me hooked on that includes not one but two sauces. TWO sauces! Or two dips, depending on if you’re generously saucing the wrap, or dipping the pieces of chicken and lettuce and juicy tomato while assembling this at the kitchen counter. Both accepted.
You know this chicken wrap is going to be good because Ang does not steer us wrong – think Ang’s tortellini soup? This is a friend who knows how to make delicious food.
What’s In These Chicken Wraps
- rotisserie chicken
- a “cheddar cheese crispy” – more on this in a second
- fresh tomato chunks
- fresh (raw) sweet corn
- fresh lettuce
- pickled red onion
- Chick-Fil-A sauce
- and ranch dressing.
Would also like to announce that I’m now officially obsessed with the Joseph’s brand wraps (affiliate link) with oat bran, flax, and whole wheat because they are chewy, stretchy, and zero percent dry. I love them so much. It’s everything my 90’s wrap-loving self wants a wrap to be.
What Is a Cheddar Cheese Crispy
It’s a little flat and crispy piece of melted, then cooled, then crunchy cheddar cheese.
Is it the sharp tangy flavor? the crunchy texture? I’m not sure why this little extra cheddar cheese crispy makes these chicken wraps so good, but it really brings it all to the next level.
Basically you’re going to take your shredded cheddar cheese and make a little pile in a skillet.
Let it melt, let it crispify, and then pull it off like it’s a crispy giant cheddar cheese chip.
You COULD add the tortilla to the pan over the cheese, but I like to do it this way because a) the cheese gets more crispy, and b) it prevents the wrap from soaking up all that excess oil. Not that we’re afraid of oil, but there are already a lot of satisfying elements in this wrap including, as mentioned, TWO sauces. I felt like the wraps just seemed a bit fresher without that oil soaking in, so I prefer to make the cheddar cheese crispy on its own and then add it to the wrap.
How To Make Pickled Red Onion
First of all, let’s establish that you’re definitely going to be better off slicing your onion on a mandoline, if you can! Get that onion sliced super thinly – it’s just so much more satisfying to bite into small wispy pieces of fresh onion rather than a big ol’ crunchy piece.
From there, you can decide whether or not you want to pickle the onions. I LOVE pickled onions on many different things so I find it a great excuse to get a jar of these in my fridge. Here’s what I like to do.
- Put a thinly sliced red onion in a jar.
- Add a generous pinch of both salt and sugar.
- Fill about a third of the way with white vinegar.
- Finish the jar off with warm water.
- Give it a good shake and then place it in the fridge.
The red onions should be “pickled” (soft and tangy) in about an hour! They’ll last in the fridge for a week or two and go well on wraps, but also things like black bean tacos and tikka masala rice bowls.
(I included the pickled red onion instructions in the notes portion of the recipe, too, so you can reference it there as well.)
Pickled red onion for life!
Best Type Of Chicken For a Wrap
Okay, finally, a few words about the best type of chicken for these wraps.
You have a couple options for the type of chicken you want to use here.
Grilled Chicken
Grilled chicken breasts or grilled chicken thighs probably have the best texture and flavor – it’s juicy, it has a nice char outside, and usually it’s been marinated ahead of time to give a lot of flavor. This is probably also the healthiest option.
I really like this all-purpose marinade for grilled chicken. You don’t have to marinate it for the full time Jess recommends (although you’ll probably get more flavor if you do). I find that even 30 minutes with this marinade will give your chicken really awesome flavor before it hits the grill.
That being said, you don’t always have time to grill chicken or have leftover grilled chicken in the fridge (and by you, I mean me). So that brings us to…
Rotisserie Chicken
Reasons to love rotisserie chicken in a wrap:
- It’s delicious.
- It’s easy.
- It falls apart into shreds pretty much perfectly.
- You get a mix of light and dark meat.
- You can use the bones and skin for making chicken stock when you’re done.
I almost always use rotisserie chicken for these chicken wraps but Ang uses grilled chicken (and she is the OG here).
And finally, if you really need that extra crunch in your life…
Crispy Chicken
Crispy chicken is delicious here, as it always is. You could make your own – we have a really yummy fried chicken recipe that is marinated in buttermilk (heavenly). But honestly, these wraps are low-key and most of us probably don’t need to exert that much energy for a casual lunch between Zoom meetings, right?
So if crispy chicken is in your heart, I would advise you to just take the crispy-chicken-from-the-freezer route.
I love the ALDI green bag chicken, aka the Parmesan Herb Encrusted Chicken Tenders. They’re actually pieces of raw but breaded chicken breasts that you can pop in the oven for 25 minutes and get a really delicious crispy, juicy piece of chicken with a lot of flavor and crunch. They’re awesome on salads, sandwiches, and, hey! Wraps.
At the end of the day, all you need to know is that these wraps are SO VERY DELICIOUS. Absolutely essential way to ride out these last few weeks of summer.
Bjork loves them, I love them, and the girls love them – a rare 4-way win in this house!
Ang’s Chicken Wraps
Total Time: 15 minutes
Yield: 4–6 wraps 1x
Description
Hellllooo quick summer lunch! These chicken wraps have me hooked. Shredded chicken, crispy cheddar cheese, fresh veg like tomato, corn, and lettuce, some pickled red onion, and not one, but TWO sauces.
Ingredients
Units
Scale
Chicken Wraps:
- 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
- whole wheat wraps (I *really* love the Joseph’s brand – affiliate link)
- about a pound of grilled chicken or pulled rotisserie chicken meat, cut into small pieces
- 2 ears fresh sweet corn, cut off the cob
- 1 red onion, very thinly sliced (see notes)
- a head of fresh lettuce, shredded
- a couple of small fresh tomatoes, thinly sliced or chopped
Your Double Dips:
- really good ranch dressing (for store-bought I am partial to the OG ranch: Hidden Valley, and for homemade I like this jalapeño ranch)
- Chick-Fil-A sauce, or homemade honey mustard sauce
Instructions
- Make your cheddar cheese crispies: place the cheese in little piles in a nonstick or cast iron pan (I do 2 at a time). Leave it over medium heat until the cheese melts and starts to get crispy around the edge. Once it’s crisped up, you can gently remove it from the pan. And as it sits on a plate to cool, it will harden and get light and crunchy!
- Arrange your wraps: place the cheese crisp down on the wrap (I put it so it aligns with one edge of the wrap). Add chicken and cover with a squizzle of Chick-Fil-A sauce. Add corn, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, and top with ranch. Fold it up and devour!
Notes
You can use thinly sliced red onion on the wrap, or you can make quick pickled onions! To make the pickled onions, place thinly sliced red onions in a jar. Add a pinch of salt, a pinch of sugar, and fill about 1/3 of the way with white vinegar. Fill the jar to the top with water. Shake it up and pop it in the fridge. It’ll be ready / pickly in about an hour and you can keep them in the fridge for 1-2 weeks.
The beauty of this is that any dips or sauces can work! I am loving the Chick-Fil-A / ranch combo this summer, but you can do this with any store-bought or homemade sauces.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes
- Category: Sandwich
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: chicken wrap, lunch wrap, easy lunch
