Spring is on its way! Today was one of those glorious first look spring days that got us excited for summer, even though it’s only the end of February. These keto mushroom and mince cups are the perfect spring meal. They’re light, super healthy and ready in under 30 minutes. They’re best made with lean beef mince and are lean, low-carb and utterly delicious.

This recipe is loosely (and I mean, very very loosely) on a dish I’ve long been obsessed with, San Choy Bau. Typically, San Choy Bau is made with pork, oyster sauce, water chestnuts and sometimes even vermicelli noodles. The original is one of my favourite go-to’s, but since we’re on basically a zero-starch, zero gluten diet at the moment I started playing around with different ideas and this one has actually become my preferred dish. It’s salty and saucy from the soy while being meaty from the beef and light as a result of the extra vegetables.

Of course, you could use this mixture with anything you wanted if you’re not on the low-carb train. The beef and mushroom mixture is really versatile, you can put it with brown rice, noodles or even in a wrap. You can also use it as a filling for a taco or a jacket potato depending on your dietaries and what’s around the house.

Just a few vegetables, mince beef and you’re basically ready to go. This dinner has my go-to staples of soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, ginger and chilli. Rice wine vinegar is available nowadays in most grocers, but if you struggle to find it you can swap with regular white vinegar.

A quick note on choosing beef mince for Mince and Mushroom Lettuce Cups

Depending on where you are, choosing a 5% beef mince may or may not be an option for you. We’re based in Hong Kong right now, and while you can order it online way in advance for delivery, it’s simply not a feasible option for us on the everyday.

Instead, I carefully drain and pat dry the mince before adding the onions and mushrooms to the pan. This helps us achieve a leaner dinner while still maintaining all the flavour. If you’re not a beef person, chicken and turkey work really well for this but you need extra soy sauce to stop it from being dry.

Other ingredients

So long as your lettuce leaves are large enough to form a boat or a wrap you can use it to your preference. I definitely always go iceberg because of the extra crunch (so 80s!), but you could use romaine or even an endive if you wanted.

Here’s a pro tip for the iceberg lettuce:

Fill a large bowl with water and put the whole head of iceberg in upside down so that the root is poking above the waterline. Wait for 5 minutes and you’ll see the top leaf starting to peel away. Remove from the water and pull back the first leaf (it should come apart without tearing). Place the lettuce back in the water, and then keep returning every few minutes as you’re cooking to gently peel one more off. It sounds like a pain, but it makes separating the leaves from the head of lettuce without tearing them astronomically easier.