Cluttered Kitchen Keto

This is one of those recipes where I knew I was going to have a busy day and would get home late, so I needed something I could just throw together relatively quickly. This is a very quick chicken salad that you can make in a matter of 20 minutes or so, even faster if you have the chicken pre-cooked and ready to go. And it tastes like sunshine. It’s hard to explain until you try it. You could take this to a potluck or a picnic and people will think you slaved over it. Your secret is safe with me. Also, you get a bonus recipe for a seasoning that will quickly become your go-to for any grilled meat.

We’ll start off with the recipe for the Green Stuff. I’m sure it has a name in Portuguese, but my family always just called it the Green Stuff, so that’s what it is. When my great-aunt came from Rio to visit my grandfather, the first thing she’d do is make a batch of the Green Stuff, because she puts it in and on almost everything she cooks. It keeps for a couple of years as long as you keep it refrigerated, because it’s full of salt. A little goes a long way with it, too. The recipe makes enough that you can give away a little bit to a friend. Every time I make it, I end up with a big Mason jar for me and a smaller one for a friend, and sometimes a bit of overflow as well.

You’ll need a food processor for this one. Cut three large white onions into chunks, peel an entire head of garlic, and wash a bunch of flat-leaf parsley (basically what you get when you buy parsley by itself in the grocery store, not the clamshell containers), and a bunch of chives. For that one, the clamshell container is fine. Put them all in the food processor and process until it’s a smooth liquid. Make sure you push down the sides so that it all gets blended. You don’t want chunks in this.

Pour the contents of the food processor into a large bowl and begin adding Kosher salt and stirring. I don’t know exactly how much salt to add, because it depends on how much moisture was in the onions. It’s a texture thing. You want this to be the consistency of wet sand, the kind you could make a sand castle with it if you want to. If it doesn’t hold its own shape, add more salt. You’ll want at least two cups to start with, and you’ll almost certainly end up adding more. Once you get that nice sand castle texture, scoop it into Mason jars and refrigerate immediately. This is great for burgers, steaks, pork chops, and even shrimp. About the only thing I wouldn’t put it on is fish, because the taste can be a little strong. But if you do and it works, let me know!

For the chicken salad, you’ll want to rub the chicken with the Green Stuff. Use about a half teaspoon per chicken breast, a little more if you’re like me and are addicted to salt. Make sure to get both sides. Heat up a grill or a grill pan to medium-high and grill the chicken for 6-8 minutes per side, depending on thickness, until they’re cooked all the way through and have nice grill marks. Chop them into small chunks, put them in a bowl, and put the bowl into the refrigerator.

While the chicken chills, finely dice onion and celery until you have 1/4 cup of each. Red onion is a good addition here, but yellow or white would be just fine. If you want, add some chopped walnuts as well. This is completely optional, but I did this when I made a bulk version of this for the 4th of July, and it was definitely nice to get a bit more crunch. Toss those in with the chicken, and add 6 tablespoons of mayonnaise, along with the zest of one lemon. I use a microplane zester. It’s a nice addition to your kitchen tools, because it’s much easier to get the zest out than it is when you use the fine side of a box grater. Once you finish grating the lemon into the bowl, add white pepper to taste and stir to combine everything.

I served this in a NuCo coconut wrap with some lettuce leaves. I like the coconut wraps for sandwiches like this, where the combination of sweet, salty, and savory works. If I need a quick bite, I’ll often make one with ham, brie, and my low-carb honey mustard dressing. I would not try to make a Reuben wrap with one of these, though. And if you don’t like coconut, don’t even bother trying them. Just make your favorite wrap or low-carb bread to serve it on.

Lemony Grilled Chicken Salad

A bright and flavorful chicken salad perfect for a summer picnic.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 10 mins

Cook Time 15 mins

Total Time 25 mins

Course Main Course, Salad, sandwich

Servings 4

Calories 264 kcal

Equipment

• Microplane zester

Ingredients

  

• 1 pound chicken breast
• 2 tsp Green Stuff see instructions above
• 1/4 cup onion finely diced
• 1/4 cup celery finely diced
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts optional
• 6 tbsp mayonnaise
• lemon zested
• white pepper to taste

Instructions

 

• Rub the chicken with the Green Stuff. Grill over medium-high heat for 6-8 minutes per side, until cooked through. Chop the chicken into small pieces and put into a bowl. Refrigerate the chicken while you work on the other ingredients.
• Finely chop the celery and onion. Sprinkle them, along with the optional walnuts, into the bowl with the chicken, which should be lukewarm by now. Add the mayonnaise and zest the lemon directly into the bowl. Grind white pepper into the bowl to taste. Stir and serve in a wrap, on low-carb bread, or over salad greens.
• Macros per serving, without the walnuts: 264 calories, 1 gram net carbs, 25 grams protein, 19 grams fat.

Keyword chicken, easy, grilled, keto, lemon, low carb, make ahead, salad

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I do my meal planning for the week on Thursdays or Fridays, because that’s when the sales at my grocery store update. I try to use ingredients that are on sale whenever possible, because who wants to spend extra money? This makes meal planning somewhat interesting, though, as I never know what I’m going to do until I open the grocery store website and take a look at their sale flyers. This week, both organic eggs and sausage were on sale. I had some great shelf-stable heavy cream in my pantry, and a bunch of extra cream cheese from the last time it was on sale, so the idea of biscuits and gravy popped into my head. But I’ve never been able to find a keto biscuit recipe that I really liked, and try as I might, I’m terrible at inventing baking recipes. It involves way too much precision. So I started brainstorming an idea about how I could incorporate the flavors of sausage gravy into some other sort of breakfast, and these egg cups were born.

Start with a one-pound tube of breakfast sausage of your choice. I prefer the sage variety, but hot or traditional would work here as well. Just don’t use maple, because carbs and also yuck. There’s a place for sausage and syrup, it’s just not in this particular recipe. You’ll also need some muffin tins. This recipe makes 8 servings, so you’ll probably need two. I use silicone muffin tins, which I like because they don’t stick as much as metal, and they are bendy so it’s easier to get the finished product out. But if you only have a metal tin, it’ll be fine for this case, because the sausage won’t stick at all. Divide the sausage into 8 equal pieces. Roll a piece into a ball, then flatten it out into as thin of a circle as you can make. Put it into one of the compartments of the muffin tin (is there a better word for that?) and press it tightly against the sides and bottom, making sure that the bottom is as flat as you can get it. The sausage will shrink when it bakes and change shape, so these will turn out to be less cups and more bowls, but if you don’t make sure they’re thin, they won’t be able to hold the eggs.

When you’re finished making all the sausage cups, put the tins in a preheated 350-degree oven for 15 minutes. At this point, most of the fat will be rendered from the sausage and it will have pulled away from the sides of the tin. Using a fork, tip the sausage cups over to allow any fat to drain into the muffin tin compartment, then place each one on a sheet pan lined with aluminum foil and pop them back in the oven.

While they’re in the oven, make the eggs and cream. Beat six eggs, adding a pinch of kosher salt. Melt a tablespoon of butter in a large non-stick skillet. While the butter is melting, measure six tablespoons of your cream in a separate small saucepan and set it to medium-low. Add two ounces of cream cheese and let it simmer, whisking occasionally, as you scramble the eggs in the butter to a soft scramble. Don’t scramble them too hard, because they won’t stick together as well, and they’ll be rubbery when you reheat them. When the eggs are scrambled, remove them from the heat and remove the sausage cups from the oven. At this point, your cream cheese should be mostly incorporated into the cream. If not, keep whisking until it does. Add a pinch of salt and as much black pepper as you can tolerate into the gravy. The more pepper the better, honestly. Stir the gravy into the eggs, mixing thoroughly. They should be a nice scoopable texture. Drain any extra fat from the sausage cups, then divide the eggs evenly into the bowls, sprinkling them with additional pepper. Store in the fridge in a shallow rectangular meal prep container.

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This isn’t the prettiest recipe to photograph, but it’s one of my husband’s favorite things I make. Honestly, it looks like white goop. But as someone who loves jalapeño poppers, I am happy that I can get the flavor in any way I can, even if it’s kinda fugly. Plus, it’s super easy to make, so it’s a great weeknight dinner.

Start off by frying 4 slices of bacon over medium-low heat in a nonstick skillet until it’s your desired level of crispiness. I really like the Applegate brand Sunday Bacon, because I find that the slices are pretty uniform, they’re fairly low in calories as far as bacon goes, and they usually cook nice and evenly. While the bacon is frying, take as many jalapeños as you want to put in based on heat level and macros, cut the tops off, cut them in half lengthwise, remove the seeds and membranes, and slice into thin crescents. Set those aside, and cut up a pound of chicken breasts into bite-sized chunks. By this time the bacon should be mostly done. Put it on some paper towels to drain and keep the grease in the skillet. Turn the heat up to medium-high, then add the chicken and jalapeños, sprinkling them with 1/2 teaspoon each of garlic powder and onion powder. Saute, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is lightly browned and the jalapeños are soft.

Add 3/4 of a cup of chicken broth to the skillet and bring to a light boil. Cut an 8-ounce block of cream cheese into cubes and put the cubes in the skillet. Stir until the cream cheese melts and the sauce begins to thicken, then stir in a half-cup of shredded sharp cheddar. At this point taste the sauce and add salt and pepper to taste. You may not need any because of the saltiness of the cheese and the heat from the jalapeños. I like things both salty and spicy, so I used a little bit of salt and a lot of pepper.

Sprinkle the skillet with crumbled bacon before serving, or sprinkle each individual serving instead. You can serve this over cauliflower rice, Miracle Rice or Noodles, or zoodles.

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