It was a balmy 94 degrees outside when I made my meal plan for the week, so of course I decided that what I was currently craving was potato soup. I’m…kinda weird. The second most obvious issue here is, of course, that potato soup isn’t the least bit keto. But I was undeterred. I know you can make all sorts of stuff from cauliflower, including mashed potatoes, and if you can make mashed potatoes with cauliflower, how could potato soup be any different?
This is an Instant Pot recipe, but you can absolutely do it without one. Follow the rest of the instructions, but do it in a Dutch oven, and when you get to the point where the pressure cook occurs, just put the lid on and cook the cauliflower in the broth until it’s fork-tender, almost mushy. Also, while I call for chicken broth here, there’s no reason vegetable broth wouldn’t work for those of you who do vegetarian keto. Do your thing.
To start with this one, chop half of a medium onion, resulting in 1/3 cup of chopped onions. Chop two heads of cauliflower into florets, then set aside. Set the Instant Pot to saute and melt two tablespoons of butter. Once the butter starts getting foamy, toss in the onions and saute them until they start turning golden. Throw in a tablespoon of minced garlic and saute it for about 30 seconds, then add the cauliflower. Saute it for about five minutes, turning occasionally, until brown spots begin to appear. Pour in a cup of chicken broth, then seal the lid and pressure cook for three minutes with a manual release.
The cauliflower when it’s ready to be steamed.
When the lid can be safely removed, open it. Add the remaining half cup of chicken broth, and using a stick blender, puree the cauliflower. Once there are no large chunks left, add 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar, 1/2 cup of heavy cream, and 1/4 cup of sour cream. Continue using the stick blender until the texture of the soup is uniform. If needed, add extra liquids. At this point, taste for seasoning. I used a tablespoon of salt. Cauliflower sometimes takes a lot of seasoning to get beyond tasting bland. Your mileage may vary, though. I used a ton of pepper in here, because I love peppery potato soup.
The toppings are where you can get creative. I did some more shredded cheddar, green onions, bacon, and sour cream. But honestly, if you’d put it on a baked potato, you can do it here. Roasted broccoli florets and cheddar would be phenomenal. Top it with what you want. My macros here are without toppings, because I know you guys will want to try different things.
Loaded Faked Potato Soup
Ever had loaded baked potato soup? This is like that, only faked.
Set the Instant Pot to saute and add the butter. When the butter is foamy, add the onions and saute them until they start turning golden brown. Add the garlic and saute another 30 seconds. When the garlic is fragrant, add the cauliflower and saute for about 5 more minutes, turning occasionally, until the cauliflower begins to brown.
Add a cup of broth to the Instant Pot, put on the lid, and set to cook on high pressure for 3 minutes. Use the manual release, then open the cooker when it's safe to do so. Add the rest of the broth and use an immersion blender to puree the cauliflower.
When the cauliflower gets smooth, stir in the cheese, heavy cream, and sour cream. Add the salt and pepper, then use the immersion blender to puree it and mix everything together. Serve in a small bowl with your desired toppings.
Macros for just the soup: 209 calories, 8 grams net carbs, 7 grams protein, 16 grams fat.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Any embedded link to a product earns me a portion of the purchase price if you click and buy it.
This is one of those moments where I’m going to go full food blog and tell a story. If you’re not here for this, feel free to click that “Jump to Recipe” button, and I promise I won’t be offended.
My name, as you might have surmised, is not Kimberly. Back when I was 18 years old, I lived in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for several months. I ended up working at a small and long since closed cafe called Wild Clover. I owe a lot to that job. I was kind of a messed up kid, and the owner, Kimberly, took me under her wing. I was a bit of a project for her. Eventually, thanks to her guidance, I ended up back in Ohio, and now I have a really good life. So I owe her a lot, and the least I can do is make sure she gets credit for this recipe, because I used to eat way too much of it while I was working there.
That cafe’s gimmick was that all the meals were low-fat, and she did a damned good job of it. She sourced her bread for her sandwiches locally, and it was freaking delicious. She made her own salad dressings, soups, everything. There was also a coffee bar and she sold natural supplements, too. It was very 90s. Obviously, I’m not restrained by having to stick to low-fat. Quite the opposite, in fact. So recreating this shrimp salad wasn’t at all difficult. It’s just a few ingredients, and you can serve it over greens, or do what I did and make a wrap out of it with a NuCo coconut wrap. If you do dirty keto, there are plenty of low-carb wraps available as well, like these tortillas with 5 net carbs per piece, or this pita bread with 4 net carbs per piece. The best part is that this is still pretty low in calories, even with the full-fat mayonnaise, so it’s perfect for the 1200 is plenty crowd.
To start the shrimp salad, get yourself a pound of cooked shrimp, tail off. You don’t need huge shrimp for this. Go cheaper and get the smaller size, because they’re easier to eat. Just don’t get those tiny salad shrimp, because the other ingredients will overwhelm them. Put the shrimp in a bowl. Add a half cup of chopped celery, a half cup of chopped red onion, and ten queen sized or 15 regular sized pimiento stuffed olives, sliced in half lengthwise. Then stir in 4 tablespoons of mayonnaise (I like avocado oil mayonnaise for clean eating purposes) and several grinds of white pepper, and you have Kimberly’s shrimp salad, or at least the best approximation I can make given my 25-year gap in memory.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Any embedded link to a product earns me a portion of the purchase price if you click and buy it.
I’m a huge fan of skillet chicken in a pan sauce for quick weeknight meals. This sauteed chicken with an elegant cream sauce is one of my favorites. The only problem is that I have to make sure I have room in my macros for my husband and I to split the rest of the bottle of prosecco! Nobody wants that to go to waste, right?
Start off with two large or four small chicken breasts, about a pound of chicken in total. If you have two large ones, butterfly them into thin cutlets. Salt and pepper both sides to taste. Heat up a tablespoon each of olive oil and butter in a stainless steel or cast iron skillet over medium to medium high heat, making sure the oil doesn’t smoke. Don’t use a nonstick skillet here, as you won’t get the brown sticky bits on the bottom that make the sauce good. Alton Brown told me that those brown sticky bits are called fond. I must say I’m awfully fond of them. (Yeah, yeah, I know…)
Put the chicken into the skillet and saute for about 4-5 minutes a side, flipping once. You want the chicken to get nice and golden brown, like so:
Golden brown and delicious, as Alton Brown used to say.
While the chicken is cooking, chop the herbs. I grabbed a decent handful of both basil and tarragon leaves. Once chopped, it was about a half cup of herbs total. This one is fun to play with. If you don’t like the slightly anise flavor of tarragon, you can make it a bit more Italian-flavored instead of French by using basil, oregano, and parsley. As long as you have a half-cup of herbs total, you probably can’t go wrong. Unless you try cilantro, because that wouldn’t go well with the rest of the flavors at all. There’s a time and place for cilantro, and this isn’t it. Anyway, chop those herbs and save them for later.
Once the chicken is browned and fully cooked through, remove it from the pan and put it on a plate. Your skillet should look like this:
See all that brown crispy stuff on the bottom of the pan? That’s the start of something good. But first, we need to add some garlic. I view garlic like I view salt. I never really measure it. This is especially the case since I use the jarred kind, or jarlic, as I prefer to call it. I love fresh garlic, but it’s rare that I actually want to deal with the pain of peeling and chopping it. So throw about a tablespoon or so of minced garlic in there. I’d say 3 cloves if you’re using the real stuff. Toss it around in the skillet and make sure not to burn it. 30 seconds should be fine. After that, add 5 ounces of prosecco and a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce to the mix. I get my prosecco from Costco. $7 a bottle!
Use your spatula to scrape up those brown bits on the bottom of the pan. That’s how the sauce gets the majority of its flavor. Bring it to a boil and let it reduce down until it looks kind of like this, then add the herbs and toss for about 30 seconds. You don’t want them to wilt too much or they’ll get to be an ugly color.
Whisk in 2-4 tablespoons of heavy cream and let the sauce boil just a bit, just to thicken it up. Add the chicken back to the pan, turn to coat, taste and adjust salt as needed, and then serve over cauliflower rice with more of the sauce drizzled on top. Enjoy an elegant meal that looks like something you could get in a restaurant but is easy enough to make on a weeknight!
Heat olive oil and butter in a large stainless steel or cast iron skillet over medium to medium high heat. Salt and pepper both sides of your chicken breasts, and saute about 4 minutes a side, until golden brown and cooked through. Remove chicken to a plate.
While chicken is cooking, finely chop the herbs and set aside.
Once the chicken has been removed from the skillet, add the garlic and saute for 30 seconds, then add the prosecco and worcestershire sauce, making sure to scrape up the brown bits from the bottom of the skillet.
Reduce the prosecco until only about 3 tablespoons remain, then add the herbs and quickly toss. Pour in the heavy cream and boil until thickened, then turn the heat back down to a simmer and add the chicken breasts and any accumulated juices. Taste the sauce and add more salt and pepper if needed. Turn the chicken breasts to coat and serve over cauliflower rice with more sauce drizzled on top.
Macros, using 3 tbsp of heavy cream: 290 calories, 2 grams net carbs, 25 grams protein, 18 grams fat.
Keyword chicken, easy, weeknight
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Any embedded link to a product earns me a portion of the purchase price if you click and buy it.
Recent Comments