Creative paleo and gluten-free recipes
This post is sponsored by the North Carolina SweetPotato Commission.
With these six ways to top roasted sweet potatoes, everyone will be sure to find something they love. Pick one or two to make for dinner or go all out and try all six!
Happy Thanksgiving Eve! I’m here today to tell you about a delicious meal idea that, while not necessarily meant for Turkey Day itself, is certainly perfect for any busy night (or day or even morning) of the year when you need some fast and healthy grub.
This vegan and paleo bok choy salad with apple and persimmon is healthy enough for a detox but beautiful and tasty enough for your Thanksgiving table!
Is anyone else in need of something delicious and fresh, but still kind of festive? I’ve got you covered with this bok choy salad with apple and persimmon. Amidst all the pie and stuffing and mashed potatoes and even a few early cookies, I am fairly sure that we all could use something like this.
If you’re surprised that bok choy can be eaten raw in a salad, you are not alone. I just learned this recently myself. A couple weeks before our wedding I decided to do Alisa Vitti’s four-day detox, and this bok choy salad is based on a very simple one that she shares as part of the cleanse. I was initially quite suspicious that a combination of raw bok choy, onion, and apple could ever taste good, but since I get bok choy all the time in my CSA and it cooks down to almost nothing in a stir fry, I decided to give the salad a try.
This post is sponsored by Cavit.
This refreshing strawberry and avocado salad with candied pepitas is a perfect way to enjoy spring produce, perhaps alongside a glass of crisp pinot grigio.
Guess what? Yesterday was my birthday, and tomorrow is the very first National Pinot Grigio Day! With so much to celebrate, I decided a really fun salad was in order. This strawberry and avocado salad is loaded with sweet and salty candied pepitas, vibrant radishes, fresh romaine, and a cumin-lime dressing. I’ve been making various iterations of this salad for a few weeks now, and when I have them on hand I also like to add thinly sliced scallions and sugar snaps and a handful of fresh cilantro leaves.
This salad pairs incredibly well with Cavit‘s pinot grigio, which is light and refreshing with a hint of fruity flavors and only a tad bit of sweetness. It’s cold-fermented in cutting edge thermo-conditioned tanks, which make it taste extra fresh and springy. I recommend enjoying a glass of well-chilled pinot grigio on your porch or in your backyard alongside a big plate of this salad.
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These Whole30 breakfast nachos are ideal for game day or anytime you’re craving a decadent plate of nachos but still want to stick to paleo ingredients. They take just half an hour to make!
Where have breakfast nachos been all my life? They’re a million times better than any nachos I’ve ever had before, despite being free of gluten, grains, and dairy. They’re super fast to make and just as welcome in the evening as at breakfast time. What’s not to love?
For these Whole30 breakfast nachos, we’re using thinly sliced potatoes cooked to a crisp in bacon grease instead of tortilla chips. This is one of those healthier substitutions that just so happens to taste way better than the original. The potatoes get really nice and crunchy around the edges, but still retain a little toothsome chew near the middle. I’d happily eat a sheet pan full of them with no adornment whatsoever.
I can’t say no to any of these toppings, though. We’ve got crispy bacon, eggs cooked to your liking (bring on the runny yolks for me!), rich avocado, thinly sliced scallions, crispy bits of radish, fresh cilantro, tart lime, and some salsa on the side. And once you break that yolk and let it mix a bit with the potatoes and toppings, I swear to you it will taste like these nachos have cheese in them! You just have to try it to believe it.
This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
This crispy chicken salad with pineapple pico de gallo is full of fresh, vibrant ingredients to brighten up your winter. Plus, it’s paleo and Whole30 compliant!
Crispy chicken: I’m starting to worry I talk about it too much. The thing is, it just doesn’t get much better. And it definitely doesn’t get ANY better when we’re talking about a Whole30-compliant salad. This crispy chicken salad with pineapple pico is the stuff dreams are made of!
While my usual method for crisping up chicken is to use skin-on chicken thighs (see exhibits A, B, and C), this time I wanted crispy breaded chicken. I didn’t want to use bread, of course, and almond flour doesn’t quite produce the requisite level of crunch. I was planning to try crushed up plantain chips, but I couldn’t find any that were made with Whole30-friendly oil. It was in my search for plantain chips that I laid eyes on EPIC’s sea salt & pepper pork rinds.
The ingredients are Whole30-compliant, and I confirmed on the forums that if pork rinds are used in the context of a nutritious recipe and not just for mindless snacking, they’re fine. In this case, I eliminated any (convenient) snacking possibilities by smashing the rinds to smithereens while they were still in the bag.
Anyway, they make a wonderfully flavorful breading for crispy chicken, which then graces the top of this salad that’s already packed with just the right combination of sweet, spicy, crunchy, peppery, juicy, and creamy bites.
Pressure cooker ropa vieja is a time-saving Instant Pot version of the traditional Cuban beef dish, and is naturally gluten and dairy free. There’s also a slow cooker version! This post is sponsored by Pomí.
Have you tried ropa vieja? Don’t worry about the fact that the name is Spanish for “old clothes”–this is supremely delicious comfort food, with nothing old or ragged about it. To make this pressure cooker ropa vieja, beef is quickly seared, then cooked until tender in an addictive sauce made with Pomí tomatoes, bell peppers, onion, garlic, smoked paprika, and other spices.
Next, capers, raisins, and pimiento peppers are added for pops of color, sweetness, and tart, briny flavor. The result is a dish so soothing and satisfying that Ben and I aren’t even close to being tired of it, despite having eaten three giant batches over the past two weeks.
No pressure cooker? Don’t fret (but I do highly recommend the Instant Pot*<–this and all others marked with * are affiliate links and I earn from qualifying purchases). This ropa vieja is just as delicious made in a slow cooker*. I was surprised to find the two versions indistinguishable in taste and texture, so it’s really just a question of how much time you have and which appliance you want to use.
I used Pomí Organic Strained Tomatoes* for this recipe. They’re similar to crushed tomatoes and provide all the great umami-packed flavor of fresh tomatoes grown in the Italian sunshine. (By the way, I also tested this recipe with Pomí’s chopped tomatoes and they worked great, too!) I love that they’re organic and non-GMO certified.
Stuffed avocados with shrimp and mango are simple, quick, and crave-worthy, especially when topped with a spicy jalapeño aioli!
I’m having a really hard time writing this post because there aren’t any fixings for these stuffed avocados left, and I’m craving them so badly. They check all the boxes for my top practical considerations because they’re healthy, fast, easy, and filling. And they check all my flavor and texture boxes because they’re creamy, savory, spicy, and sweet with a little bit of crunch from the scallions. They’re pretty much all I’ve wanted for dinner ever since I first dreamed them up.
My fiancé Ben loves these, too. He’s not too hard to please with food because he’ll eat almost anything besides sweet potatoes or cooked apples (I know, right?), but it’s rare that he gets super excited about a food.
However, after the first time we had these stuffed avocados with shrimp and mango, he made a point of telling me twice that he really liked them. (And in case you don’t know Ben, “I really liked those” is Ben-speak for “Those are the best things I’ve ever tasted!”) He hasn’t said so many good things about one of my recipes since last time I made the millionaire’s shortbread from Paleo Planet.
The premise for this dish is simple: it’s an avocado boat stuffed with a shrimp and mango filling accented with scallions and topped with an easy jalapeño aioli. The aioli is creamy, heart-healthy and delicious thanks to its main ingredient: avocado oil mayo from Primal Kitchen, which I buy from Thrive Market (affiliate link–I earn from qualifying purchases). It has only a handful of wholesome ingredients: avocado oil, cage-free, organic eggs, organic vinegar, salt, and rosemary extract. No sugar or canola oil in sight!
It’s kind of weird for me to be whipping up a mayonnaise-based sauce because I’ve never been a fan of mayo, but this one is so good and unlocks so many epic paleo sauce possibilities. Since I try to limit my dairy intake and I’m allergic to coconut, there are so many creamy sauces out there that just don’t work for me.
I first used this avocado oil mayo last year in an awesome green goddess dressing, and I’ve been hooked ever since. This jalapeño aioli is even better because it’s nice and spicy, and in addition to being great with these stuffed avocados with shrimp it’s also epic with baked sweet potato fries.
This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Hanger steak is seasoned with an irresistible mole-inspired dry rub with a hint of chocolate and served with a refreshing strawberry-avocado salsa. Thank you so much to ButcherBox for sending me grass-fed meat for this post!
Wouldn’t you be thrilled if a giant box with of a wide variety of cuts of grass-fed meat showed up at your door, just chilling over some dry ice and waiting for you to defrost as you please and get creative in the kitchen? I think any paleo or real-food cook would love it, and that’s why I’m so excited about ButcherBox.
ButcherBox is a grass-fed meat subscription service that carefully curates a unique selection of cuts each month and sends them straight to your door, complete with informative cards showing where each cut comes from, explaining how to best prepare it, and detailing a delicious recipe to try with each one. I shared about my first box and what I did with it in this slow-cooker Cuban short ribs post, and now I’m sharing a delicious hanger steak recipe along with some info on my second box. All the meat I’ve eaten from ButcherBox has been exceptional, with such good taste and texture that it’s hard to believe it was ever frozen.
This month’s box contained hanger steak, four ribeye steaks, two pounds of ground beef, thinly sliced beef (perfect for stir-frying or pho), and a Scotch roast, and paleo bacon (if you’re interested in paleo bacon, too, you can get a package of it for free when you buy your first ButcherBox right here!). I was especially excited about the hanger steak because it’s so flavorful and so hard to find–it’s also known as butcher’s steak because butchers often keep it for themselves instead of selling it.
When I started thinking about how to season the steak, mole came to mind. Mole is an amazing and complicated Mexican sauce that’s usually served with chicken, and I’ve loved it ever since one of my students’ mothers first brought me a plate of it when I was teaching in Houston. I have a great recipe for chicken drumsticks with mole poblano in Paleo Planet, but I usually save it for special occasions because there are so many ingredients and it takes a while to make. I’ve really been craving the taste of mole lately, though, so I decided to use some of its main ingredients in a simple and easy-to-make dry rub.
You’re less than 30 minutes away from this healthy paleo meal of spice-rubbed pork chops and grilled peaches served with bitter greens and avocado.
This healthy salad has pretty much all the colors of the rainbow (if you kind of merge indigo and violet together) plus pink. Pink is my favorite color and it’s not really fair that it’s not a part of the official rainbow, so I made sure it was included by making a nice pink dressing. Despite how creamy it looks, the dressing is dairy-free–the creaminess comes from the walnuts and shallots, and the color is thanks to the raspberries. It’s inspired by the creamy shallot dressing from my pan-seared chicken, orange, and walnut salad, but this one’s even better because it’s pink.
