Low-Carb Mediterranean Chicken with Cauliflower Rice 🍗

Ingredients

Chicken thighs
Salt
Black pepper
Olive oil
Garlic
Thyme
Rosemary
Chicken stock
Dried tomatoes
Heavy cream
Parmesan cheese
Parsley
Cauliflower

Welcome! Today in the Low Calorie Chef we are whipping up a delicious, creamy, seasoned Mediterranean chicken and tomato dish that's also keto friendly. For this dish you can get in and out of the kitchen in less than 30 minutes, and it compliments so many different eating styles, you are going to love it. By the way, if you want to maximize your weight loss, check out this delicious fat-burning coffee. Anyway, let's cook!

Prepare the chicken

First thing we're gonna do is season up the chicken thighs. Even though this recipe is gonna be swimming in creamy sauce, you still wanna add a little bit of sea salt and pepper to the thighs. After that, we're gonna sear the thighs in the pan for about three to four minutes, get a nice deep rich sear in there. This will also help to flavor the oil in the pan, which we'll use for the sauce later.

This is an easily customizable recipe. You can swap out the chicken thighs for some chicken breasts, or maybe even some shrimp. You can swap out the heavy cream for some light coconut milk, or you can swap out the cauliflower rice with some orzo, or some brown rice.

Prepare the sauce

Next, we're going to prepare the sauce. Remove the thighs, and toss in the chopped garlic and the aromatic herbs: two tablespoons of dried thyme, and one tablespoon of dried rosemary. So after the spices have been blooming for about two to three minutes and it's super fragrant, then we're gonna reduce the heat just a little bit and pour in some chicken stock. We're gonna reduce this down and then, here is the banger, add in some sun dried tomatoes, and I'm telling you, the flavors begin to come together.

After that, we're gonna add in the heavy cream. Gently stir it, and really monitor the heat here. If the heat is too high, then you're gonna evaporate all of the creamy goodness. And if it's too low, it's not going to melt together properly. Once it simmers for about one or two minutes, then add in the cheese. Cause everybody loves cheese.

Continue stirring until you don't see any more visible pieces of grated Parmesan, and then nestle the chicken thighs back into the creamy sauce. Then take a spoon and drizzle some of the sauce on top of the chicken thighs, and then add that entire skillet to the oven to bake for 15 minutes. And after 15 minutes, take it out of the oven, and then finish it off with some fresh parsley. And thats it for the chicken. Next, the cauliflower rice.

Prepare the Cauliflower Rice

If you're not familiar with cauliflower rice, it's just cauliflower smashed up into such little pieces that it resembles the look of rice. What's really cool about cauliflower rice, is that it has a very similar texture to real rice, but with a lot less calories. One cup of cauliflower rice contains just 20 calories, compared to 210 calories in the same amount of white rice. So if you want to lose weight, you can use it in any variety of ways as a rice substitute.

So, to prepare it, just chop a cauliflower into small enough pieces that are gonna fit into your food processor or blender. You might want to toss the cauliflower into a colander and give it a quick rinse before tossing it into your food processor. Then blend it, but not completely. If you blend it into too small pieces it's gonna have more of a mashed potato-like texture. Give it a few pulses until it starts looking like little grains of rice.

So this already is cauliflower rice technically, and you could eat this as it is and it would taste great. And it would work perfectly as a rice substitute, but you probably wanna go one step further and cook it, it's gonna make it a little bit more like rice. So just add about a tablespoon of olive oil into a pan, and all you're gonna do now is just simply saute the cauliflower rice for anywhere between five and eight minutes, or until it becomes a little bit soft. Add a little salt and pepper to your taste. And that's it.