Most of the meals that we prepare follow the keto diet (basically no carbs including sugar), which sounds kind of hard, but we’ve gotten into a simple routine of preparing a hearty vegetable side that’s more like a main dish, and a protein. Sometimes, we’ll add a special sauce or try something fancy, but most of the times, when we don’t want to think about it too much, we stick to this formula.
They key component of our meals is making a vegetable that’s filling and hearty enough to fill in the void of a carb. Here are some vegetable dishes that are in our regular rotation:
- Leafy Green Stir-fry: We always go to the farmer’s market with this idea that we’ll pick whatever looks the best. To cook, we saute some onion and/or garlic, throw whatever greens we have together (swiss chard, kale, dandelion leaves, bok choy), and seasoning. For tougher vegetables like kale, we throw in some of our soup stock in the pan to soften it up.
- Zucchini Zoodles: We’ve read articles saying to throw salt on it to suck the water up and other weird tricks, but we just throw it in the pan to heat up with a little oil and soup stock or sauce.
- Spaghetti Squash: This is the side that probably takes the longest, so we try to make this the night before we eat because you can cook it up and then put all the “spaghetti” in a tupperware for when you want to eat. Try cutting it sideways rather than lengthwise to avoid having to cut through the stem, and also get longer strands (when you cut lengthwise, you cut them in half).
- Mashed Cauliflower: Basically Mashed Potatoes, best with cream cheese and a little Parmesan instead of cream
- Roasted Vegetables: This goes along with our finding the best vegetables at the farmer’s market. We just throw it in the oven – carrots, radish, Brussels Sprouts, asparagus, etc.
- Cauliflower Rice: Make from fresh cauliflower or from frozen, in a pan or oven, this is a good basic to always keep on hand in the freezer.
And all of these make excellent leftovers.
Smoked Duck with Mashed Cauliflower and Asparagus (sauce is from the pan)
Duck Breast is one of our favorite easy proteins. We usually buy it from one of our favorite meat markets in San Francisco, Fatted Calf, a few times from the other market at the ferry building…basically these fancy butcheries.
It is already cooked but quick and easy to get that fresh crispy skin:
- Cut thin crisscross slits into the skin
- Put the duck skin down on a cold pan
- Turn on heat and wait until fat is rendered
- Eat!
Most of our meals have these basic elements of a veggie and protein and we just mix it up with different sauces and seasonings and toppings. I haven’t gotten bored with our keto meals yet!
😋 yummy, especially smoke duck!