This is the second meal in my series of perfect ratio cooking. The last one was Caveman Chili. What I mean by “perfect ratio” is that as prepared the meal already conforms to the 65/30/5 fat/protein/carb rule of a ketogenic diet. This meal is a variation of my favorite lunch, Chicken Thighs. If there is one flaw to the chicken thighs meal it is that it is pretty high in protein. Today I try and fix that.
Here is the finished result in my tupperware ready for lunch. It doesn’t look ultra pretty but its packed with all sorts of keto goodness 🙂
The first step, as before, is to cook the chicken thighs. Here I have seasoned them and added water to the pan. These are the same thighs I was using before, but you’ll notice we’re using less so that we get a lower protein percentage.
While you’re waiting for the chicken to cook, now is a good time to fill your refrigerator with grated cheese for the week. I’ve mentioned it before, but there are hidden carbs in everything. Pregrated cheese is a good example. I have yet to find a 0g shredded cheese because I believe they add potato starch during the process to help the cheese not stick to each other. Instead of buying that, I buy 4 lb blocks of cheese and cut it into three sections. I then grate the cheese in my food processor. It literally takes 3 seconds to grate the cheese shown. You can also use a hand grater but it would be a lot of work. I mention this now because the recipe today is going to end up with 12 oz of grated cheese.
When it gets close to time for the chicken to be done, start cooking the rest of the ingredients. Start with the bacon. This is an old picture because I forgot to take one, but you get the idea 🙂
For this we will be adding A LOT of broccoli, fry it up in the left over bacon fat!
Here are the completed chicken thighs. I probably should have added more water. Let these cool and move onto the next step.
Once the chicken has cooled, pull it apart into chunks and put it in a large pot as shown.
Crumble the bacon up and throw it in.
Now add the cream and cheese. Stir it all together. Let it heat up and thicken the sauce. It ended up more like a really thick soup but it was a still really good! I think next time I would make the cheese sauce in a separate pan and combine at the end. The mixing of the sauce really broke apart the meat.
- Serves: 8
- Serving size: 1
- Calories: 508
- Fat: 36
- Carbohydrates: 8
- Fiber: 3
- Protein: 30
- 8 Chicken Thighs
- 4 Slices Bacon
- 780 g Broccoli
- 12 oz Cheddar Cheese, Shredded
- 1.5 cups Heavy Cream
- 1 Can Chicken Broth
- To Taste Salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Place chicken thighs in pan with a lid, season, and add water
- Cook chicken for 2 hours
- While chicken is cooking, fry 4 slices bacon
- Fry Broccoli in bacon grease, break up broccoli as much as possible with spatula
- When chicken is done and cooled, hand pull and put into pot
- Add broccoli and bacon, mix over medium heat
- Add cheese, heavy cream and broth
- Heat until thickened
How much water did you add to chicken to cook? Over what heat did you you cook it? Thanks.
350 Degrees, about 1.5 cups of water. It depends on how many chickens you put in but basically just almost cover the chicken.
if i dont add the bacon will it cut down on the carbs? i dont usually buy bacon very often. thanks!
Bacon doesn’t add any carbs, just fat and protein. The carbs are from the broccoli and the cream.
I tried this recipe out and it was really tasty! I went a little overboard with the heavy cream and ended up with an actual cream of broccoli type of soup. Is there such a thing as too much fat?? A cup or so of heavy cream alone is 80 g of fat! So I probably consumed 160 g of fat today (78 above my usual), but still remained under my 60/30/5 for protein and carbs.
I never cooked with chicken thighs before starting keto and reading your blog with chicken thigh recipes. My question is, how much trimming do you do of the thighs?? I’m usually anal about trimming my chicken, but last time I cooked with the thighs I felt like I trimmed off more than I cooked, so I wanted to know if it’s even necessary?
0 trimming. The fat is good for you on keto and it all “melts” over the course of the cooking.
Great thanks! Also – where does the chicken broth come in?
Ah, nevermind, I just missed it. I see it now!
mmm.. just finished making this.. I had to use half-and-half instead of heavy cream though.. came out ok though… i think i made a bit too much though: i had packaged drumsticks, instead of thighs, so i used 15 drumsticks (3 packs of 5)… so i’m not sure how much a serving size is.. about 200 or 300 grams?
Thanks!
Can you use frozen broccoli in this? If yes, should you just defrost and drain? It’s much cheaper off season!
Just made this and its delicious. I cubed 5 chicken breasts instead and just braised them, then threw other ingredients in together after that. Took about 45 minutes.
I made this last night. But I left out the broth, cooked it in the oven and made it into a casserole. It was good last night and even better reheated for lunch today!
Oh wow this is really yummy and very filling!
Hi Caveman! I want to make this tomorrow night, but I’m a little thrown off by the ‘can of broth’, since I get a boxed kind in a very large size. If you don’t answer I’ll just assume its 8oz, but if you get the time, could you let me/us know how much the can of broth was? Thanks! 🙂