Low Carb Creamy Brussels Sprouts with Crunchy Bacon. 6.6g net carbs per serving, and your kitchen will smell divine.
Are you a Brussels hater? Don’t be. I’m going to teach you how to love them. Forever. With a little savoir faire I’ve turned one of the most hated vegetables from gross to sexy.Â
Cooked veggies have long been associated with blandness, bitterness, sogginess and a whole host of other unflattering taste buds-related adjectives. Everyone has their preferences and dislikes. But there is one thing for certain:
a sure way to kill all flavour (and nutrients) and make vegetables unpalatable is to boil them to death.
And that, historically, is exactly what has happened to the miniature cabbages we call Brussels sprouts. Poor little blights.
My method of cooking them involves some water. But not so much as to drown them, kill their benefits and make the kitchen smell rank. To counter the natural bitterness of the sprouts, I use mascarpone and sweet spices.
Bacon, THE keto staple par excellence, adds crunch and enhances both sweetness and saltiness. There’s nothing extraordinary about the recipe. And yet it turns a boring, tasteless vegetable into a seriously enjoyable feast.
The History of Brussels sprouts
Have you ever wondered why Brussels sprouts are so unpopular and yet omnipresent on the British Christmas table? Me too. And there is no definite answer. Food historians have been asked that very question, but have only managed to come up with speculative answers.
One of these is that Brussels arrived in Britain from continental Europe around Christmas time, so they were added to the traditional Victorian roast dinner plate as a novelty. Thereon, they became synonymous with Christmas.
I rather like this theory, and it makes a certain kind of sense. They’re tiny, fit nicely on the plate and look cute. I can actually picture Victorian socialites presenting their fashionable roast dinner plates with haughty pride.
Low Carb Creamy Brussels Sprouts with Crunchy Bacon: a nutrition powerhouse.
Fables and fancies aside, Brussels sprouts should not be served only on 25th December.
We should copy our European cousins and enjoy them much more regularly. They are incredibly nutritious and loaded with Vitamin C and K. As they belong to the brassica family, they are, like all cruciferous vegetables, linked to numerous health benefits as well as cancer prevention. If you learn new ways to cook them, you and your family – and I dare say, even your children – will like them enough to want them.
A little tip for when you shop: pick small, tight, bright green sprouts. The smaller ones tend to be sweeter and more tender, and they cook more evenly. Trim the stalk ends, pull off any tired outer leaves and halve the bigger ones, so everything is ready at the same time.
I am pretty confident that my Low Carb Creamy Brussels Sprouts with Crunchy Bacon will ignite that new-found love. If you’re still unconvinced, close your eyes and imagine you’re in a kitchen filled with the incomparable aroma of crispy bacon and wafts of sweet spices…. Are you there yet?
Enjoy!
Low Carb Creamy Brussels Sprouts with Crunchy Bacon
Ingredients
- 250 g brussels sprouts frozen (or fresh)
- 80 g streaky bacon about 5 thin rashers
- 1 small garlic clove minced
- 1 piece baby shallot about 2cm / 3/4", minced
- fine Himalayan pink salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- cinnamon
- nutmeg
- organic broth granules
- 50 g mascarpone cheese
(Ingredients in green link to the products I use. More on keto ingredients.)
Instructions
- Pan-fry the bacon until crispy, then transfer it to a separate dish and cut it into large crumbs.
- Using the same frying pan that you used for the bacon, add Brussels sprouts, minced garlic and shallot, a sprinkle of each of salt, pepper, spices and broth granules, and 130g water.
- Stir and simmer, uncovered, for about 20 minutes or until the water has evaporated, stirring occasionally.
- Squash the sprouts with a fork (you can keep them whole if you want, but mashing them adds flavour), add the mascarpone and 40g water, and simmer for another 5 minutes.
- Sprinkle bacon crumbs and serve immediately.
Notes
Nutrition
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