Low Carb Diet Recipes Using the Slow Cooker

The benefits of the slow cooker is that you can create healthy meals with ease and these will be both tasty and nutritious, and you can use cheaper cuts of meat – low carb diets tend to include a lot of meat, which can work out pricey. But in a clow cooker you can use meat such as chicken thighs and ribs, pork shoulder and cheaper cuts of beef. Most recipes are also adaptable so you can change a recipe to use chicken instead of pork, or beef instead of lamb, for example.

There are some stock ingredients that are very versatile and can be added to almost every recipe, whilst still being allowed on most low carb diets, and even being proven to speed up weightloss.

Some of these are:

passata or tins of chopped or whole tomatoes

cayenne pepper

a dash of worcester sauce

a dash of lemon juice

herbs such as rosemary and thyme

cloves

Vegetables:

celery

aubergine

squash

broccoli

cabbage

cauliflower

parsnip

spring onions

Some ingredients that are not usually allowed on low carb diets, so need to be modified or omitted. These include:

thickeners such as flour or cornflour

sugar

gravy granules

honey

potatoes

Sometimes vegetables such as onions, peas and carrots are not permitted or need to be limited.

Many recipes use chicken, since this is naturally low in fat. Whenever you see a chicken based recipe, you could substitute it for turkey instead if you wish, as they are very similar in both calories, texture and even taste. Some popular ones:

Diet Coke Chicken – this is a delicious recipe using chicken in a home-made sauce made from diet cola, passata and a dash of Worcester sauce. It is very popular and doing it in the slow cooker will mean the chicken is very tender and has time to take on the flavours.

Lemon Chicken – this recipe is based on chicken and vegetables in a lemon stock, if left for hours to cook in the slow cooker, it takes on the lemon wonderfully.

Moroccan Chicken – this is similar to the lemon chicken recipe but has lots of spices in the ingredients, such as turmeric and cloves.

Other recipes use pork – make sure you cut off the fat or buy lower fat joints of pork shoulder or pork leg if you are on a low carb diet that is also low fat, such as the Dukan Diet, or the South Beach Diet. If you are on the Atkins Diet you are allowed to use fatty meats.

Pork with Dijon Sauce – this pork dish is made using cream and mustard to make a lovely thick sauce. You can substitute the cream for fat free natural yogurt for low fat low carb diets.

Pork meatloaf – this is a bit different to the usual liquid soup or stew type dish you can make in the slow cooker. It is made with eggs, black pudding and pork mince.

Sausages and Cabbages – this is exactly as it sounds, sausages cooked slowly over a bed of cabbage. Add a splash of olive oil and a sprinkling of sea salt for a delicious dish.

Pork and Courgette Stew – this is a mix of pork, courgettes and onions in a small amount of butter.

The slow cooker is also a good choice for making soups, due to its ability to retain liquid. You will need to make up your stock and add your ingredients once the stock is hot.

Vegetable Soup – this is simple and you merely add any vegetables you like to it. You should limit carrots to one or two, instead aiming for more vegetables such as celery, courgette, aubergine and green beans. Add a tin of chopped tomatoes to the stock for a flavoursome soup.

French Onion Soup – this soup is based on vegtable stock, onions and cheese and is delicious.

Spicy Butternut Squash Soup – use a small pinch of cayenne pepper for a spicy soup. This soup may be better blended.

Although there are some ideas here, you can easily make a delicious dish by being creative – use whatever ingredients you have to hand, almost any vegetables are permitted, and most meats or fish. Have a go at throwing it all together in the slow cooker.