Keto Recipe: Pizza-Stuffed Chicken Breasts

The only way I’ve been successful with sustained weight loss is through low carb diets, including lots of keto recipes. Of course, there are things I miss sometimes, but it’s a diet I can stick with because there are so many tasty foods that I can eat. Following a low carb diet has also helped reduce painful inflammation in my body, and believe it or not, my bad cholesterol and my triglycerides have both decreased in number. That’s a good thing. Another benefit I experienced is marked improvement in my blood glucose levels – without having to take diabetes medications. Really, I haven’t found a downside to low carb diets, other than occasionally missing certain foods. I’ve mostly combated that, though, because I’ve come up with so many low carb and keto recipes on my own. If you vary your menus and eat a variety of different flavors, your diet will be much easier to follow because your taste buds won’t get bored.

Some people don’t have a clue about carbohydrates, fats, and protein. If you’re one of those individuals, I’ll offer some information. If you’re already clear on the subject at hand, you might want to skip the rest of this section.

All meats, including fish and poultry, are high in protein and low in carbs. In fact, most contain no carbs at all. Fat content in meat varies. Some, like boneless, skinless chicken breasts, for example, are very low in fat. Others, like a well-marbled beef steak, are high in fat. Cheeses and eggs are also low carb or devoid of carbs.

Grains are high in carbs, but some are worse than others. In general, the more refined a grain product is, the more carbs it contains. Grains that are high in indigestible fiber have a lower net carb count. The same is true of fruits.

Vegetables are all over the place as far as carbohydrates are concerned. Low carb choices include green beans, broccoli, cabbage, mustard greens, collards, turnip greens, kale, asparagus, mushrooms, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, summer squash varieties, zucchini, celery, and peppers. Vegetables that contain higher carb amounts include peas, carrots, onions, acorn squash, butternut squash, and beets.

This recipe for stuffed chicken breasts uses no carb ingredients. You might have noticed from the attached photograph at the top that the chicken breast is topped with tomato sauce. While fresh tomatoes are fairly low in carbs, tomato sauce isn’t. That’s because the tomatoes are cooked, so the sugars are concentrated as the water evaporates. Also, many commercial pizza and spaghetti sauces include added sugar, so you’ll probably want to avoid them if you’re seriously cutting carbs.

For me, the answer to replacing higher carb ingredients with low carb ingredients is often answered by using Walden Farms products. They have a wide range of foods that contain no calories, no carbohydrates, and no fats. I’ve tried a number of their products, and from my experience, some are better than others. For their basil and tomato pasta sauce, I think it’s okay right out of the jar, but it’s a lot better after I “doctor it up.” In the recipe below, I’ll show you how I add flavor to the sauce without adding any carbs.