I’m going to be really honest here. Bikram Yoga makes me hungry. While everyone is lost in their own open-eyed mediation during class, I’m always thinking about what I want to eat after class. There’s something about good food that really helps motivate me during my hardest Bikram Yoga classes. Hey, whatever gets you through the 90 minutes, right? This morning in class, I couldn’t stop thinking about the new recipe I tried last night – One-Pot Chicken Gumbo Pasta. It was so incredibly delicious and dare I say healthy?!?!!!
Before making this recipe last night, I’d never had gumbo or anything with creole seasoning ever. I always thought gumbo had some sort of seafood in it so I’ve always stayed away from it because I don’t like seafood. If it lives or swims in water, I wont eat it. Period. I pulled up Whitney English’s fabulous, healthy living blog, To Live & Diet in LA to look up her Low-Carb Spicy Peanut Pad Thai recipe featuring spaghetti squash instead of noodles. I was in the midst of meal planning for the week and wanted to include this dish in the rotation. I’ve made this recipe a few times now and have loved it every single time.
As I pulled up Whitney’s blog, her most recent post featuring her recipe for One-Pot Chicken Gumbo Pasta instantly caught me eye. Had I only seen the name of the recipe with the word “gumbo” in it, I wouldn’t have thought twice and continued my search for the pad thai recipe, but the images for the One-Pot Chicken Gumbo Pasta were making me hungry and completely distracted me from my original search. This dish looked delicious. My mouth started watering before I had a chance to scroll down to see what was all in the dish.
After glancing over the recipe’s directions, I realized this recipe wouldn’t be that hard to make. In fact, I’d only need to use “one pot” to put this whole thing together in a total of 45 minutes, from prep to finish. Ingredients for this recipe includes chicken, gumbo or creole seasoning, bell peppers, onion, celery, garlic, coconut milk, noodles, vegetable stock, tomatoes and a bit of sea salt, all which would be super easy to find at my local grocery store. Instead of bookmarking this recipe for the future, I decided to go for broke and give it a whirl. Sorry Low-Carb Spicy Peanut Pad Thai, you’ll have to wait until next week.
I didn’t find gumbo seasoning, but I found Tony Chachere’s Original Creole Seasoning so I went with that. Also, the coconut milk took me a bit to find. I thought it would be in the cooking/baking aisle. Nope! I found it with all of the “Asian style” foods and spices, which happened to be the same aisle where the pasta was. For pasta, I used Ancient Harvest’s Gluten-Free Supergrain Penne Pasta – Organic Corn & Quinoa Blend. Word to the wise, this type of pasta cooks faster than most normal pastas. If I use the same pasta next time, I’ll only cook it for 6-9 minutes instead of 12-15 minutes. Even though technically the name of this recipe has “chicken” in it, I decided to swap out chicken for sausage. I found a gluten-free Cajun style Andouille, a smoked sausage made with pork and loaded with Cajun kick. This was my first gumbo and I wanted to have an as-close-to authentic, yet healthy experience with the dish, but minus the rice.
I followed Whitney’s directions to a “T”, including chopping up the vegetables while the sausage cooked. I was able to cook the entire recipe in my dutch oven. Clean up was a breeze because I didn’t have any extra pots or pans to clean. Half way through putting the recipe together, my entire house started smelling delicious. My final verdict? This dish is spicy, but it has just enough heat to not be overbearing. I love the flavors in this dish! As I write this, my mouth is starting to water just thinking about the leftovers I’m eating for lunch today.
Thanks Whitney for yet another healthy, delicious and easy, breezy recipe to add to my meal planning rotation!
Delicious Image is courtesy of Whitney English, To Live & Diet in LA blog