Creamy Roasted Red Pepper Sauce Chicken and Zoodles, Paleo, Gluten-free
We mentioned in our last post about how we just got back from visiting our sister and our new nephew (he’s one month old and so so cute!!). We tried to make myself useful during our stay… and so we baked lots of lactation cookies (which we couldn’t help eating myself… what? they are so good!) and helped out with dinner.
We were standing in the kitchen one night, trying to figure out what to make for dinner, when our brother-in-law, Garry, suggested a roasted red pepper cream sauce with ravioli. We told him that that sounded satisfying, but we had never had that before, so we would need some directions as we cooked. He gasped in disbelief. “You’ve never had roasted red pepper cream sauce!? You HAVE to try it!”
And so unfolded our first deliciously wonderful experience with creamy roasted red pepper sauce. With some helpful instructions from our sister and our brother-in-law, we put a jar of roasted red peppers into a pan and let them heat up until they became fragrant, and the liquid evaporated.
Then, we made a simple Alfredo sauce. We mixed the peppers into the Alfredo sauce, and added some ravioli.
I. Was. In. Heaven! Garry was right, how had we never had this before?!
We knew that we had to make a Paleo version. And as soon as we got home, we tested it out.
Luckily we have our go-to paleo cream sauce that we love… and we started off by making that sauce.
At the same time, we heated up the roasted red peppers in a large frying pan. We ended up buying them from a jar, because we wanted to replicate the recipe that we had tried at their house.
We've also never roasted our own peppers, but that on our to-do list now.
We were a bit worried that the sauce wouldn’t taste right, because the peppers we used at our sister and brother-in-law’s house were a special pepper from the region in France where they live.
But we found that the Cento roasted peppers that we bought tasted great.
We put the roasted red peppers into the paleo cream sauce (it tastes better than it looks!), and then we made the chicken in the same pan that the peppers were in.
This really made the chicken soak up some great flavor. We then added the chicken to the sauce.
Theeeeen, we heated up the zucchini noodles in the same pan that the chicken was in, which gave them a rich taste.
We added the roasted red pepper cream sauce and chicken to the pan. And a yummy Paleo dinner was served.
This is a fast tasty meal. We'll be working on other non-processed versions of roasted red pepper foods and sauces, but wanted to share this one now 🙂
Prep 5 minutesCook 25 minutesTotal 30 minutesMakes 2
Ingredients
- 2 medium zucchini
- 12 ounces roasted red peppers, (ours were from a jar, the Cento brand) (make sure there is no sugar in the ingredient list)
- 1 Tbs minced garlic, (this was 4 cloves for us)
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 3/4 cup canned coconut cream, (make sure there are no preservatives inside)
- 1/2 cup chicken stock
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 Tbs coconut flour, ( we always use Nutiva)
- 1 lb chicken cutlets,, cut into bite sized pieces
- thyme to taste
- herbes de provence, to taste
- 6 tsp olive oil,, divided
Method
- Spiralize the zucchini with a spiralizer. We used the Chipper Blade from our Paderno Spiral Vegetable Slicer . Place the spiralized zucchini into a colander/strainer. Put a large pinch of salt onto the zucchini, toss it around and then let the zucchini sit so that the liquid can drain from it.
- While the zucchini sits, drain the roasted red peppers, and put them into a large frying pan. There will still be some liquid on them. (If you want the pieces of pepper to be smaller, cut them before putting them into the pan) Heat them over medium-high heat until the liquid has evaporated and the peppers become fragrant. We cooked ours for about 10 minutes. Make sure to mix often, so that they don’t stick to the bottom of the pan.
- At the same time, make the cream sauce. Put the 1 Tbs of minced garlic, 1 tsp of onion powder, and 2 tsp of olive oil into a pan. Mix it all together with a spatula and then set the heat of the stove-top to medium. Cook for 4 minutes, mixing every so often. Add ¾ cup of coconut milk or cream and ½ cup of chicken stock to the pan and whisk. Add the 1/4 tsp of nutmeg, 1/4 tsp of black pepper, and 1/2 tsp of salt and whisk again. Let everything boil for 5 minutes. Then, add the 3 Tbs of coconut flour to the mixture, one Tbs at a time, whisking well in between each addition. Turn the heat off.
- Add the red peppers to the cream sauce.
- Then, using the same frying pan that the red peppers were in, add 2 tsp of olive oil, the pieces of chicken, and heat the pan over medium heat. Add salt and pepper to taste, as well as thyme and herbs de provence to taste. Cook until the chicken is golden and no longer pink in the middle, about 10 minutes. Put the cooked chicken into the cream sauce.
- Using the same pan that the chicken was just in, heat up 2 tsp of olive oil over medium-high heat. Put the zucchini noodles on top of paper towels. With another paper towel, press down on top of the zucchini noodles, getting all the excess moisture out. Then put the noodles into the frying pan and cook for 1 minute while stirring. Remove from heat.
- Add the roasted red pepper sauce and chicken to the zoodles. Mix and serve.
