One thing I figured out early on in my elimination diet is that I’m basically eating a modified (and greatly limited) Paleo Diet. I’m not convinced that strictly Paleo is the way to go, but I can’t argue that grains (specifically wheat) and sugar are poison for my body!
Consequently, I’ve found myself making lots of recipes out of Paleo cookbooks and Paleo websites, even recipes for the Geek and Mr. Charm.
Well, I’ve found a true winner in this recipe! Not only is it delicious, juicy, and flavorful, but it also uses one of my favorite kitchen tools: the crockpot!
In fact, the creator of this yummy main course runs an entire blog dedicated to Paleo crockpot recipes – gotta love it!
The original post has GORGEOUS pictures – mine are quick iPhone shots I took as I suddenly remembered “Oh! I need a picture of that for the blog!” And you can tell they’re an afterthought, too, so please don’t judge this recipe by my photographs – go check out the original at PaleoPot to see how delectable it really looks!
I had to tweak the recipe a bit, so I’ll just show you what I did:
Cilantro in the food processor.
Take a bunch of cilantro, olive oil, and lime juice and zap it in your food processor.
The finished marinade
The original recipe calls for garlic in the marinade, but in deference to Mr. Charm’s Fructose Malabsorption, I left it out.
It also calls for a whole chicken. I didn’t have one; I only had chicken quarters. That’s okay; it just meant I got to avoid sticking a whole lime up a chicken’s heinie.
I put together my spice rub mix: black pepper, sea salt, and some cayenne pepper.
Spices sure can be pretty, can’t they?
The original used chili powder and cumin, but hot pepper type things can be tough for folks with Fructose Malabsorption, so I was limiting it, and I was out of cumin. Oh well. The limited spices did a great job anyway!
After I washed and dried the chicken, I rubbed the spice mix all over the quarters.
Coated Chicken Quarters
Then I put them in a Ziploc bag and added the marinade.
Marinaded and ready to go!
After the marinade is added, it’s important to suck out all the air from the bag and squish it around to cover every surface of the chicken. Then, just toss it in the fridge overnight!
The next morning, I tossed the entire contents of the bag into the slow cooker.
In the crockpot, ready to cook!
I turned it on to ‘low’ and let it go! Mine cooked for about 7 hours, which is right in between the originally recommended 6-8 hours.
Finished and ready to eat!
According to the Geek, this chicken was just about perfect: good flavor, juicy, tender, melt-in-your-mouth good. He asked that it be added in to our regular recipe rotation…and that’s high praise indeed!
Even Mr. Charm seemed to enjoy his chicken. (He’s been in a picky phase lately, but he scarfed about half of a whole quarter before he decided he was done!)
One really nice thing about this recipe is that it makes an easy make-ahead dinner. If, when you get home from the grocery store, you take your chicken and prepare the recipe up to the point where it is marinaded in the plastic bag, you can freeze the whole bag and cook it later! Just take the bag out of the freezer the night before, let it thaw in the fridge, and throw the whole thing in the crock pot in the morning. Dinner will be ready on time with no prep work to speak of. Gotta love that!
So go take a peek at the original recipe and if you have a whole chicken, by all means, do it the PaleoPot way! But if you have fructose issues, rest assured that this modified Cilantro-Lime Chicken is well worth your time!
Enjoy!
- 4 chicken quarters
- ½ to ¾ cup of fresh cilantro
- ½ cup of lime juice
- 1 T olive oil
- Spice rub mix: Black pepper, sea salt, cayenne pepper (I did an even T. of each)
- In your food processor, mix together the cilantro, lime and olive oil.
- Wash and dry your chicken, and rub the spices all over the skin.
- Put your chicken in a ziploc bag; add the cilantro marinade. Make sure to remove all air and squish it around to cover all parts of the chicken.
- Either refrigerate the bag overnight, or freeze for later use. (If you freeze for later use, thaw it in the fridge the night before using.)
- Dump the entire contents of the bag into a crock pot the next morning and set it to cook on "Low" for 6-8 hours.
- Enjoy a delicious, healthy dinner!
Do you have any awesome marinades you use for meats? Please share!
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This post was a favorite of Real Food, Allergy Free on her Allergy Free Wednesdays, and was shared with Whole Food Wednesdays, and Real Food Wednesdays.
Anything in the crock pot I love, but the cilantro-lime marinade makes this dish for me!
Yes, crock pots ARE wonderful, aren’t they? Hope you like it!
This looks awesome. Cant wait to try it myself!
Hope you like it!
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I love cilantro and lime together! Got it pinned, thanks for linking up at Gluten Free Fridays!
It’s new to me, but it’s become a family favorite! Hope you like it!
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Could you use garlic infused olive oil to add back in a little of the garlic flavor?
Absolutely! Garlic infused olive oil is a well-known way for those sensitive to Fructans to get the flavor without the reactions!
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