Italian Chicken Casserole by Hold The Grain

It’s Sunday and that means… it’s time for another awesome guest post!

Today’s post comes to you from Tess at Hold The Grain. Have you checked out her site yet? You should because it’s full of fantastic recipes, just like the one that is being shared here with us today! Take it away, Tess!

I am so thrilled to be guest posting on Meatified today! With her stunning photos and amazing recipes that I can’t even believe are autoimmune-friendly, Rach is a huge inspiration to me. As soon as she contacted me about sharing a recipe with you guys, I knew I wanted to create something simple, yet tasty that you would all be able to enjoy. That’s why I made Italian chicken casserole 100% autoimmune protocol compliant, and I couldn’t be more excited to share it with you!

{Want to know more about the Autoimmune Protocol? Check out my favorite AIP resources here!}

I am all about simple meals. Long ingredient lists are intimidating and no one likes to have to wash every dish in the kitchen for just one meal. Okay, that may be a big exaggeration, but you guys know what I mean. I’m also a huge fan of anything Italian-seasoned. My family isn’t Italian, but I grew up eating all of the americanized favorites; spaghetti, pizza, lasagne and salad and pasta dishes dressed in Italian dressing. All of my childhood favorites include cheese and tomato, and that just doesn’t work anymore.

Italian Chicken Casserole from Hold The Grain | a guest post on http://meatified.com #paleo #glutenfree #autoimmunepaleo #whole30

To make italian dishes autoimmune-protocol compliant, I utilize lots of herbs and cream sauce. A good italian seasoning mix will include marjoram, basil, oregano, rosemary and thyme. You can even make your own if you prefer. To make a dairy-free cream sauce with a sweet-richness that tastes indulgent, you combine a roasted sweet potato with full-coconut milk. Combining the herbs and cream sauce with chicken and vegetables creates a warm, comforting dish with easy steps and ingredients. It’s a win-win.

This Italian Chicken Casserole recipe is both Autoimmune Protocol friendly AND compliant with the Whole30, too!

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Italian Chicken Casserole by Hold The Grain

  • Author: Rachael Bryant / Meatified

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 Large sweet potato
  • 2 Tablespoon coconut oil or avocado oil
  • 1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
  • ½ Small yellow onion (diced)
  • 1 Clove Garlic (minced)
  • 8 boneless chicken thighs cubed (23 pounds)
  • 1 Head broccoli
  • 2 Cups Brussels sprouts (halved)
  • 1 (14 ounce) can full-fat coconut milk
  • Salt, to taste

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  2. Peel and chop the sweet potato into 1-inch cubes. Toss with 1 tablespoon coconut oil and 1 teaspoon of Italian seasoning and place on a lined baking sheet. Bake for until fork tender (20-25 minutes).
  3. In a pan over medium-high heat, melt 1 tablespoon coconut oil. Add the diced onion to the pan and cook until translucent. Stir in the minced garlic and cook and additional 1-2 minutes. Toss in the cubed chicken and cook until no longer pink (10 minutes), stirring occasionally.
  4. Remove the stem of the head of broccoli, keeping only the florets. Trim and halve the brussels sprouts. Toss the broccoli and brussels sprouts into the chicken, and cook an additional 1-2 minutes. Remove the pan from heat.
  5. To prepare the sauce, add the roasted sweet potatoes, coconut milk and remaining 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning to a high speed blender or food processor and puree until smooth. Add salt, to taste.
  6. Scoop the chicken mixture into a well-greased 8×11 glass baking dish, leaving any liquid in the pan. Pour the sweet potato sauce evenly over the chicken. Bake for 30 minutes.
  7. Let the casserole sit 10 minutes before serving.

Notes

This recipe is suitable for Autoimmune Paleo and is Whole30 compliant.

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Italian Chicken Casserole from Hold The Grain | a guest post on http://meatified.com #paleo #glutenfree #autoimmunepaleo #whole30

35 comments

  1. I am doing low-carb. Any idea on what the carb content is? It looks delicious and something I would definitely try as I am always looking for new recipes. THANKS!

    1. I’m afraid I don’t track or count carbs, so I’m not really sure. You could try putting the ingredients into a nutritional calculator to find out the carbs by serving.

  2. Wasn’t sure when I read the recipe but I figured what the heck, I can put a sweet potato in the blender. It was wonderful! I did need to load up on the salt, but that’s just me. Hubby didn’t add a grain. This is a keeper. Thanks.

    1. Awesome! Glad you enjoyed it! We’re the other way in my house – I’m the no-salter and Mr Meatified needs his own shaker, haha 🙂

  3. Pingback: Friday 062714
    1. Assuming you still want to keep the recipe AIP, I would try adding some chicken broth to the sweet potato when you blend it until you get a sauce-like consistency. If it needed extra thickening, I’d try adding a little extra sweet potato or some pumpkin puree 🙂

  4. I made this for dinner tonight, it’s SO yummy! Also my first attempt at an A.I.P meal. This is going to be a regular, thanks very much!

  5. Wow. We LOOOOOVED this! That sauce is amazing. My next plan is to pour it over chicken chunks and spaghetti squash!

  6. HI! I honestly don’t enjoy sweet potatoes unless they are baked with butter… so, I replaced the sweet potatoes with zucchini in my base. Took 1-2 RAW zucchini, chunked them up, and tossed them into my BlendTec with a can of coconut milk. Added pink salt, herbes de sel and some nutritional yeast. Turned out AWESOME!

    I blended it into the chicken/onions/broccoli/brussel sprouts mixture and put 2/3rds into an 8×8 pan. Tossed about a T of Ras el Hanout into the remaining and put that into a smaller dish. Baked them both at 350° for 30 minutes. HEAVENLY flavor in both!

  7. i made this for my family tonight, and even my picky son loved it-he doesn’t like sweet potatoes, and didn’t even know that is what the sauce was-I said it was an Indian type of dish, and he was okay with that! He ate 3 servings-no lie! Haha! Love when we can have our mom moments! Thank you for sharing your recipe-have 2 family members that we are trying to heal guts/ lots of allergies at the moment and everything was becoming so bland-so thank you!

  8. I was SO skeptical about this but I am trying to eat healthy and I wanted to be able to cook whole meals for the family as well instead of making one thing for me and one for them. This was absolutely delicious! I mean it amazing. I made it exactly as directed only adding a little garlic powder to the chicken and vegetables and a good deal of salt and pepper (I can’t stand things to be bland). It’s amazing, and my whole family absolutely loved it!!!! Healthy can be good! Thank you!

  9. Pepper isn’t compliant with full elimination phase of AIP and should be noted in the recipe please so as not to confuse newcomers.
    Thanks

    1. Thanks for the heads up. This recipe was added to the site over two years ago, when pepper was considered a “grey area” and not an outright no-no. When the protocol was changed so that fruit & berry based spices were out, I went back and edited as many old posts as I could find to make sure they were compliant, but I must have missed this one! I’ve simply removed the black pepper from the ingredients list, since it’s non-essential 🙂

  10. I’ve made this twice in the past few weeks and it is probably my new favorite recipe (let alone my new favorite paleo recipe)! I LOVE it and everyone I shared it with really enjoyed it too. IT’S great as it is, but I’m also thinking about what other things I can do with it, because its such a simple, delicous, and healthy base. Different veggies (I did add zucchini one time, my boyfriend suggested cauliflower next time), different seasonings (my sister was thinking curry maybe), possibly doing the sauce and chicken over spaghetti squash, the possibilities with this awesome recipe are endless!!

  11. I was so happy to not only find an AIP casserole, but one that my whole family could enjoy! I added zucchini and it was delicious. In my hubby’s words, “This is a keeper.”

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