Paleo-Primal Coconut Almond Chicken Recipe

From Hive Health Media. This is for beginners unsure how to start, or people with cooking skills who are unsure ho to use Paleo ingredients.

"Like many Paleo/Primal eaters, I love coconut. It’s delicious, nutritious, and incredibly versatile– between coconut milk, shredded coconut, and coconut oil, you can do pretty much anything (and there’s even a Primal cookbook devoted to coconut!). I also love almond in all of its forms: almond butter, almond meal, almond slivers, raw almonds. While there are countless ways to combine these two super-foods, I decided to make chicken breast coated with shredded coconut, chopped almonds, and cinnamon.

Since I started eating Paleo/Primal over a year ago, I stopped eating “breaded” chicken (until today)– in my 19 years of the Standard American Diet, however, I used to eat chicken breaded in everything from bread crumbs to corn flakes to potato chips. This coconut-almond recipe proves that you don’t need unhealthy foods to make a “breading”– actually, I think this tastes better than any of those Standard American Diet chicken recipes!

Ingredients:
-1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
-1/2 cup finely chopped almonds
-1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
-Cinnamon (and/or any other spice)
-Coconut milk

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°.

2. Mix together coconut, almonds, and cinnamon in a bowl. Pour coconut milk into a separate bowl.

3. Dip chicken breast in coconut milk and roll in coconut/almond/cinnamon mixture and place on pan. (I found it easiest to pour the mixture onto a flat surface, such as a plate, to do this step, but you can do it in the bowl too.)

4. Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes.

Many people become bored while eating Paleo/Primal because they believe there’s not a lot of food choices. However, combining Paleo/Primal foods to make things like “breading” can spice up your meals– modifying this recipe can also get you simply coconut chicken, almond chicken, or cinnamon-rubbed chicken. Change up the protein to shrimp or salmon, or change the almonds to walnuts or pecans. No matter how you decide to combine or substitute the ingredients, you’ll find yourself with a meal that’s 100% real and 100% delicious."

Here's the simpler Wenchypoo method:

Take equal amounts of almond flour and chili powder, garlic powder, and onion powder, and combine it all in a gallon-sized zippy bag...we're gonna do Shake and Bake!

Wet you chicken (either by rinsing it off under a filtered tap, dipping in egg, or dipping in milk), then insert one chicken piece into a zippy bag, close the top, and shake until well-coated. Remove chicken from the bag and place on a baking pan (I use my toaster oven pan). Continue shaking-and-baking the remaining chicken pieces until all are coated and placed on a pan.

I cook mine in a toaster oven at 350 for 30 minutes, but a regular oven can be used just as the recipe above describes. You can turn over the chicken midway through cooking, or you can just leave it--either way, it turns out beautifully, and tastes GREAT!

BTW--the chili powder/onion powder/garlic powder/almond flour combo works great on ANY meat, not just chicken. I tried on beef, turkey thighs, and pork too, and all come out moist and tasty! All were cooked at 350 for 30 minutes or more (in my toaster oven), so you'd probably just use the time and temp in the article above.

DO NOT KEEP LEFTOVER POWDER TO USE ON OTHER MEATS LATER--THIS SETS YOU UP FOR POSSIBLE CROSS-CONTAMINATION OF BACTERIA.

If you find you want to use this powder more than once, make a big batch of it, and store it in a large container, and measure out portions to use as you need it. That way, the unused powder stays clean, while you end up tossing out only the part you actually used.