Keto Chicken in Cream Sauce: quick-cooking chicken breasts cooked on the stove top with a killer basil and parmesan cream sauce and served over cauliflower rice.
Hey, keto friends, I have an easy keto dinner for you today: Keto Chicken in Cream Sauce. Quick-cooking chicken breasts cooked on the stove top with a killer basil and parmesan cream sauce and served over cauliflower rice.
This is one of my favorite keto recipes for weeknights because it’s easy, quick, and super creamy and satisfying. Like my Keto Chicken Soup , it’s also very non-keto-eater friendly. So you can make it for anyone, and they’re going to love it.
How to Make Keto Chicken in Cream Sauce
This recipe starts by slicing a large chicken breast horizontally into two thinner pieces so it’s easier and quicker to cook on the stove. If you only have small chicken breasts on hand, not a problem.
Just use two breasts instead of one, but still slice them into thinner pieces so they’re easy to cook.
Once cut, the chicken gets sprinkled with Italian seasoning , salt, and pepper, and then pan-fried. Since the chicken is thin, it’ll only take about 10 minutes to cook. And once the chicken is done, it’s time to make your cream sauce.
The cream sauce is super simple. Just simmer chicken broth and cream for a minute, add parmesan, basil, and pimientos with a little salt and pepper, and that’s it. There’s your sauce.
It seems way too simple, but I promise, it’s SO good.
Serve everything over a bed of cauliflower rice, with a side of green beans or oven-roasted broccoli , and enjoy. From start to finish, this recipe should take you less than 30 minutes.
A Note on Pimientos (What are Pimientos???!)
If you’ve never cooked with pimientos before, they’re diced cherry peppers, very mild and slightly sweet. You can usually find them at the grocery store in clear 2 or 4-ounce jars (at least here in California) near the olives.
If you can’t find pimientos, you can also substitute with 1/4 cup of finely diced red bell pepper cooked in 1 tablespoon of butter over medium heat until softened.
Keto Chicken Recipe Notes
- As written, the recipe makes 2 servings but it scales easily with no preparation changes needed
- For more keto recipes, try Keto Fried Rice and Bacon and Feta Chicken Breasts .
Ingredients
Special Equipment
- ▢ Instant-read thermometer
Chicken
- ▢ 1 large boneless skinless chicken breast
- ▢ Italian seasoning *
- ▢ Salt and pepper
Basil Cream Sauce
- ▢ 1/4 cup chicken broth
- ▢ 1/2 cup heavy cream
- ▢ 1/4 cup ( 1oz ) shredded Parmesan cheese
- ▢ 1 2-ounce jar diced pimientos drained
- ▢ 2 tablespoons loosely packed chopped fresh basil OR 1 teaspoon dried basil
- ▢ Salt and pepper to taste
Serve Over
- ▢ 1 1/2 cups cooked cauliflower rice
Instructions
- Cut your chicken breast in half horizontally by placing one hand on top of the breast and slicing the top and bottom into two thin, even pieces. Sprinkle both sides of each piece with Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper.
- Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Grease with cooking spray or a drizzle of olive oil. Once hot, add chicken and cook for 4-6 minutes per side (longer for very large breasts), until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the meat reads 165°F.
- Transfer chicken to a plate and tent with foil to keep warm.
- Return pan to stove and add chicken broth and cream. Bring to a simmer and cook for 1 minute. Turn heat down to low and add cheese, drained pimientos, basil, and salt and pepper to taste.
- Slice chicken breast and serve over cauliflower rice. Top with cream sauce and enjoy!
Notes
Recipe Adapted From Chicken in Cream Sauce
This small-batch recipe makes five of the best Chocolate Banana Muffins you’ll ever eat. You just need one ripe banana and one bowl, and you can be pulling these out of your oven in less than half an hour.
A little over a year ago, I posted these One-banana One-bowl Small-batch Banana Muffins to the blog. I sold them with the pitch: Hey, have a bowl? Have a banana? Make some Banana Muffins!
And they’ve been incredibly popular. Next to my Small-batch Chocolate Chip Cookies , they’re one of the posts I get the most happy messages about. Clearly, you guys love banana muffins and hate doing dishes and having a lone piece of fruit rotting on your counter. (Same.)
Hey, have a bowl? Have a banana? AND love chocolate? Make some Chocolate Banana Muffins!
Guys.
Guuuuuuys.
These muffins. I love them so much.
I love how easy they are to make. I love the way banana and chocolate are a perfect pair. And most of all, I love their texture.
That might sound odd, but the thing about banana muffins is that because bananas are so moist, if you’re not careful you can end up with muffins that are very heavy and almost gummy.
These muffins are NOT that. They are moist and decadent to be sure, but with a fantastic tender crumb that’s almost like biting into a cupcake. Get one warm out of the oven, with the chocolate chunks still melty and molten, and you’ll be pretty sure you’ve died and gone to banana muffin heaven.
I shared the first test batch with taste testers and they got a, “Wow, that’s just incredible.” (Mumbled out around a mouthful of muffin).
A “This is the best chocolate muffin I’ve ever had.”
And a “Damn you, I wasn’t eating sugar this week…are there any more?”
So you know it’s not just me who’s a fan of the things.
What I’m saying is that if you feel like your day could use some chocolate (really, what day couldn’t?), and there’s a shabby looking banana sitting on your counter right now or maybe in the office fruit bowl, you should probably do yourself a favor and take half an hour today to make yourself a batch.
To make this little batch of five chocolate banana muffins, you’ll just need one bowl (that’s right, these are one-bowl muffins) and a couple minutes to chop some chocolate, mash a banana, and mix some ingredients. If it’s before noon, brew yourself a pot of coffee while your muffins bake. If it’s after noon, maybe opt for some tea.
And once they are done baking, eat one warm out of the oven while you decide how many of these perfect little muffins you feel like sharing and how many you’re going to keep for yourself…
More Small-batch Muffin Recipes
- Orange Muffins
- Blueberry Muffins
- Chocolate Chocolate Muffins
- Cinnamon Apple Crumb Muffins
- Pumpkin Muffins
Small-batch Chocolate Banana Muffins Recipe Tips
- This recipe calls for your dry ingredients to be sifted using a fine-mesh strainer. It helps to aerate the flour and gets rid of any lumps in your cocoa powder. If you don’t own a fine-mesh strainer, they are cheap on Amazon and available in the baking aisle at most stores. You can also combine the dry ingredients in a small bowl and whisk them together, making sure to smash any large cocoa powder lumps. It doesn’t work quite as well but will do in a pinch.
- The baking temperature for these muffins starts at 425°F before being dropped to 350°F about halfway through cooking. The initial burst of higher heat helps give them bigger, fluffier muffin tops, but if you don’t want to mess with your oven in the middle of cooking, you can just bake them at 350°F for about 19 minutes.
Ingredients
Special Tools
- ▢ 5 muffin liners
- ▢ Fine-mesh strainer
Chocolate Banana Muffins
- ▢ 1 medium-to-large over-ripe banana
- ▢ 3 tablespoons ( 1.5oz ) unsalted butter melted
- ▢ 1/4 cup ( 50g ) brown sugar
- ▢ 1 large egg white
- ▢ 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ▢ 1/3 cup ( 40g ) all-purpose flour measured by weight or using the spoon and sweep method*
- ▢ 3 tablespoons ( 15g ) unsweetened cocoa powder
- ▢ 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- ▢ 1/8 teaspoon salt
- ▢ 2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chopped or 1/3 cup chocolate chips, plus more for topping
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 425°F and line a muffin tin with 5 liners.
- Place peeled banana in a medium bowl and mash it well with a fork or potato masher. Add melted butter and whisk until well combined. Add brown sugar, egg white, and vanilla. Mix well.
- Place a fine-mesh strainer over the bowl and add flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt to the strainer. Sift dry ingredients into the wet and use a spoon to mix until just combined. Stir in chopped chocolate or chocolate chips. Divide batter between prepared muffin cups, filling about 3/4 of the way full.
- Bake for 8 minutes at 425°F before turning the oven temperature down to 350°F. Bake for an additional 6 to 9 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffins comes out with just a few crumbs.
- Sprinkle extra chocolate over the top if desired. Cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes, and enjoy.
Notes
Recipe Adapted From Smitten Kitchen
These Small-batch Chocolate Cookie Dough Cupcakes are moist and decadent chocolate cupcakes smothered with a creamy, dreamy homemade cookie dough frosting. If you’re looking for something to liven up a boring week, these cupcakes are just what you’re looking for.
Hey you, yes you. How has your week been going? It’s Thursday, so that means you’ve probably been working hard and getting things done all week. Been responsible and reasonable and totally respectable. And isn’t it all kind of awful? Is it starting to get to you, like an itch under your skin?
Friend, I have just the antidote for that sort of mundane: Chocolate Cookie Dough Cupcakes.
Tell me those words don’t send a tiny shiver of delight down your spine.
(No, don’t tell me. If it didn’t, I don’t want to know that there’s no joy left in you.)
This tiny batch (makes just four) of these ridiculous, delightful little cupcakes is exactly the sort of thing you need at the end of a long work week. They’re decadently delicious, just on the right side of impractical, and shockingly easy to make.
They’re made with my favorite small-batch chocolate cupcake base, a base which is so soft and moist and incredibly chocolatey that you could happily eat it plain right out of the oven, but don’t because you need something to put this cookie dough frosting on.
And this frosting, OMG THIS FROSTING, it tastes like you made a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough , magically added a bit of creaminess to it and piled it on a cupcake. It’s the dream frosting for those of us who spent our childhoods begging to lick the cookie dough bowl.
Together with the rich chocolate cake, it’s A LOT. Like, pour yourself a glass of milk or coffee and settle in for a good time, a lot, because it’s a cupcake to eat slowly, savor, and lick the frosting from your fingers when it’s gone.
Chocolate Cookie Dough Cupcakes Recipe Tips
- Not feeling the chocolate cupcake base? You could make vanilla cookie dough cupcakes using this frosting on my Small-batch Vanilla Cupcakes recipe (maybe throw some chocolate chips in the batter too).
- This frosting contains flour. If you’re concerned about using raw flour in your frosting, I give instructions in the recipe for cooking it first, but this does change the flavor of the frosting slightly as part of the taste of cookie dough is the raw flour taste.
- Properly softened butter is a MUST for the frosting recipe. If your butter is not soft enough, the ingredients will not mix completely and you will end up with little flour lumps in your frosting. You want butter that is not melted but soft enough to easily squish with a finger. This shouldn’t be a problem during the summer, but in cold kitchens during the winter, you may need to cut the butter into cubes and place somewhere warm for a couple minutes.
- Finally, I recommend using a handheld electric mixer for the frosting. Small-batch frostings can usually be made by hand in a pinch, but I suspect you’ll have a hard time getting the flour to mix completely in this recipe if doing it by hand.
Ingredients
Special Equipment
- ▢ 4 cupcake liners
- ▢ Handheld electric mixer
- ▢ Fine mesh strainer or sifter
Chocolate Cupcakes
- ▢ 2 tablespoons ( 1oz ) unsalted butter
- ▢ 2 tablespoons ( 21g ) chopped semi-sweet chocolate
- ▢ 1 1/2 teaspoons vegetable oil
- ▢ 1/4 cup ( 30g ) all-purpose flour
- ▢ 2 tablespoons ( 11g ) cocoa powder sifted if lumpy
- ▢ 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- ▢ 1/8 teaspoon salt
- ▢ 1/4 cup ( 50g ) granulated sugar
- ▢ 1 large egg yolk room temperature
- ▢ 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ▢ 2 tablespoons milk any percentage
- ▢ 2 tablespoons hot coffee or hot water
Cookie Dough Frosting
- ▢ 1/2 cup ( 60g ) all-purpose flour measured by weight or using the spoon and sweep method*
- ▢ 1/4 cup ( 2oz ) unsalted butter softened (very soft but not melted)
- ▢ 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons ( 75g ) brown sugar
- ▢ 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ▢ 1/4 teaspoon salt
- ▢ 2 tablespoons milk plus more to taste
- ▢ 1/4 cup ( 42g ) semi-sweet miniature chocolate chips
Instructions
Chocolate Cupcakes
- Preheat your oven to 350°F and line a cupcake pan with 4 liners.
- To a small, microwave-safe bowl, add butter, chopped chocolate, and vegetable oil. Microwave for 15 seconds and stir until smooth, microwaving for an additional 15 seconds if necessary. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Whisk together and set aside.
- To a medium bowl, add sugar, egg yolk, and vanilla, and whisk until well-combined. Pour in slightly cooled chocolate mixture and whisk until uniform in color. Add flour mixture and whisk until just combined. Pour in milk and hot coffee (or hot water) and whisk until smooth. The batter will be thin.
- Divide the batter between prepared cupcake cups, filling 2/3 of the way full. Bake for 16 to 19 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean or with just a few crumbs.
- Cool cupcakes in the pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely before frosting, 15 to 20 minutes.
Cookie Dough Frosting
- Preheat your oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Spread flour out over parchment paper and bake for 10 minutes. Cool completely.
- In a medium bowl, use a handheld electric mixer to cream well-softened butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes.
- Add vanilla and beat until well-combined.
- Sift flour over the top of the butter and sugar mixture and add salt. With the mixer on medium, mix until flour is completely incorporated, at least 1 minute. Frosting will look like crumbs.
- Add 2 tablespoons of the milk and beat, starting on low working up to high until frosting is smooth and fluffy.
- If frosting is too stiff, add milk by the teaspoon until frosting reaches your desired consistency.
- Stir in chocolate chips.
- Cover cupcakes using rounded spoonfuls of frosting. Serve and enjoy!
Notes
Frosting Adapted From I Am Baker
Keto Chicken in Cream Sauce
Ingredients
Special Equipment
- Instant-read thermometer
Chicken
- 1 large boneless skinless chicken breast
- Italian seasoning *
- Salt and pepper
Basil Cream Sauce
- 1/4 cup chicken broth
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1/4 cup ( 1oz ) shredded Parmesan cheese
- 1 2-ounce jar diced pimientos drained
- 2 tablespoons loosely packed chopped fresh basil OR 1 teaspoon dried basil
- Salt and pepper to taste
Serve Over
- 1 1/2 cups cooked cauliflower rice
Instructions
- Cut your chicken breast in half horizontally by placing one hand on top of the breast and slicing the top and bottom into two thin, even pieces. Sprinkle both sides of each piece with Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper.
- Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Grease with cooking spray or a drizzle of olive oil. Once hot, add chicken and cook for 4-6 minutes per side (longer for very large breasts), until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the meat reads 165°F.
- Transfer chicken to a plate and tent with foil to keep warm.
- Return pan to stove and add chicken broth and cream. Bring to a simmer and cook for 1 minute. Turn heat down to low and add cheese, drained pimientos, basil, and salt and pepper to taste.
- Slice chicken breast and serve over cauliflower rice. Top with cream sauce and enjoy!
