Easy Chicken, Bacon, and Green Bean Stir-Fry

You can have this easy, tasty
Chicken, Bacon, and Green Bean Stir-fry
on the table in less than 30 minutes!

If you need a Keto recipe that you can get on the table quick, after a hectic day, this Easy Chicken, Bacon, and Green Bean Stir-fry is exactly what you're looking for.

Take a few minutes in the morning to prep the chicken, and you'll get a dish that's packed with flavor, as well as low in carbs.

I came up with this particular combination a few weeks ago when I was looking around the kitchen and wondering what the heck I could do with sauteed chicken breast chunks now that we can't flavor them with our favorite Thai chili sauce any more.

Thai sauce is pretty sweet, and gluten free, but the brand we like costs a whopping 10 carbs per tablespoon. It takes a lot more than a single tablespoon to flavor a stir-fry. Double or triple that.

There is a garlic chili sauce on the market that is both sugar-free and gluten free, and we do have a chicken stir-fry recipe in the archives here that uses that, but we didn't have any in the house.

Hubby likes things sweet, so when we moved to a moderate-carb gluten-free diet a few years ago, we switched to using the Thai style sauce instead.

But now that our blood sugars are out of control, I can't use that sauce right now.

Although hubby's glucose control would probably be okay with a little bit (he's recovering quickly now that he isn't eating candy or drinking soda), I have to do something different.

How I Converted a Low-Carb Side Dish Into a Keto Meal

One of our favorite vegetable side dishes is canned or frozen green beans tossed in bacon grease and sprinkled with some crisp crumbled bacon bits.

I wondered if stir-frying the chicken chunks in the bacon grease first, and then tossing in the crumbled bacon afterward, would be just as good.

It would make a complete, easy meal that way.

The first time I tried this, hubby was shocked at just how good it was. I wasn't watching my fat intake then, so I was able to use quite a bit of bacon and bacon grease for flavor. It came out really, really good that way.

But now that I'm no longer on Atkins Induction, and my weight has stalled, I've been trying to trim down my fat intake.

After starting to use less fat in this Keto recipe, I began experimenting with various ways to season the chicken meat. Canned green beans are pretty bland, and while bacon packs a terrific flavor-punch, I can't eat as much fat as it takes to really bring out the bacon flavor on the green beans.

Yesterday, I stumbled onto the idea of using a tablespoon of dry Grill Mates Garlic, Herb, and Wine Marinade Mix to perk up the flavor of the chicken.

This allowed me to use the bacon grease to flavor the beans at the end of the process.

One teaspoon of dry mix is only one carb.

We like our food heavily seasoned, so I used a full tablespoon of the above marinade mix (available at Amazon if your local grocery store doesn't have it) to season one large 12-ounce chicken breast.

The carb cost was three carbs for the entire recipe, bringing the carb count of this chicken stir fry to 14 net carbs.

Now, keep in mind, that's for the entire recipe, which I normally divide into two generous servings. That comes to 7 net carbs each.

Green beans are not a low-carb bargain, so it's 10 total carbs if you're doing Atkins 72 or 92 and not subtracting the fiber in the green beans.

If you're on a low-carb high-fat diet, you can certainly use more than 4 slices of bacon and more bacon grease than the 2 tablespoons called for in the recipe.

You could also add some butter if you like.


Boneless chicken thighs, instead of breast, would raise the fat content even more. And with chicken thighs, you wouldn't have to marinate the chicken all day, either. A couple of hours would be plenty.

Chicken, Bacon, and Green Bean Stir-Fry Recipe

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• 12 ounce chicken breast, cut into bite-sized chunks
• 1 tablespoon Grill Mates Garlic, Herb, and Wine Marinade mix
• 4 slices of thick bacon
• 2 tablespoons bacon grease
• 1 medium-sized green onion, sliced up
• 1 can whole-cut green beans

Method:

Place the chicken chunks in a small bowl, sprinkle with the dry marinade mix, cover, and allow to marinade all day in the refrigerator. If you're short on time, you want to let the chicken sit for at least a couple of hours.

Fry up your bacon, drain well, and crumble it into bits. Remove the bacon grease from the skillet, reserving a couple of tablespoons for the beans later on.

Saute the chicken in the bacon grease residue that's left in the pan. I used a good non-stick skillet for this, so the chicken wouldn't stick. When well browned and cooked through, add your green onion, green beans, and the crumbled bacon.

Drizzle the warm bacon grease over the green beans and stir everything together. Continue stir-frying until everything is well mixed and hot.

Nutritional Info per serving:

412 calories
23.6 grams fat
10.1 carbs (7 net)
38 grams protein