If you’re like me, you’re always looking for a new way to contain your food. I don’t mean contain your food as in how you swallow it and keep it in your belly, or how you process in your body. I mean how you contain your food in your hand while you’re eating it.
One of the things I do miss about bread is the fact that sandwiches are so convenient. And not just sandwiches. Grain products supply you with pies, tarts, wraps, tacos, pizzas, and all sorts of other ways to get delicious messy morsels from the plate into your mouth in a tidy manner. Without the bread as a base, sometimes it can be difficult to get those tasty low-carb high-fat treats eaten.
One of my favorite dishes in Mexican cooking is the huarache (pronounced wa-ra-chay, with a breathy note at the beginning for a sort of hwa sound). Named after the sandal-shaped base, this is a fried flatbread made of corn masa, and covered with the sorts of fillings that you might otherwise find inside of a taco or a burrito. Properly prepared, a huarache can look like a tiny party in your hand.
It’s easy to find a way to make the fillings low-carb high-fat, but it’s almost impossible to find a good replacement for the base of a huarache. I considered a few things that I could do with coconut flour and eggs, but in the end I decided that the most convenient and delicious way to simulate the fundamental huarache experience was just to pile everything onto a clean dry romaine lettuce leaf.
So here’s my recipe for the type of filling that makes for a perfect one-person meal of low-carb high-fat huaraches. These ingredients will hold together well, and there’s so much flavor that you certainly won’t miss the doughy base of the original.
Enjoy!
Low-Carb High-Fat Huaraches
2 perfect romaine lettuce leaves
1 cooked chicken thigh, boned and shredded
2 Tbsp sour cream
1 oz white cheddar cheese, shredded
1/4 cup cooked red or black beans (slow carbs – optional)
1/4 small white onion, chopped
1/2 small red tomato chopped
1/2 small pepper (bell or chili) seeded and chopped
1 tsp hot sauce (to taste)
1. Set aside the lettuce leaves
2. Combine the remaining ingredients in a bowl
3. Scoop half the filling into each leaf
4. Eat those huaraches!
All the details of this recipe are subject to your taste, creativity, and imagination. You prefer a different cheese? Go ahead and add some queso fresco. Don’t like hot sauce? Leave it out. Want to avoid even the slowest of slow carbs? Don’t put in any beans. Prefer your filling hot? Zap it in the microwave for a few seconds before scooping it into the leaves.
Be sure to let me know how this works for you. This is an excellent go-to lunch for a busy day, especially when I have leftover chicken lying around.