For ten years now I've been experimenting with ideas for Thanksgiving and adding recipes to my collection of Carb-Conscious Thanksgiving Recipes. And every year among the low-carb options there have been a couple of Thanksgiving recipes that are a little indulgent if you're trying to stick to a lower-carb diet. I acknowledge that but don't really apologize for it, because Thanksgiving only comes once a year, and even my most indulgent dishes are still lower in carbs and use healthier ingredients than most of the Thanksgiving food you'll see this time of year.
In this Brussels Sprouts Salad with Bacon, Dried Cranberries, Almonds, and Parmesan there are a lot of healthy raw brussels sprouts and very small amounts of the other ingredients. You can certainly get by with less bacon than the 5 pieces I used, and discard all the bacon grease and make the salad with entirely olive oil if that sounds better to you. The most carb-heavy ingredients here are dried cranberries and a couple of teaspoons of maple syrup in the dressing, and if you omit the cranberries and use sugar-free maple syrup this could be a very low-carb salad.
Please adapt the recipe to fit your own personal needs and eating preferences, but no matter how you change it up, if you've never had a salad with raw brussels sprouts, I hope you'll try this one. I made this salad with both Jake and Kara to get the recipe just right, and both of them loved it as much as I did! And it's a little early to say for sure, but I suspect it's probably going to be my favorite new Thanksgiving recipe for 2014!
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