Sensational Sausage Stir-fry

For anyone who knows me well, it should come as no great surprise to hear of how excited I was on discovering of a truly excellent brand of sausage the other day. Innuendo and pun-tastic double entendres aside, I am, and always have been, a proud exponent of the humble sausage, perhaps even a sausage connoisseur, if you'll permit me this condescension. Whilst my options regarding this greatest of foods have become more limited since I began this diet, I have still managed to find plenty of high fat, zero carb sausages out there, particularly varieties like Bratwurst as produced by our good friends the Germans.


You will recall from a previous blog post that sausage, served with sauerkraut and mustard, was one of my standard 'go-to' meals whilst on my travels, however this meal always needed to be accompanied with a decaf coffee containing a rather hefty serving of heavy whipping cream as I simply could not get enough fat into the meal. 

That was until last week, whilst on one of our many wild goose chases around McAllen (zero carb goat's cheese on this occasion),  when we found ourselves at Ruben's grocery store. Located in what I have been told, is the slightly less desirable part of town, Ruben's stocks a veritable smorgasbord of imported foods from the Caribbean, South and Central America, and of course Mexico. It was here that I found Chappell Hill's Smoked Beef sausage. 

This amazingly tasty zero-carb sausage is actually made in Texas, and is not only high fat, but also relatively low in protein, meaning that I could eat 155g of sausage and still be within my 24g-a-meal protein limit. This also yielded me a massive 50g of fat, meaning that I did not need to 'waste' my carbs on heavy whipping cream and could liven it up with a stir fry of green peppers and spring onions. 

Ingredients:

155g Chappell Hill Smoked Beef sausage

60g green pepper

16g spring (green) onions

12g chopped pickled jalapeños 

13g olive oil

Simply chop up all the ingredients and sautée them in a little olive oil, garnishing with a few chopped picked jalapeños once done.

fat:  63.5 g, protein:  23 g, carb:  2.8 g

ratio:  2.5:1

Naturally not all sausage will boast numbers as good as the legendary Chappell Hill's. The recipe can therefore be amended by either adding a little more oil, which may be difficult to get down, or better still, by adding a creamy coffee to the mix, although note that it will add carbs so you will need to cut down a bit on those 'greens'.

Scrambled Sausage and Eggs

Believe it or not, but you can actually get sick of bacon.  The ketogenic diet can do that to you.  When that happens, this breakfast is such a yummy respite.

Ingredients:

Scramble:

55 g breakfast sausage

15 g green onion

20 g european butter

100 g eggs (2)

10 g heavy whipping cream (40%)

Creamy Coffee:

50 g heavy whipping cream (40%)

1-2 mugs of decaf coffee

Brown the breakfast sausage in a pan over medium heat with chopped green onion, breaking into smaller pieces.  The values used here are for Owens brand of breakfast sausage, but when we're on the road we look for any brand which shows "0" for carbs, and some of these have even more fat or less protein.

Whip together the eggs and cream and add to the pan with the butter turning heat to medium low.

Cook until eggs are done to your liking.  If you use salted butter, then it doesn't even need seasoning!

For creamy coffee, simply add the cream to the amount of decaf coffee you prefer.  Tristan didn't like coffees before, but now that they're full of cream, he quite enjoys them.

fat:  65.8 g, protein:  25.1 g, carb:  3 g

ratio:  2.3:1

Because a lot of the fat in this meal comes from the cream in the coffee, it means your breakfast isn't so greasy, which is also really nice.

Bratwurst with Sauerkraut and Mustard

Hostels with kitchens - a big help for keto traveling

Another travel-friendly meal!  Sausages and hot dogs are pretty standard fare when camping, so we needed a way to make it keto-friendly.  Don't be fooled, the hot dogs and sausages you find at gas stations and little small town groceries are unlikely to cut it.  We only buy sausages that say 'carbohydrate: 0' on the nutritional label, which are few and far between.  Usually, those are bratwurst.  Boars Head makes a low-carb bratwurst, which we use as our carb value for calculating purposes, but it has proven to be quite elusive!  We made an exception for Trader Joe's very fat-tastic bratwurst coming in at 'less than 1 carb' which is not currently in the keto-calculator and which I am using for calculations here.

With the sausage sorted, we had to figure out a way to make it a meal.  Tristan was craving sauerkraut and mustard, which make a perfect accompaniment to a bratwurst and are wholly keto-approved.  Score!  If you aren't adamantly opposed to mayo with a sausage, it would be another great way to bump up your fat. (I love hot dogs with mayo.)  

To finish off the fat, pair with a creamy decaf   coffee (not pictured).

Ingredients:


Sausages:

2 Trader Joe's Hofbrau Brats
45 g sauerkraut
14 g yellow mustard (or 2 sachets nicked from a fast-food chain)

Creamy Coffee:

40 g heavy whipping cream (40%)
cup of decaf coffee

This is not strictly a recipe as such but more of a meal idea, so no real explanation needed.  Cook your sausages as you like (boil, pan fry, roast over a fire).  Just make sure they're cooked all the way through!

fat:  66.7 g, protein:  27.8 g, carb:  2.9 g

ratio:  2.2:1

Note:  Less fatty sausages (as most others, including Boars Head will be) will likely need a spoonful or two of supplemental fat to hit your desired ratio, so make sure to take into account the values for whatever sausage you use!