Modig Fitness Eats: Spaghetti Squash Chicken Fritters

Welcome to the first week of the Healthy Habits Challenge. Whether you are participating in the challenge or interested in adding more recipes to your repertoire, we are glad you’re here. If you are a new cook, one thing we’d like to impress upon you is that you never have to be a slave to each ingredient in the recipe. Baking might be more sensitive to ratios, but cooking allows for a bit more flexibility. This recipe is a perfect example of how playing with ingredients can be enjoyable and fun. We have made this recipe a number of times, but this time we forgot to buy onions (oops) and decided it might be fun to add red peppers and fresh spinach. We modified by adding a bit of onion powder to give some flavor the onion would have provided, and threw in a finely diced red pepper and fresh chopped spinach. The result was awesome. Have fun and enjoy adding new recipes to your list of “go to’s!”

 Spaghetti Squash Chicken Fritters

Ingredients

• 1 Small Spaghetti Squash (about 2 lbs)
• 2 cups baked, grilled, broiled (you choose!) chicken breasts or thighs *
• 1/2 cup finely chopped yellow onion
• 1 cup blanched almond flour
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• pinch of coarse sea salt
• pinch of freshly ground black pepper
• 2 to 3 TB coconut oil

Process

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Cut the spaghetti squash in half lengthwise and place it cut size down on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until soft to the touch. Remove from oven and let rest until cool enough to handle, then use spoon to scoop out and discard the seeds. Use a fork to remove the spaghetti squash strands. Measure out roughly 2 cups of the strands and place in a large bowl.
3. To the squash, add the chicken, onion, almond flour, eggs, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Mix well and form patties, similar in shape to burger patties. (The recipe originally states it should make 8 patties, but we had almost double that but a bit smaller in size.)
4. Heat TB of coconut oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add 2 to 3 patties to the pan and cook on both sides for a total of 4 to 5 minutes. Do not crowd the pan. Repeat with the rest of the patties, adding more oil to the pan as needed, until all the patties have been cooked.

* We typically bake 2 – 3 lbs of chicken thighs in the oven and chop 2 cups for the recipe and put the remainder in the fridge for other meals. Chicken thighs are extremely easy to make (375 degrees for 25 – 30 minutes with a bit of salt and pepper is all you need!)