Low Carb, Gluten-Free Meat Croquettes

Since I'm reducing my carbohydrate intake, I'm into recipes low in carbs now. And I must say, for someone who was so insecure in the kitchen, I sure am having too much fun experimenting with these healthier recipes!

I found a croquette recipe that I thought to be interesting. The croquettes are very low in carbs, and as they aren't breaded with weat flour nor breadcrumbs, they are also gluten-free.

I decided to follow the recipe, but didn't have all the required ingredients. I ended up making some adaptations, and was pleasantly surprised at how tasty the result turned out! To summarize my conclusion, I think the croquettes taste as good as the "traditional" ones!

First I'll write the recipe, and then my considerations about what I did and the ingredients I used. Here goes my version of the recipe:

Low Carb, Gluten-Free Meat Croquettes Recipe

Ingredients:

• 0.55lbs (250g) ground beef;
• One chopped garlic clove;
• Salt, pepper and optionally other seasonings to taste;
• 3 tablespoons (around 0.19lbs or 90g) of cheese cream such as cream cheese;
• Grated cheese and some low carb (seeds, nuts etc.) flour for breading.

Instructions:

1. Season the ground beef with salt, pepper and optionally other seasonings of your preference. Let it rest to absorb the seasonings (marinate) for around 30 minutes.
2. In a pan or frying pan, sauté the seasoned ground beef with the chopped garlic clove. After you turn the stove off, let the meat cool down, or place it in the fridge for at least an hour.
3. Mix the meat with the cheese cream.
4. Take pieces of the mix and shape them into croquettes. If you have trouble getting the meat to stick, you may need to add more cheese cream.
5. Coat the croquettes with the grated cheese and low carb flour.
6. Bake the croquettes either in an oven or an air fryer at 200°c (400°f) from 12 to 15 minutes until it browns.
7. Done.

Yields around 11 croquettes, with each croquette having around 0.18g net carbs (carbohydrates with the fibers discounted).

My Comments

This is what I did and the ingredients I used. If you try the recipe, you may use whatever you have available or whatever is easier for you.

• For the cheese cream, I used ricotta cream.
• The grated cheese I used was Parmesan (the dried and grated kind in little packets commonly found in supermarkets around here).
• For the low carb flour, I used a mix of the only things I had available, which were linseeds and sunflower seeds (to make the flour, just beat the seeds in the blender or food processor until they become powder).
• Some people use only grated cheese with no flour, while others use only linseed flour. Both of them have a very strong taste, and I was scared of the final taste being too pronounced if I were to use either of them exclusively, so I decided to use both and add the sunflower seed flour to balance things out.
• I used around one tablespoon grated cheese, two tablespoons linseed flour, and three tablespoons sunflower seed flour. After breading the croquettes, I still had around two tablespoons of the flour mix left over!
• I had used two tablespoons of ricotta cream at first, but it wasn't enough. I had trouble getting the ground beef pieces to stick, and had to add a bit more ricotta cream (so, the final conclusion is around three tablespoons). I'm thinking that the meat would have stuck easier if I had mixed an egg into the filling. I'll try that next time.
• I forgot to grease the air fryer's basket and used no oil. Even so, the croquettes didn't stick to the basket and still came out crispy as though they had been fried!

Here is a picture of how my croquettes turned out:

Image source: own picture, taken with a smartphone.

The croquettes were crispy and tasty. It would be very hard to guess that the breading is made of seeds and grated cheese. I had been scared that the linseeds' taste could make the coating a bit bitter, but I don't feel the linseeds taste at all. Since all the coating's ingredients I used are filling, the croquettes are quite filling too.

Conclusion

To me, the croquettes tasted as good as the ones breaded with the traditional unhealthy flours and fryed in also unhealthy vegetable oils. With this recipe's success, I believe I have found a nice and healthy way to make breaded recipes. I'm already thinking of using this "flour mix" to bread beef, fish, onion rings, other vegetables... I'll surely try them out! And next time, I'll add an egg.

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Thank you for reading! This post is participating in the 82nd edition of Qurator's Tasty Tuesday contest. The prizes are some nice upvotes, and even non-Qurator members can participate. If you like to write and/or read about food, you may want to check it out.