Nomato BBQ chicken and bacon casserole

Cooking 2 dinners every night, 1 for you and 1 for everyone else at the table, wears on a person in a way that has nothing to do with the recipe itself. This casserole is one of the rare dishes that does not ask that of you. Everyone eats the same pan.

Spaghetti squash stands in for pasta here and brings real fiber and beta-carotene along with it, food that supports the gut lining this way of eating is working to repair, and the spinach folded through adds folate on top of that. The nomato sauce, built from roasted beet and carrot, carries its own color and beta-carotene instead of leaning on tomato.

A pound of bacon and 2 pounds of chicken breast is a lot of animal for 1 dish. Buy what you can from a butcher who raises the animals decently, and treat that choice as part of the cooking, not a separate errand.

Before you serve it, take a breath and look at the pan, the glaze on top, the color underneath. 1 dinner, 1 pan, everybody at the same table.

Nomato BBQ sauce ingredients

• 1 small beet, peeled and roasted until soft
• 1 medium carrot, roasted until soft
• 3/4 cup bone broth or water
• 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 3 tbsp coconut aminos
• 1/2 tsp sea salt

Casserole ingredients

• 1 lb bacon, chopped (AIP-compliant, sugar-free, nightshade-free)
• 1 small red onion, diced
• 2 lb chicken breast, chopped
• 2 cups fresh spinach
• 1 medium spaghetti squash, pre-baked and shredded
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• sea salt to taste

Method

First make the nomato BBQ sauce. Blend the roasted beet and carrot with the broth, apple cider vinegar, coconut aminos, and salt until smooth and glossy, the color of a deep barbecue glaze. You want about 1.5 cups. Taste and adjust the salt.

Cook the chopped bacon in a large skillet until almost crisp. Lift it out and set it aside, leaving the fat in the pan.

In that bacon fat, cook the diced onion and chopped chicken over medium-high heat until the chicken is cooked through and reaches at least 165 F. Add the spinach at the end and let it wilt.

In a large bowl, combine the chicken mixture, the shredded spaghetti squash, the garlic powder, the nomato BBQ sauce, and about half the bacon. Season with salt. Transfer to a greased baking dish and scatter the remaining bacon over the top.

Bake at 400 F for 30 minutes, until hot through and lightly browned on top.

Instant Pot variation

You can build the whole dish in the Instant Pot before its final bake. Use the saute setting to crisp the bacon, then cook the onion and chicken in the rendered fat to 165 F and wilt the spinach in. Turn the pot off, stir in the shredded squash, garlic powder, nomato sauce, and half the bacon, top with the rest, and either finish in the oven at 400 F for browning or use a low slow-cook setting to heat through. Flag timing for kitchen testing.

*Adapted from acleanplate.com*