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Finally, a delicious Keto-friendly and dairy-free variation of chicken alfredo! Creamy low-carb keto alfredo sauce combines with crispy seared chicken and zucchini noodles for a quick and easy keto dinner. Ready and on the table in just 35 minutes!
How can you make chicken Alfredo healthier?
One of my favorite dishes as a child was a huge bowl of Fettuccini Alfredo! I’ve been on a mission to create a dairy-free Alfredo sauce. Something to feel comfort food-ish, but without the heaviness! Similar to my Keto-friendly Chicken Cordon Bleu, I wanted to use a cashew-based creamy sauce that gives me all of the decadence without hurting my stomach.
As a nutritionist, I love to take comfort food meals and turn them into a lighter version. In this case, we are turning Chicken Alfredo into a healthy Keto diet recipe! Soaking cashews creates a creamy base, and we add in fresh garlic, onion, tahini, and splash of lemon for additional flavor.
Making the Alfredo Sauce:
Here are the ingredients you will need for the Alfredo Sauce:
- Raw cashews: raw cashews help to create the magical creamy sauce. This ingredient is a must and cannot be substituted!
- Chicken broth: helps to add flavor, but you can use filtered water.
- Onion: provides some vitamin C and a boost of flavor!
- Garlic: It’s not an Alfredo sauce without garlic!
- Lemon Juice: I love the little splash of tang from the lemon here.
- Tahini: this enhances the flavor and consistency of the sauce by giving it some extra thickness.
- Nutritional Yeast: we get the “cheesy” taste from the nutritional yeast. This is found in most grocery stores near the spices!
- Salt and Pepper to taste
After soaking the cashews, drain the water. We will blend the ingredients in a high powered blender. Please note: a high powered blender is important, a food processor won’t work. If you want the smoothest sauce possible, you can soak the cashews for several hours and even overnight (especially if you are unsure about the power of your blender). I did put fresh basil as optional, but it’s kind of necessary! It tastes soooooo good with a healthy sprinkle of basil, and cracked black pepper.
Does it taste just like REAL Alfredo sauce?
I think it’s important to let you all know…..This doesn’t taste like an exact replica of alfredo sauce. That is pretty difficult to do without dairy products. However, you still get the same “I want to lick my plate clean” comforting feeling from this creamy garlic flavored sauce. It’s about as close as you can get!
How to enjoy Chicken Alfredo:
This tastes perfect over zucchini noodles, and my husband enjoyed with potato noodles. Why Zucchini noodles you ask? Well, if I like to make it lightweight, guilt-free, quick, healthy, and cozy, zoodles never disappoint. Looking for a simple side dish to pair with it? This alfredo is super tasty with my Roasted Broccoli, but would also be super yummy with some earthy garlic mushrooms. And you can never go wrong with my Easy House Salad!
Can I substitute the ingredients?
I do want to give you a few important details. There really is no substitution for the ingredients below, I cannot vouch for the consistency or taste if you change things up. I have made this a few times to get it just right, and one super important detail is to ensure that you soak your cashews in hot water for long enough. At least an hour is preferred.
Quick and Easy Keto Chicken Alfredo (Dairy Free)
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup raw cashews
- 1 lb chicken breast tenders, can also use pre-cooked chicken to make it easy
- 2-3 tbsp avocado oil, or olive oil, divided
- 6 cloves garlic, minced and divided
- 1 medium white onion, chopped
- 2 cups chicken broth, divided
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tbsp tahini
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast, non synthetic type*
- Salt and Pepper
- 1/3 cup fresh chopped basil, optional
- Vegetable noodles to serve
Instructions
- Soak your raw cashews for at least one hour in hot water, up to 12 hours. Drain and set aside when ready to cook.
- Heat a large skillet to medium heat. Salt and pepper your chicken breast strips, If you have large chicken breasts, cut into smaller pieces so the cook time is shorter. Add 2 tbsp avocado oil to the skillet, then add 2 cloves minced garlic. Heat the garlic for just one minute until flavorful, then add the chicken to the skillet. Cook for 3-5 minutes per side, or until chicken is cooked all the way through. Do not overcook. Set aside to a plate and cover with foil.
- Add the remaining avocado oil to the pan. Add in chopped onion. Let saute for 2-3 minutes to give the onion a bit more flavor. Now add the remaining minced garlic, then add in 1 cup chicken broth.
- Let the broth and onion/garlic mixture simmer for 8-10 minutes or until onion is completely soft. You may need to add in a bit more broth to prevent any burning. But the broth should be almost completely evaporated once the onions are ready.
- Place onion/garlic into your blender. Now add the remaining chicken broth (about 1 cup), lemon juice, tahini, nutritional yeast, and cashews. Mix in your blender on high speed until you have a smooth and creamy sauce. This may take a few minutes. You can prepare your noodles while the sauce is being made.
- Once the sauce is smooth, adjust with salt and pepper to taste, or even add in a bit more lemon if the nut taste is strong or more nutritional yeast (for cheesy flavor).
- If the sauce is cool, you can heat up in a small saucepan to serve (or microwave).
- Serve over vegetable noodles with fresh cracked pepper, salt, and fresh basil.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
what can you use besides cashews? Can you leave them out? Ihave everything but the cashews.
You could leave out the cashews, but I don’t think it will taste very good. They are there to give the sauce a rich, satisfying, creamy texture. Without it, you have a more water based sauce.
I was thrilled to try this recipe. It turned out really good too. My family had regular alfredo and I made this for myself. I wasn’t sure if I would love it because I haven’t ever tried a sauce like this, but I was pleasantly surprised. I used spaghetti squash as my ‘noodles’.
Love hearing that!
Flavor was great!! I did find the sauce a little thin so going to try to add some more cashews to thicken up! Otherwise was an awesome paleo dish!
Yay!! So glad you loved!
This was AMAZING!
I used a bit of Xantham gum to thicken it up a bit. My in-laws couldn’t believe it was dairy free ????
Woohoo!! Love hearing that 🙂
How did you get the noodles so thick? What spiralizer did you use?
Hi Christina, I use the Paderno. https://www.amazon.com/Paderno-World-Cuisine-Spiralizer-Counter-Mounted/dp/B00AW3IQMY/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1521291083&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=paderno+spiralizer&psc=1
Just made this last night. I’m trying all of your recipes now and cannot get enough of them! Hubby said he liked this more than the traditional. I was really skeptical yet pleasantly DELIGHTED.
That makes me so happy!! Glad you are loving it all!
What is nutritional yeast
Hi Sharon, it’s a deactivated yeast that is packed with nutritional value (lots of B vitamins). It has a nutty and cheesy taste that is added to recipes to give that “cheese” flavor without the dairy products. It can be found in the health food section of many grocery stores, online, or at all health food stores.
Hi Amy! I am eating a grain free/dairy free diet now, and just made this for dinner tonight. It was AH-MAZING!! I can’t say enough good things about it. So happy to have an alfredo sauce my whole family can enjoy!!
Yay!! So glad you enjoyed it April!!
When you make you zoodles, do you salt them and let them drain?
Hi Randi, I just make my zucchini noodles raw without draining. Sometimes I will salt them, it just depends on the sauce I’m serving with. With this recipe I do add a bit of salt!
It does Renee!!