A delicious yet filling gumbo. Completely ketogenic.

  • 4 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1 shallot, minced
  • 1 leek, sliced
  • 2 stalks of celery, sliced
  • 8 ounces of portabello mushrooms, sliced
  • 1 medium white or sweet onion, sliced thin
  • 8 TBSP kerrygold butter
  • 4 cups of chicken stock (gluten free, or make your own)
  • 1 TBSP pink Himalayan sea salt
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • 2 pounds of boneless skinless chicken breasts, salted on each side
  • 16 ounces of cream cheese
  • 1 cup organic heavy whipping cream
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • 1 pound of bacon, chopped into bite sized pieces
  1. Turn your slow cooker or Instant Pot to low setting. Add garlic, shallot, leek, celery, mushrooms, onions, 4 TBSP butter, 3 cups of the chicken stock, salt, and pepper.  Cover and cook for 1 hour.
  2. While the above is cooking, in a large frying pan or cast iron skillet, pan sear the chicken in the remaining butter (you may have to do 2 batches if your pan doesn’t fit 2 pounds of chicken). Brown for a few minutes per side. The chicken won’t be cooked yet, but will continue to fully cook in slow cooker later. Chop chicken into bite sized pieces and set aside.
  3. Deglaze the pan by adding the remaining cup of chicken stock to the hot pan and use a rubber spatula to scrape the pan. This will add a lot of flavor to the stock, especially if you used a cast iron skillet.
  4. Once step 1 is complete, add the cream cheese, whipping cream, garlic powder and thyme to the slow cooker. Stir in until all cream cheese is melted in.
  5. Add the bacon and the chicken to the slow cooker.
  6. Cover and slow cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Notes:

Most of my recipes would typically include skin-on and bone-in chicken, but for a soup skinless is better so there isn’t soggy skin, and bone out is just easier IMO. The creamy base you’ll get from this soup is enough to accommodate for the dryness of the chicken breast.

I used a cast iron skillet to brown the chicken and when de-glazing the pan I felt it added a little extra burst of flavor to the crock pot. This is wonderful tool every kitchen should have.

My preferred brand of bacon is greenfield. They have a wonderful uncured applewood smoked bacon and you can taste the difference. Coleman is another good one. I avoid BigFood giants such as Oscar Meyer, Smithfield and Hormel since they treat their pigs terribly and force farmers to do things as efficiently as possible even if that means inhumanely. Pay a little extra and support the smaller brands.

I took this recipe from peaceloveandlowcarb and modified slightly by doubling the butter, chicken, chicken stock, and cream cheese. This allowed for leftovers for several days. This soup is just as good reheated as it was when it was fresh out of the crock pot.