Chicken of the Woods Curry with Riced Cauliflower

We are huge fans of vegetables in our home and love mushrooms, especially foraged mushrooms! I’m so excited to share this delicious and easy recipe with you – Chicken of the Woods Curry with Riced Cauliflower.

Meet Our Friend Sally!

This is our friend Sally. Sally is an amazing chef and outdoors expert. We attended a fun cooking class with her at Holly Hill Farm in Cohasset about Wood Fired Cooking and she prepared a fabulous vegan curry at the event. She gifted us Chicken of the Woods mushrooms and I thought they’d be a perfect addition to the vegan curry with riced cauliflower. So I took Sally’s recipe and made a few modifications.

What is Chicken of the Woods?

Chicken of the Woods, or Laetiporus Sulphureus, is an easy identifiable mushroom that has a brilliant and luminous quality and grows on living trees. It’s vibrant in color – orange and yellow and grows shelf-like. It’s delicious cooked like chicken cutlets or in curry. It really soaks up all the flavorful sauce.

Health benefits of Chicken of the Woods

• low in calories and fat
• contains health promoting compounds like antioxidants
• may help fight tumors
• may help reduce inflammation
• a serving of chicken of the woods contains – 10% protein, 75% carbohydrate, 3% fat and 140 calories

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Why We Love This Recipe

I mean who doesn’t love a good curry, right? But this dish is so full of flavor – tangy red thai curry, aromatic ginger and creamy coconut milk?

This recipe also helps us stick to the high protein, low carb diet we’re on. I think many of you know this but we’ve been trying to stick to this since July and we’re following the Blood Sugar Detox Diet and this recipe works great on it. Instead of regular rice we did riced cauliflower which I’ll share a bit further down. Luke has lost 14 pounds and I’ve lost 10.5 pounds so far. We have more energy, we’re drinking less coffee and we just feel better! We do have some days when we splurge.

I also love this recipe because it’s an easy one pot meal for the curry. I love cooking it in my Le Creuset.

Prepping and Sourcing Mushrooms

Sourcing

These mushrooms can be found growing on live trees and they look like shelves of gold. You want to make sure you’re picking fresh mushrooms. If they look too bug infested or aren’t a vibrant color than they are old.

Sally found the mushrooms we used, but if you’re local and don’t feel like foraging – Mcguire’s Mushrooms is a wonderful source.

Prepping

Make sure your mushrooms are clean prior to cooking. To prep for this curry I soaked the mushrooms in a salt bath for 5 minutes and patted dry. I then cut away any thick pieces and discarded them as they will be just be too tough to eat.

More methods for prepping / cooking – Soak mushrooms in salt bath or vinegar bath for 5 minutes and pat dry. You can remove any dirt with an unused toothbrush. If you plan on blanching them in boiling water you might want to slow boil them for 7 minutes and then put them into a marinade. You can freeze them for a stir fry for later or cook them sliced in pieces in stir fry or on kebabs on the grill.

Freshly foraged chicken of the woods can last in the fridge in a paper bag for up to approximately 5 days.

How to Rice Cauliflower

We served our chicken of the woods curry with riced cauliflower. To do this you want to wash your cauliflower and then cut florets off. In batches in a food processor hit pulse. You want it to be texture of rice, but not too fine. Squeeze out all the water. Then heat coconut oil in a wok or pan and sauté rice cauliflower until cooked and slightly brown. We like to add salt and pepper to taste.

Chicken of the Woods Curry with Riced Cauliflower

This has become such a favorite in our home and it’s so healthy. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Chicken of the Woods Curry with Riced Cauliflower

This vegan curry is packed with flavor and the health benefits of chicken of the woods

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Course Main Course

Servings 4

Equipment

• 1 food processor
• 1 dutch ovem
• 1 wok or frying pan

Ingredients

  

• 1 Tablespoon Coconut Oil plus more for cauliflower
• 1 Cup Onion chopped
• 1 Pound Chicken of Woods chopped into smaller pieces
• 1 Pinch Salt
• 1 Tablespoon Ginger finely grated
• 2 Cloves Garlic pressed and minced
• 2 Cups Red and Yellow Peppers sliced
• 1 Cup Carrots sliced on diagonal
• 2 Tablespoons Red Curry Paste
• 1 Can Coconut Milk
• ½ Cup Water
• 1 Cup Baby Bok Choi or Kale sliced
• 1 ½ Teaspoons Sugar brown, coconut, turbino (we omitted this to stick to our no sugar diet but added more coconut amino)
• 1 Tablespoon Tamari
• 2 Teaspoon Rice Vinegar
• 2 Teaspoon Lime juice
• 1 Handful Basil and Cilantro chopped
• Red pepper flakes to taste
• 1 Handful Scallions chopped
• 1 Head of Cauliflower riced

Instructions

 

• Prep and clean chicken of the woods prior to cooking.
  
• Get the oil in the pot very hot. Add onions and sprinkle of salt until onions are translucent. About 5 minutes.
• Add ginger and garlic and cook for 30 seconds.
• Add peppers, carrots and cook for 4 minutes. Then add curry paste.
• Add coconut milk, water, greens, and sugar (if using) and chicken of the woods.
• Stir to combine and simmer over medium / high heat and cook until carrots and chicken of the woods are tender
  
• While the pot simmers. Prep the cauliflower and rice it in a food processor. You want to press pulse until the cauliflower is like large pieces of rice. Make sure it isn't too fine. Squeeze out water from cauliflower and sauté in a wok or frying pan in olive oil until cooked through and slightly golden.
• Remove the dutch oven with the curry from heat once the chicken of the woods and carrots are tender. Add tamari and lime juice.
• Garnish with chopped basil, cilantro and scallions
• Serve with riced cauliflower
  

Notes

You can also serve with basmati rice and naan bread but we’re trying to follow low carb diet.

This tastes amazing reheated too!

Keyword chicken of the woods, red curry

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Did you enjoy this post? If so, let me know! I’d love to hear if you give it a try!

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