Low Carb Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole
Low Carb Chicken Cordon Bleu is an easy low carb dinner recipe made with cauliflower, ham, chicken, covered in a creamy dijon sauce.
I love eating low carb because I still get to eat rich, hearty food like this Low Carb Chicken Cordon Bleu all I have to do is find a few low carb substitutions.
Chicken cordon bleu is usually lightly breaded and the creamy sauce is thickened with flour. When I turned it into a casserole I knew I would need to figure out a way to thicken the sauce enough to coat all of the ingredients and help them stick together. Enter Xanthan gum. It is a low carb alternative to flour for thickening sauces and thanks to all of the diets out there that don’t allow grains you can find it in most grocery stores. If yours doesn’t have it you can always get it on Amazon here.
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Making the low carb chicken cordon bleu casserole itself is pretty easy it’s just a matter of a little patience while you create the rich creamy dijon sauce. Then you toss together some cauliflower that has been cooked just enough to be tender, and fully cooked ham and chicken with the sauce and spread it into a greased casserole dish. It bakes covered in a 400 degree F oven for about 20 minutes then you remove the foil and let it finish cooking so the Parmesan cheese on top (who needs bread crumbs when you have Parmesan?!) gets golden brown.
What you end up with is an amazing, creamy, filling casserole that is only 7 net carbs per serving! Definitely one of my favorite low carb dinner recipes!
Low Carb Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole
Ingredients
- 1 Head cauliflower, , large
- 4 tbsp Butter
- 2 ½ c Heavy cream
- 4 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 2 cloves Garlic
- 2 tsp Xanthan gum
- 1 Egg yolk
- 1 c Gruyere cheese, , shredded
- 1 c Fresh parmesan, , divided
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- 6 oz Chicken breast, , cooked and cubed
- 12 oz Ham, , cooked and cubed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
- Add 3-4 cups of water to a large pot and add the chopped cauliflower to it. Bring the water to a boil and steam the cauliflower until it just begins to soften but still has a little crunch to it about 5-7 minutes.
- Drain cauliflower and set aside.
- In the same pot melt the butter over medium high heat. Add heavy cream, dijon mustard, and garlic cooking for 3-5 minutes until cream is warmed through. Sprinkle the xanthan gum over the liquid whisking the whole time to keep it from clumping.
- Stir the yolk in a small dish, then add a bit of the warmed cream to it whisking to temper the egg and keep it from cooking as you slowly add it to the cream mixture whisking the whole time.
- Keep whisking the cream as it begins to thicken, about 10 minutes.
- Add the Gruyere cheese and ½ cup of the Parmesan . Stir the mixture until it is fully combined and then let it cook for another 5 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.
- Add the ham, chicken, and cauliflower to the mixture tossing it gently to fully coat it then spread it evenly in a greased 9 x 13 casserole dish.
- Top with the remaining Parmesan cheese and cover with aluminum foil before putting it in the oven to bake for 25 minutes then remove the foil and put it back in the oven to bake for another 15-20 minutes or until it is hot and bubbly and heated all the way through.
- Remove from the oven and let stand for 15 minutes then serve.
- Enjoy!
Nutrition
This was yummy. Definitely a keeper. Next time I will cut it in half. There’s only two of us, and this could feed an army. I didn’t think it was as good when reheated as leftovers.
Could I make the sauce in my Blendtec?
I think it needs to continue to cook as you stir everything together and I’d be a little worried that the blender would whip the heavy cream. If you try it let me know!
Is the xanthan gum necessary or can i make this without it? Does it have any substitute? Thanks 🙂
Xanthan gum helps to thicken the sauce. If you can’t find it you can add a tablespoon or two of flour and cook the sauce a little longer to help cook it down to a thicker consistency. It will add some carbs but spread out across the whole meal it isn’t too bad. I have heard you can use arrowroot too but I don’t have any experience with it.
I made it without Xanthan gum and cut a cup of heavy cream out. The sauce thickened well. I am going to cut the butter in half as well next time, to cut some more fat.
I’m so glad it turned out for you without the xanthan gum. I think I will give it a try next time.
You could also use Konjac Flour
I’m going to give that a try!
I found the gum in the organic section. It’s a powder.
I made it withou and it was delish!
Have you done the nutrition breakdown on this? How many net carbs? Looks good!
Hi Rhonda we did figure up the net carbs and it is 7 net carbs per serving (8 servings total). It’s super filling too!
Why do you add cauliflower? My husband hates it and I was wondering if there is a reason for it or if I can either omit it or substitute broccoli for it?
I just love cauliflower :). You can definitely add broccoli instead!!
I’ve made this about 6 times now and love it! Although I sneer at those that alter the recipe without first trying it ‘as is’ at least one time, i freely admit I use corn starch instead of xantham gum. I believe this must be why I have to cut the cream in half on order to get the final result to look like what is pictured here. When I use 2 1/2 cups of cream the result is runny! 1 1/4 got me to where I wanted. I must say my family loves this and requests it often, even my very picky teenages who never ate cauliflower in her life!
We use the xanthum gum to keep it low carb. But subbing it out even for flour would work also. It is only used as a thickener.
Has anyone tried freezing this?
This is delicious! We eat low carb and this is a great addition. I didn’t use the thickener, just my preference. It was a bit runny but we feel it’s similar to a chowder. I’ll add some crispy, chopped bacon and fresh chives next time. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for sharing! I’m so glad you liked it. I’ve been playing around with a few tweaks to the recipe that would leave out the thickener so I may have an update soon 🙂
Fantastic Collection of recipes!!!
It shows that the serving size is 1 gram?? That is about the weight of a sugar packet. If you even eat a typical serving of this it would most DEFINITELY NOT be low carb/keto!
Can you clarify?
This recipe makes 8 servings. The stats listed are for 1/8 of the casserole. I updated the nutrition label to state 1 slice.
Hello all! Looking through the comments, I noticed two key points: The recipe not tasting so wonderful as a leftover and being somewhat runny. Not here to take out anything from the recipe, but to ask if anyone could try making it another way. Nothing major, but the recipe being runny may contribute to the cauliflower. Cauliflower is inherently water, and steaming it only adds more water. I say, after boiling while it’s set aside, let the cauliflower dry out some by sitting on paper towels. Lastly, this recipe called for some wonderful cheeses. Leftover home made Mac and cheese, for example, is generally somewhat gritty and doesn’t flow as cheese should. This is why people in to fondue add a key ingredient: sodium citrate. I would suggest that after the cream mixture has had cheese added, instead of salt and peppering to taste, add a tsp of sodium citrate and pepper to taste. Just try out this alteration, I did and it made a difference. Thanks for reading this far also!
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments. I am going to try sodium citrate the next time I make this.
Just made this for lunch (and to have leftovers for the next few days, of course ????) and it was delicious; my 2 year old chowed down! I didn’t have Xanthan Gum on hand so I subbed in glucomannan powder instead and it turned out well! I may cut down on the butter next time, it was a tad runny but nothing bad. Thanks for a great recipe! ❤️
So glad you liked and even more excited your little one did too. Thanks so much for letting us know how it turned out!
Have you ever used the frozen cauliflower rice in the recipe instead of steaming a fresh head to help on prep time?
I’m worried the cauliflower rice, especially frozen, would get too mushy as everything cooked. You could try frozen cauliflower florets just be aware it make but a little runnier than it would be with fresh cauliflower.
This was seriously amazing. I used 2tsp of coconut flour to substitute xantham, and only 2 cups of heavy cream. I have a pampered chef micro cooker, so I used it to cook the cauliflower. Highly recommend this if you don’t already have one, it cooks veggies in minutes. After I cooked the cauliflower I placed it on a cookie sheet lined with paper towel and let it dry while I cooked the sauce. Other than that … I followed the recipe to a tee.
Do you have to add Dijon mustard? Is there anything that I can substitute for it? I’ve never liked the flavor. Thanks!!
You can substitute any mustard if you’d like. If you don’t like mustard flavor at all, I’m not sure what a good sub would be.
Hello! This is in the oven right now and I am going to freeze it for dinner later this week? Any suggestion in reheating? Should I just put it in the oven again?
Hi Terri. I haven’t tried freezing this dinner so I’m not certain of the best way to reheat it. I would try it in the oven if you are reheating the whole casserole. Or you can cut it into individual servings and microwave them.
So good I had to portion it out and freeze it for the week to stop me from eating more. I omitted the xanthan gum because I didn’t have it but it was great.
I skip the xanthan gum sometimes too and it’s just as delicious! So glad you enjoyed it!
Mine came out looking very greasy and more wet than it should. What on earth did I do wrong? I followed the recipe! It’s cooling right now and smells delicious 🙂
It will firm up as it cools a bit.
Could this be. DE AHEAD AND FROZEN?
I don’t recommend making it and freezing it. I think cauliflower gets too watery when it is frozen and then warmed back up.
well I love all the ingredients and cook the majority of our meals from scratch so I thought we’d try this. The texture is not very pleasing, like a gummy, slimy mush. I couldn’t get past the slime texture that the x-gum creates. It smelled amazing however. I won’t use x gum ever again as a thickening agent.
Thanks for trying it and letting us know. I have to agree xanthan gum can be a texture you have to get used to. If you find an alternative you prefer please let us know!
Made this and it was soooooooo delicious!!! Even better the 3rd day!!! The recipe does make a lot. This is the third day of eating for two people, so I will be cutting down This recipe next time. I used 2lbs of chicken and 1 large bag of frozen cauliflower and A little bit of broccoli . (just to use it up)
I did not use xanthum gum. I have xanthum gum but chose not to use it because I believe xanthum gum has to be ran through the food processor in order to not be “chunky”. I have never “sprinkled” xanthum gum in any recipe and not experience cottage cheese like lumps. I did not see the need for it in this recipe.
This recipe was the perfect amount of sauce for the amount of food I used, but I could see it being too much or “watery” if using less chicken or cauliflower. I also used 12 oz of Swiss since I could not find the cheese recommended in this recipe and added more garlic per taste. The little bit of broccoli I added was nice since there is no color to this dish. I had no issues with reheating, I actually thought it was better the next days but that could be because I used frozen cauliflower or no xanthum gum.