High Protein Recipes

CC Cucumber Mint Salad

CC as in “cottage cheese” which I like to use in place of yogurt when I’m looking for a super low carb meal.

This salad is a spin off from a cucumber raita which is commonly served in India as a condiment to cut the heat of the spicy dishes on the table. My salad has more cucumber and less yogurt than a traditional raita. In fact I’ve subbed in cottage cheese for the yogurt because it has much fewer carbs than yogurt, 6 net carbs versus almost 17.5 for plain yogurt! If that’s not a reason for a low carber to switch to cottage cheese then I don’t know what else to say to convince you. I’ve used cottage cheese in place of yogurt in salad dressings, smoothies, puddings … with great success.

Be sure to use 1% cottage cheese, that’s the sweet spot for less carbs. Nonfat cottage cheese tastes so bad that it’s not even worth going there.

I’ve also experimented with the carb counts using sour cream and crème fraiche in place of some and even all of the cottage cheese, thinking that it would reduce the carb count  even further and both substitutions actually RAISED the net carb count!

This salad is fabulous as a sauce for steak or chicken as well as fish. If you’ll be serving this recipe as a sauce instead of a salad, dice the veggies instead of chopping them.

This salad can be prepared anywhere from 2 hours to 1 day ahead.
Ingredients:
2 large unpeeled English hothouse cucumber, halved, seeded, chopped
1 cup 1% cottage cheese
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
1 teaspoon ground cumin
¼ rounded teaspoon cayenne pepper

Instructions:
Wrap chopped cucumber in a kitchen towel and squeeze to eliminate some of the liquid.

Puree cottage cheese in a blender. Place remaining ingredients in a bowl. Pour cottage cheese over salad and toss to coat. Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

 

Cucumber Cilantro Raita

Simply substitute cilantro for the mint.

4 servings = 5 net carbs per serving with 1 cup Greek yogurt
4 net carbs per serving with ½ cup Greek yogurt

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