We love tagine recipes over at our house. A tagine is an earthenware pot with a triangular lid. Most of us do not have one of these laying around, but you can make tagine recipes with what you have at home. What’s awesome about these recipes is they are fairly healthy. They contain vegetables and protein with a carbohydrate and very pronounced spices. These types of dishes are favorites in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Think cumin and cardamom and lots of garlic. The only problem is the sodium because they use very salty ingredients. I decided to take a recipe and see if I can do a bit better for the low sodium folks. Here I am adapting a recipe from Skinny Taste called Slow Cooker Moroccan Chicken & Olive Tagine. I’m going to do this with pork because I have some on hand that I need to use up. Here are the original stats:
- 389 Calories
- 12g Fat
- 190mg Cholesterol
- 866mg Sodium
- 380mg Potassium
- 24g Carbohydrate
- 47g Protein
- 218% Vitamin A
- 11% Vitamin C
- 5% Calcium
- 21% Iron
These aren’t too bad. The calorie count isn’t horrible. The sodium is a bit high and the Vitamin C is a bit low. It won’t be too hard to fix. The challenge is keeping the olives. Here’s what I changed:
- I used pork chops instead of chicken because that’s what I had on hand.
- I deleted the added salt to reduce the sodium.
- I replace the flour with America’s Test Kitchen’s all purpose gluten-free flour mix. You can use any other gluten-free all purpose flour mix you have on hand
- I increased the servings from 4 to 7 to lower the calories.
- I added three red bell peppers to increase the vitamin C.
Now the stats look much better:
- 237 Calories
- 6g Fat
- 0mg Cholesterol
- 121mg Sodium
- 325mg Potassium
- 17g Carbohydrate
- 27g Protein
- 156% Vitamin A
- 114% Vitamin C
- 3% Calcium
- 5% Iron
And I didn’t touch the olives. I hardly touched the recipe. This goes to show that a few simple changes can make all the difference.
Slow Cooker Moroccan Pork & Olive Tagine
Serves 7
- 2 pounds center cut boneless pork loin chops
- 4 medium carrots, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
- 3 red bell peppers
- 1/3 cup dried prunes, halved
- 1/2 cup pitted green olives
- 3 cloves garlic, chopped
- 2 tablespoons gluten-free all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons paprika
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
- 1 cup low sodium chicken broth
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- In a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker, combine the pork, carrots, onion, prunes, olives, garlic, flour, paprika, cumin, cinnamon, ginger, chicken broth, and pepper. Stir to combine.
- Cover and cook on low for 6 hours.
- Serve over 1/2 cup brown rice and lemon wedges.
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