Crockpot Pumpkin Chicken Tikka Masala with Cauliflower Rice
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This recipe for AIP elimination stage compliant Crockpot Pumpkin Chicken Tikka Masala with Cauliflower Rice has become one of our family’s favorites – even though my husband hates pumpkin! He loves it so much, and it’s easy enough that he’ll decide to make it on his own for a surprise!
We were super sad when we discovered that the recipe creator seems to have discontinued her website and it’s no longer available for me to share with you there.
Fortunately, I had saved a copy of the recipe and want to give complete credit for this recipe to its creator, Lina of Strictly Delicious.
Over the years of making this, we’ve tweaked a few things, and the recipe that follows reflects our modifications. More often than not, we simply use coconut milk instead of coconut yogurt since we rarely have that on hand. If you’re missing the “tang” of the yogurt, simply add a dash of apple cider vinegar or a squeeze of lemon to your coconut milk.
Don’t have time for a slow cook? Try it in the InstantPot!
I tried this using the InstantPot and simply put all of the first 11 ingredients in the pot and mixed well. I did NOT pre-brown the chicken. I simply used the poultry setting and adjusted the time to 12 minutes. I expected I’d get a “burn” notification, which I did, because there’s not a lot of liquid to start out. I suppose you could add all of the ingredients for the chicken at once, but I simply released the pressure, stirred and re-set the pot back to 11 minutes and let it do it’s thing.
Crockpot Pumpkin Chicken Tikka Masala with Cauliflower Rice
Ingredients
- 3 large chicken breasts (15% off with Code: AIP15)
- 3 large cloves of garlic
- One 15 ounce can of pumpkin puree
- 1/2 cup full-fat, additive-free coconut milk
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (plus more for topping)
- 1 tablespoon ginger powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon cloves
- 1/8 teaspoon mace
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 teaspoons sea salt
- 1/2 cup full-fat, additive-free coconut milk
- 1/2 cup coconut yogurt (or use additional coconut milk - that's what we do)
For the Cauliflower Rice:
- 1 head of cauliflower
- 2 tablespoons virgin coconut oil
- 2 teaspoons sea salt
Instructions
- Cut the chicken breasts into chunks, about 1 square inch in size.
- In a large bowl, mix the diced garlic, pumpkin puree, 1/2 cup coconut milk, chopped cilantro, ginger powder, cinnamon, cloves, mace, bay leaf and sea salt together with a large spoon.
- When the pumpkin mixture is all blended, add the chicken cubes and mix until evenly distributed. Pour the whole mixture into the bowl of a crockpot (like this one). Cook on low for 4-5 hours.
- After 4-5 hours, mix together the coconut yogurt and coconut milk in a medium sized bowl. Add it to the crockpot bowl and mix it in well with the Pumpkin Chicken Tikka Masala. Cover and cook for another 30 minutes.
For the Cauliflower Rice:
- During the last 30 minutes while waiting for the yogurt-milk mixture to thicken your delicious tikka masala, add the cauliflower florets to the bowl of a large food processor (like this one).
- Pulse the cauliflower for 1-2 minutes, or until the florets have been processed to a consistency that looks like rice. Be careful not to overprocess!
- In a large saucepan, heat one of the tablespoons of coconut oil. When the coconut oil is hot, add about half of the cauliflower rice to the pan. Cook, stirring often until the cauliflower rice has softened just to the consistency of rice. It should still have some bite to it. Sprinkle with 1 of the teaspoons of sea salt and put aside in a large bowl.
- Repeat the step above with the remaining cauliflower rice.
- Serve with your Pumpkin Chicken Tikka Masala and enjoy!!!