Category: Recipes

Tasty Toasted Turkey, Egg, Cheese, and Guac Sandwich Recipe

This came out better than I thought, so it’s blogworthy.

Ingredients

  • French roll (I wish there were keto rolls, but they don’t seem to exist)
  • 2 eggs
  • Guacamole
  • 1 slice of turkey deli meat
  • 1 slice of cheddar cheese
  • Avocado oil spray
  • Salt and pepper

Directions

  1. Spray avocado oil in a frying pan
  2. Add the eggs, break the yolk, and cook to your preferred doneness
  3. Sprinkle the eggs with salt and pepper as desired
  4. Heat the French roll in a microwave for 20 seconds to soften it
  5. Spread a layer of guacamole on the bottom half of the roll
  6. Add the slice of turkey meat on the guac
  7. Add the scrambled eggs on the turkey slice
  8. Cut a square slice of cheddar cheese in half and place it over the eggs lengthwise
  9. Spray the base of your air fryer basket with avocado oil (optional)
  10. Fold the sandwich roll and place it in the air fryer basket
  11. Spray a bit of avocado oil on the top of the sandwich (optional)
  12. Place a metal air fryer rack on the sandwich to prevent it from unfolding
  13. Air fry at 390 degrees for 2-3 minutes

Photos

Delicious Egg, Cheese, Turkey, & Guac Air-Fried Sandwich

Ingredients

  • 2 slices of French sourdough bread (Costco Business Center sells a 2-pack of sourdough bread loaves for just $7. Each slice is square, not oval, so each slice is the same size). You can also try soft Ciabatta bread, available at both Costco and Costco Business Center.
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 slices of turkey deli meat
  • 2 slices of cheddar cheese
  • Guacamole
  • Avocado oil spray
  • Salt and pepper
  • Mayonnaise

Directions

  1. Spray a frying pan with avocado oil, add the eggs, and fry them to your desired doneness, optionally adding salt and pepper or other spices.
  2. Spread mayonnaise on one side of each sourdough bread slice. This side will be the outside.
  3. Spread guacamole on the other side of one slice of bread
  4. Add the eggs on top of the guacamole
  5. Add the cheese slices on top of the eggs
  6. Add the turkey slices on top of the cheese
  7. Add the other bread slice on top of the turkey slices (mayo side up)
  8. Place the sandwich in an air fryer and air fry at 390 degrees for 5 minutes
  9. Enjoy

Healthy, Keto-friendly Quesadilla in an Air Fryer

The other day, I went to El Pollo Loco and had their chicken quesadillas with avocado salsa verde. It was delicious, so I sought out how to make a healthy version at home using my air fryer. Though my version doesn’t taste as good as El Pollo Loco’s, it’s healthier, still tastes pretty good, and is much cheaper. For the salsa, I found one that tastes almost the same as El Pollo Loco’s. Here’s my recipe.

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the precooked chicken breast strips in a microwave
  2. Spray avocado oil on the air fryer basket
  3. Place a tortilla in the air fryer
  4. Put cheese on one half of the tortilla
  5. Place some chicken breast strips over the cheese
  6. Top the chicken strips with more cheese
  7. Fold the other half of the tortilla over the first half
  8. Spray avocado oil on the folded half
  9. Keep the tortilla from unfolding by either sticking a toothpick through both sides of it or placing a metal air fryer rack over it
  10. Cook at 390 degrees F for about 4 minutes
  11. To consume, dip it in the guacasalsa or spoon some guacasalsa on it

A 3-minute Cheaper and Healthier Chicken Sandwich

Chicken sandwiches are very common at fast-food restaurants. They taste good, but you have to drive there, wait in line, and pay between $4 to $6 for just one sandwich. In this post, I share a better chicken sandwich that only takes literally 3 minutes to make at home. First, let’s take a look at some popular fast-food chicken sandwiches.

KFC’s Chicken Sandwich – $3.99

Popeye’s Chicken Sandwich – $5.99

McDonald’s McChicken – ~$4

McDonald’s McCrispy – ~$5

Burger King’s Royal Crispy Chicken – $8

Chick-fil-A® Chicken Sandwich – $6.59

Note: all of the sandwiches above look good in the marketing pictures, but when you get them, they don’t always look that great.

Now, here’s my recipe for a better and healthier chicken sandwich that only takes 3 minutes to make at home.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Take one of the frozen chicken breast fillets and heat it up in a microwave for 3 minutes
  2. Optionally, place a slice of cheese on the chicken and melt it in the microwave
  3. Spread some mayo on both sides of a keto bun
  4. Place the heated chicken fillet in the bun
  5. Eat

For a lower-calorie alternative, replace the mayo with Kinder’s Zero Sugar BBQ sauce, which uses no artificial sweetener.

Note that Kirkland frozen chicken breast fillets are

  • Fully Cooked
  • Have No Antibiotics Ever
  • Have No Artificial Ingredients or Preservatives
  • Boneless and Skinless
  • Have 22g Protein per Serving

If you do the math, one sandwich costs about $2 each.

Panini Sandwiches Using an Air Fryer

Panini sandwiches are usually made with a panini press, but I’ve found that using an air fryer is easier and better. Here’s how to make a turkey and cheese panini sandwich in an air fryer.

Ingredients

  • 2 slices of turkey
  • 2 slices of mozzarella cheese
  • 2 slices of bread (sourdough, etc)
  • mayo

Instructions

  1. Preheat the air fryer to 400 F
  2. Spread mayo on one side of each slice of bread
  3. Assemble the sandwich as follows
Bread slice (mayo on outside)
Turkey slice
Cheese slices
Turkey slice
Bread slice (mayo on outside)
  1. When the air fryer is preheated, set the time to 10 minutes and place the sandwich inside
  2. After 5 minutes, flip the sandwich
  • Increase or decrease the frying time to suit

Here are some ingredient options for making different panini sandwiches. The ingredients are listed in the order of the sandwich layers.

Meatball and cheese panini

  • mayo
  • bread slice
  • meatballs cut in half
  • pizza sauce
  • mozzarella cheese slices
  • bread slices
  • mayo

Chicken and cheese panini

  • mayo
  • bread slice
  • grilled chicken strips or sliced lightly breaded chicken breast
  • pesto sauce
  • roasted tomato
  • mozzarella cheese slices
  • bread
  • mayo

Turkey and cheese panini

  • mayo
  • bread slice
  • turkey slice
  • cheese slices
  • tomato slices
  • turkey slice
  • bread
  • mayo

BBQ chicken and cheese panini

  • mayo
  • bread slice
  • cheese slice
  • shredded chicken
  • bbq sauce
  • bread
  • mayo

Kebab and cheese panini

  • mayo
  • bread slice
  • cheese slice
  • kebabs
  • tzatziki sauce
  • tomato
  • bread
  • mayo

Beef brisket and cheese panini

  • mayo
  • bread slice
  • cheese slice
  • beef brisket
  • bread
  • mayo

Corned beef and cheese panini

  • mayo
  • bread slice
  • cheese slice
  • corned beef
  • bread
  • mayo

Following are different types of pre-cooked meat you can put in your panini and their prices.

$13 / lb at Costco
$10 / lb at Costco
$8.48 / lb at Costco
$13 / lb at Costco
$14 / lb at Costco
$6 / lb at Costco
$3.32 / lb at Costco
$12 / lb at Costco
$5.60 / lb

Quick and Easy Fried Rice Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 cup of Jasmine rice
  • 1.5 cups of water
  • 2 eggs
  • Cucumber
  • Tomato
  • Cilantro
  • Green onion
  • Instant Seasoning Paste for Fried Rice (There are many seasoning packets for fried rice, but I like this one the most)

Instructions

Note: if you cook the rice wrong, it will come out mushy. Carefully follow the rice-cooking instructions if you want the rice to come out good.

  1. Place the rice in a fine-mesh sieve or colander and rinse under cool running water. Gently stir the rice as you rinse. Keep rinsing until the water runs clear. This is critical for removing excess surface starch, which is the primary cause of gummy or mushy rice.
  2. Put the rice in a deep pan.
  3. Add the water to the pan and lay the rice out evenly. Note that adding too much water will make the rice mushy.
  4. Cook on medium until the water boils.
  5. Cover the pan with a lid, reduce the heat to low, and simmer the rice for 15 minutes or until all the water is gone.
  6. Turn off the heat and let the rice rest for 10 minutes with the lid still on.
  7. After resting, gently fluff the rice with a fork to break up any clumps and create individual, separate grains. Avoid stirring the rice while it’s very hot and moist, as this can cause it to break apart and become mushy. 
  8. Add chopped green onion, cilantro, and the seasoning paste to the rice and mix.
  9. Cook 2 eggs (I prefer sunny side up)
  10. Transfer the rice to a plate, put the eggs on top, and garnish with some chopped cilantro.
  11. Add slices of cucumber and tomato to the plate.
  12. Enjoy
The rice while cooking
The cooked rice (notice it’s not mushy)
The rice after adding green onion and the seasoning paste

Greek Gyro (yee-ro) Recipe

When I was a kid, there were 2 foods I ate a lot of

  1. Pizza
  2. Greek Gyro (pronounced “yee-ro”) Sandwiches

Pizza is available everywhere, but there aren’t many places that sell Greek Gyros in the San Francisco Bay Area. One place that has it is Nick the Greek, but at $12.50 for a small sandwich, it feels overpriced. So, I tried to make my own without the hassle of cooking the meat and making the Greek Tzatziki sauce. I couldn’t find precooked doner kebab (“doner” is Turkish for “rotating”) meat, like a rotisserie, but I did find kebabs at Costco, which take a minute to heat up in the microwave, come out juicy, and taste delicious. For the Tzatziki sauce, I bought Tzatziki salad dressing from Target. It tastes good, but it’s thick, so getting it out of the bottle required using a knife.

Ingredients

  • Precooked Beef Kebabs (from Costco, $12.50 for 12 kebabs)
  • Tzatziki Salad Dressing (from Target, $2.49)
  • Pita Bread
  • French Fries (I bought frozen ones from Costco and cooked them in an air fryer)
  • Tomato
  • Lettuce (I got chopped and pre-washed lettuce for convenience)

Instructions

  1. Cut 10% of the pita bread so you can open it like a pocket
  2. Toast the pita bread in a toaster
  3. Heat the beef kebabs in a microwave for 1 minute
  4. Smear the Tzatziki sauce on both inner sides of the pita bread
  5. Insert the kebabs in the pita bread
  6. Add some lettuce, sliced tomatoes, and french fries in the pita bread
  7. Enjoy

UPDATE

Stuffing a pita bread such that the ingredients are distributed uniformly so that you can taste each ingredient with each bite is a bit difficult to do. Instead of using a pita bread, you can use Lavash bread, shown below. It’s much easier to place the ingredients on Lavash bread. First, smear the Tzatziki sauce all over one side of the bread.

Then, place the ingredients as shown below (I added some extra Tzatziki sauce on the lettuce).

Then, roll the lavash and place it in a panini press.

Enjoy

You can also make it using a hamburger bun.

English Muffin Breakfast Recipe

A few years ago, I flew to Korea on Hawaiian Airlines and was served a warm English muffin containing a turkey patty and egg. As cheap and simple as it looked, I wasn’t expecting much, but it turned out to be so good, I had to try to recreate it. I think I figured it out. Here’s my recipe.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Spray some cooking oil on a frying pan.
  2. Fry the egg in the shape of the muffin. I like to use this egg pancake frying pan that I got on Amazon. Optionally, pierce the yolk.
  3. Sprinkle some salt and pepper on the egg and cover the pan so the top of the egg gets cooked.
  4. Slice the muffin into 2 halves.
  5. Heat the muffin in a microwave for 1 minute to warm and soften it up. This is especially necessary if the muffins were refrigerated, cold, and hard.
  6. Since the turkey patties are small, defrost 2 of them in a microwave for 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
  7. Spread some hummus on all inner sides of each muffin half.
  8. Cut one of the turkey patties in half so that one and a half muffins can cover most of the muffin.
  9. Put 1.5 turkey patties next to each other, cover it with half a cheese slice, and microwave for 25 seconds.
  10. Assemble the muffin as shown in the photos below.

Quick and Easy Cucumber Salad

Most salads contain multiple vegetables and leafy greens like lettuce, tomatoe, and onion. The problem with some of these ingredients is they go back fairly quickly, especially lettuce, which becomes slimy, discolored, and smells. Grape tomatoes tend to wrinkle and look unappetizing. One vegetable, however, seems to stay and look fresh for about 2 weeks – cucumbers. Cucumbers are also high in water content, which can help you feel full and eat less. They are also low in carbohydrates and sugar, and have a low glycemic index (GI). This means that cucumbers don’t cause a rapid increase in blood sugar.  They can be a good snack for people who want to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight. 

Here’s a simple recipe for a cucumber salad.

Ingredients

  • Cucumber (1)
  • Water (1/2 cup)
  • Salt (1 tsp)

Instructions

  1. Pour water in a bowl
  2. Add the salt and mix till dissolved
  3. Slice the cucumber, add to bowl and mix

Super Easy Slow Cooker Shredded Salsa Chicken

This was super easy to make and it was very flavorful. Eat it as is or as part of a burrito or over a plate for rice.

Ingredients

  • 1.25 lbs Chicken (I prefer chicken thighs because chicken breast is too dry)
  • 1 oz Taco Seasoning Mix – Low Sodium (I actually used a chicken taco seasoning mix but any would do)
  • 16 oz Salsa – Your choice of flavor and heat (I chose Del Real, Red Salsa, Fire Roasted. It was a bit spicy though)

Instructions

  1. Cut up/trim the fat off the chicken, if needed
  2. Place the chicken into the bottom of your slow cooker
  3. Sprinkle the Taco Seasoning Mix all over the chicken
  4. Pour the salsa over the chicken
  5. Mix everything
  6. Put the lid on and let it cook on low heat for 4-5 hours or high heat for 2-3 hours (the chicken should reach 165F/73C)
  7. Optionally, shred the chicken 15-20 minutes before it’s done by using 2 forks or meat shredding claws
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