Chili without the oxalates!! This easy and flexible “hamburger extender” can be eaten as a main dish, used in wraps, or as a chili garnish for hot dogs. Use lamb or pork, if desired. This approach also works with left-over meats – like a “hash”.
Thai Chili / Sloppy Joe
Ingredients
Thai Chili ingredients ready for cooking.
2 T beef tallow, lard, or coconut oil
6 ounces turnips, peeled and diced (est. 8 mg oxalate)
1 onion (6 – 8 ounces, red or yellow), peeled and diced (est. 10 mg oxalate)
¼ tsp. coriander (5 mg oxalate)
½ tsp salt
1 pound ground beef or other meat
2 T Thai red curry paste
12 ounces (1 can) coconut milk
2 tsp. potato starch
2 T Frank’s hot sauce
Cilantro leaves for garnish
Lime wedges for serving
Instructions
Chili served with acorn squash
- Sauté turnips and onions in the fat for 15 minutes on medium-low.
- Turn heat up to medium. Add ground coriander, salt and ground beef. Cook just long enough to brown the meat.
- Add the curry paste and stir to incorporate.
- Combine the coconut milk and potato starch, then add to meat mixture.
- Simmer on low heat until the sauce thickens, about 10 minutes.
- Add hot sauce.
- Serve as a sloppy joe mix, or use as you would any chili. Garnish with cilantro leaves or lime wedges. Squeeze lime over portion before eating.
I’m vegetarian. What low oxalate can i use in place of the meat?
You might try mushrooms, Marjorie. Raw portabellas have about 6 mg oxalate per cup. Let me know if this works in this recipe. -S
Thank you! Question- I thought I read on your page how curry is high in oxalates. But here, I see you use curry paste in this recipe. Maybe I’m missing something? Is curry paste lower in oxalates than curry?
“Curry” is a term that covers many actual products with very different oxalate content. Indian curries are typically high in spices like turmeric and cumin that are also very high in oxalate. Those high-oxalate ingredients are often the main components of what is identified in retail as “curry powder”. There is also an herb called “curry leaf” which is high in oxalate.
The curry paste that Sally uses is specifically a Thai version (see the title of the recipe). That paste is built (as is most of the spice in Thai cuisine) around low oxalate ingredients, and it has also been tested directly itself and has the amount of oxalate one would expect from its ingredient list.
The moral here is that it is really important to understand the ingredients in any processed or pre-assembled food and to recognize that shorthand names like “curry” cover a vast range of possibilities. Also remember that portions matter: A teaspoon of curry powder based on Indian spices might have around 25mg of oxalate (compared to about 4mg or even less for Thai curry paste). But if that one teaspoon is half the oxalate you’re getting in an entire day because everything else in your diet is low, you can still maintain a very low-oxalate diet! See Sally’s book and the table that explains how to make spinach a low-oxalate food!