Harissa Chicken and Cauliflower Sheet Pan

If you love chicken with a bit of a kick, then you'll love this Harissa Chicken and Cauliflower Sheet Pan, adapted from Melissa Clark at the New York Times.

It's no surprise the original recipe ranked in the NYT Cooking's top 50 recipes of all time since it's SO delicious. We adapted the recipe to reduce the carbs and simplify the recipe. The preparation for the chicken is the same as the original recipe — we just replaced the potatoes and leeks with cauliflower florets. However, you may keep the leeks in the recipe since they're fairly low in carbs.

We love the heat in the harissa marinade, but the yogurt topping (which tames the spice) takes the chicken to the next level. If you don't like yogurt, you could use plain sour cream or even store-bought tzatziki as a replacement.

This adapted recipe is a perfect weeknight recipe since it's so easy to prepare and quick to bake. The marinade takes less than 5 minutes to make, and after marinating for roughly 20 minutes, the chicken and cauliflower just take 20 minutes to bake.

What is Harissa?

Harissa is a hot chili sauce from Northern Africa that livens up meats and veggies with a little heat. It's typically made with roasted red peppers, Baklouti peppers, garlic, olive oil caraway seeds, coriander seeds and cumin. Per tablespoon, it's usually 1 to 2 net carbs.

Key Ingredients

Just a few notes on key ingredients:

Chicken thighs: We use boneless, skinless chicken thighs in this recipes, but you could also use bone-in, skin-on thighs. Another tasty option, would be drumsticks. Just be sure to adjust the cooking time as needed (due to varying size) and use a cooking thermometer to check for doneness.

Harissa: We use Mina Harissa, a well-known brand that uses clean and simple ingredients and is only 1 net carb per tablespoon. Some harissa brands have more net carbs than others. Be sure to check the ingredients and avoid getting any with added sugar. When it comes to net carbs, we recommending sticking to 1 gram of net carbs per tablespoon (and not teaspoon).

Cauliflower: Cauliflower pairs so well with harissa. Be sure to cut into similar-size florets for roasting.

Greek yogurt: We use FAGE Greek yogurt in this for the yogurt sauce. You can use any level of fat in the Greek yogurt: zero, two or five percent fat. If you don't like yogurt, you could use plain sour cream or even store-bought tzatziki as a replacement.

How to Make

STEP 1: In a small bowl, stir together 3 tablespoons olive oil, harissa and cumin.

STEP 2: Season chicken with salt and pepper. In a large bowl, combine chicken, cauliflower and harissa sauce. Mix until sauce covers chicken and cauliflower. Let sit at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes (if longer then refrigerate).

STEP 3: Mix yogurt, minced garlic and lemon juice (optional) in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

STEP 4: In a single layer, place chicken and cauliflower on rimmed baking sheet. Bake for roughly 20 minutes, until chicken reaches 165 degrees on thermometer. After chicken and cauliflower are done baking, plate chicken with cauliflower and spoon yogurt over the top. Serve leftover yogurt on the side for dipping

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If you try this recipe, we would love to hear your feedback! Leave a comment, rate it, and tag @lowcarbsimplified on your photo of this recipe on Instagram or Facebook. We hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do!