We’re a few weeks into the new year now. How are your resolutions coming?

Have you finally started that diet now that Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are behind you? January is the perfect month to start eating right. The weather is terrible and I’m out of excuses. I literally have nothing better to do than work out and create new healthy habits for myself. This heart-healthy chicken sweet potato stew recipe is delicious and fits in with many of the clean eating trends out there right now.

I know that eating healthy foods and eliminating bad ones is the way to go. But more specifically, my body needs time to heal from all the junk I’ve taken in over the years and I need a good plan to help me do this. Enter the Fast Metabolism Diet. I have many good friends and neighbors seeing amazing results with this eating plan. Using food to heal your metabolism, this diet teaches you how to be strategic with your eating. It cycles your body through eating carbs, proteins, and fats, giving your metabolism time to heal, rest and recover, all while enjoying lots of fruits, grains, and healthy fats.

This particular recipe is from the cookbook for the Fast Metabolism Diet.

I bought the cookbook because it gives a great diet summary at the beginning of the book and then launches into food lists and meal plans with recipes. The chicken sweet potato stew is part of Phase 1, which lasts 2 days, during which you eat lots of fruits, starchy vegetables, and grains, but little to no fat. (There are three different eating phases in each week-long cycle, repeated 4 times.) I hardly miss the fat in this recipe and the turkey bacon gives this dish an amazing flavor.

After browning the bacon you can use the same pan to give the chicken a little color.

Then add everything to a slow cooker and forget about it for a few hours. Pretty easy, right?

Once it’s done, just shred the chicken and add a little more liquid if you’d like. The chicken, sweet potato, and wild rice make for a very satisfying dish. The bacon, onions, mushrooms and thyme give it a few different layers of flavor that make it interesting. So much so that you won’t even remember it’s “diet food”.

Chicken Sweet Potato Stew

Ingredients

5 slices turkey bacon chopped
1 1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts
3 cups organic chicken broth
2/3 cup sliced green onions white and green parts
1/4 pound sliced mushrooms
4 sweet potatoes cut into large chunks
1 yellow onion diced
1/2 uncooked wild or brown rice
1/4 cup Red Wine Vinegar
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tsp Sea Salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

Servings:

Instructions

Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat and cook the turkey bacon for about 5 minutes, until browned. Remove the bacon from the pan and drain on paper towels. Add the chicken breasts and cook for 3 to 4 minutes or until browned on one side. Turn each breast over, add 2 tablespoons of the chicken broth, and cook for an additional 3 minutes.
Put the bacon and chicken in a slow cooker and then add the remaining ingredients. Cook for 3 to 4 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low. Add additional chicken broth to the stew to reach desired consistency.

Recipe Notes

Adapted from The Fast Metabolism Cookbook

I hope you enjoy this Heart-healthy chicken sweet potato stew recipe. The most important thing to remember is to keep eating and use food as your medicine. What are your healthy goals this year?