This is an air fryer recipe. If you don’t have an air fryer, I’m sure you can figure out how to make this in your oven. We are using the Ninja Foodi, by the way.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds Brussels sprouts, halved
- 5 tablespoons coconut oil (divided into 4 + 1 tablespoons)
- Celtic sea salt and freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
- Filtered water in a spray botte
The Sauce
- ½ – 1 teaspoon konjac powder/glucomannan powder
- ¾ cup water
- 3 garlic cloves crushed
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped peeled ginger
- 2 tablespoons hot chili paste (sambal oelek)
- 6 dried chiles de árbol, lightly crushed, or 1 tablespoon of the dried chiles, or your favorite hot sauce (to taste)
- ½ cup low sodium soy sauce
- 3 tablespoons Bocha Sweet (or Erythritol)
- 2 teaspoons unseasoned rice vinegar
- ⅓ cup unsalted, roasted peanuts, chopped
Instructions
Preheat the air fryer to 425° with 4 Tbsp of coconut oil in the roasting bowl. After a few minutes when the oil has melted, using hot pads, remove the roasting bowl and close the lid to keep preheating, and add your halved Brussels sprouts. Toss them about to coat them all with the oil, seasoning them with salt and pepper.
When the fryer tells you to add your food, roast for 15 – 20 minutes. Every five minutes, open, lift with hot pads, toss them about, and spray with the filtered water. And yes, they’ll get crispy brown on the outside leaves, and the filtered water will keep them moist. You want them softened, but not mushy.
Making the Sauce
Heat the remaining 1 Tbsp coconut oil in a medium saucepan at medium-high. Add garlic and ginger and cook, stirring often, for about two minutes. Add chili paste and cook, stirring, until darkened, about 2 minutes. Add chiles, soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, and ¾ cup water, and cook while stirring.
Now we’re going to thicken the sauce with konjac/glucomannan powder. Other recipes call for corn starch, which is low in nutrients and high in carbs and calories, and requires heat to thicken, thus other recipes have you boil this concoction. Konjac thickens without heat. We used ¾ teaspoon of konjac flour, and you might want it thicker. Always sprinkle, stir, and test for your own consistency.
We used a Tupperware bowl (after we let everything cool down a bit) and filled it with the Brussels sprouts, poured in the sauce, sprinkled the chopped up peanuts, sealed and tossed.
If your kids never liked Brussels sprouts, those days are over.
Notes
Of course the original recipe calls for sugar. We have used both Bocha Sweet and Purecane, Confectioners Sweetener in this recipe. In the past we have mixed erythritol (powdered) with stevia because this combination cuts the aftertaste of both of those, but the mixing just gets way too complicated. Both Bocha Sweet and Purcane have no aftertaste and are equal to sugar 1-1 in recipes. They are much more expensive than other sweeteners, but a breeze to use. And the Purecane is a confectioners sweetener, meaning it is a powder, which you really need with working with erythritol because it can take six months to dissolve a teaspoon of it in your coffee. (The links are our affiliate program links.)
About Amazon. Quite a few people do not support Amazon, and boy do we understand. They, however, support us through Amazon Smile (if you choose Minnesota Wellness Publications as your charity (MWP pays for our site), or if you purchase through our affiliate program.
All the ingredients, except the Celtic Sea Salt, and our air fryer were purchased through Amazon, which, by the way, is finally getting labor unions. The battle is still on and living wages for difficult work are in the works. Everyone deserves a living wage. So, if you want to support us, here’s our Amazon Link.
Celtic Sea Salt is sold at Simply the Best at the best price on the web, and it’s the only salt we eat in this home (even take it with us to restaurants).
Instead of peeling ginger for this recipes, we chose to use Christopher Ranch Organic Chopped Ginger because it’s just easier. We use it in our healthy soda pop recipe too. In this house we buy it by the case.