I feel like everyone’s family has the one holiday food that is unique to their traditions. Something that is not on the traditional menu that we all think of when we think of Thanksgiving or Christmas, but that your family eats every year. For my family that dish is carrot soufflé. It is a recipe that my mom came across at a dinner with some of my dad’s colleagues early in their marriage. The hostess had it on the menu and all of the big burly military men laughed and gave her a hard time for serving soldiers something as “girly” sounding as carrot soufflé. I’m sure she just rolled her eyes. When they sat down for dinner one of the men at the table took a spoonful, tasted it and loudly exclaimed, “That is some seriously bitchin’ carrot soufflé!” All of the guys ended up loving it and that story became a running joke. Even my husband laughs when he remembers coming to our house for Christmas one of the first years we were dating and being offered some carrot soufflé. He was skeptical of vegetables in general at the time and he thought that this carrot concoction sounded seriously strange. He took a bite, and fell in love with it. Now it is one of his favorite holiday dishes.

Unfortunately, however the original recipe was far from AIP. It contains lots of eggs, lots of white sugar, flour, corn starch and baking powder. Over the years I managed to make it gluten free, then paleo, but in my early AIP years with eggs out of the picture I knew that I had met my match so the carrot soufflé recipe was put aside for a while. The eggs act as the necessary binding agent in the soufflé and allow it to set and as hard as I tried I could not find an AIP friendly option that worked the same way.

Thankfully, I recently started adding egg yolks back into my diet on a regular basis so I decided I would once again see if I could resurrect the carrot soufflé. Egg yolks are a stage 1 reintroduction on the autoimmune protocol. They are high in fat and nutrients, especially when they come from healthy pasture raised hens, and many people find that they are an easy food to reintroduce. Obviously most soufflés rely on the white of the egg to work, but the carrot soufflé worked perfectly with just the yolks. So much so, that my husband didn’t even realize it was a new recipe at all!

So, I hope that as we near the holiday season you and your family might enjoy this slightly strange sounding, but delicious, dish as much as my family and I have!

Carrot Soufflé (AIP Stage 1 Reintroduction/Paleo)

serves 6

Ingredients:

1 lb of carrots

½ cup of coconut oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

5 egg yolks

1 tsp arrowroot flour

¼ tsp salt

½ cup of maple syrup

¼ cup coconut sugar

¼ tsp baking soda

½ tsp cream of tartar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Peel and roughly chop your carrots. Add them to a pot of boiling water and cook until tender. In a food processor or blender combine your cooked carrots with all of your other ingredients and blend until smooth. Pour into a casserole dish and bake for 45 minutes to an hour or until completely set. Serve warm. Enjoy.