Nutrition

In this video, Nick Massie of PaleoNick.com shares his recipe for Mexican Meatballs, a delicious blend of grass-fed ground beef, vegetables and spices.

Massie’s meatballs get their kick from chipotle powder, cinnamon, garlic and the Paleo Nick spice blend Super Radical Rib Rub.

Squash calabacitas rounds out the dish, providing the carbohydrate that balances the protein in the meatballs.

While the meatballs brown in one skillet, Massie sautés the vegetables in another. He toasts the garlic, onions, peppers and spices before adding the squashes, mushrooms and tomato puree.

Massie is the instructor for the CrossFit Specialty Course Culinary Ninja, which is designed to give you confidence in the kitchen while you learn the basics of balanced recipe development as informed by CrossFit’s nutrition principles.

To download the recipe for Mexican Meatballs, click here.

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Culinary Ninja courses.

Video by Nick Massie.

Nick Massie of PaleoNick.com brings us a decadent spin on traditional lasagna for a real Italian treat.

First step: meat sauce.

“One of the things we have to think about is that (the butternut squash) isn’t really seasoned,” Massie says, “so I’m gonna make (the sauce) a little bit stronger flavored.”

Onions, garlic and basil are essential to developing a flavorful sauce. Some ground red chili is also recommended if you like a bit of spice.

To make the squash “noodles,” Massie has some tips for slicing your butternut squash safely.

“I’m going to show you—probably the hardest part about making this—and that’s going to be cutting this squash into lasagna-type strips,” he says.

When it’s time to assemble your lasagna, put the dish together the good old-fashioned way—create layer after layer of squash noodles and hearty meat sauce. Pop it in the oven and 60-90 minutes later you’ll have eight three-block meals.

To download the recipe for butternut squash lasagna, click here.

Video by Nick Massie and Jesse Kahle.

In this video, Nick Massie of PaleoNick.com shares his recipe for chipotle chicken frittata, a delicious dish that combines eggs, ground chicken, bacon and veggies for a savory breakfast-inspired meal you can enjoy anytime.

First Massie tosses the chopped bacon into a preheated cast-iron skillet, rendering the fat to “provide the cooking agent for our chicken, our veggies.”

Once the bacon, chicken and veggies are browned and seasoned, he slices baked yams and layers them in the bottom of a baking dish, where they serve as the crust for the frittata.

He spreads the meat-and-veggies mixture over the yams, pours blended eggs over the top and bakes until everything is golden brown.

For finishing touches, he prepares a batch of his salsa chipotle and chops a few sprigs of cilantro for garnish.

To download the recipe for chipotle chicken frittata, click here.

Video by Nick Massie.

Nick Massie of PaleoNick.com is back in the kitchen, this time to share the recipe for his Super Radical tri-tip with balsamic apple compote.

Massie begins by prepping two baking sheets for the yams and tri-tip.

“Any meal that starts with two foil-lined sheet pans is a winner in my book,” he says.

He then pats a liberal amount of Super Radical Rib Rub onto both sides of the tri-tip and tosses extra spices into the pan to mingle with the juices during the cooking process.

Next he turns his attention to the compote, dicing the onions, julienning the apples and then adding everything to a hot skillet to draw out the sugars. He finishes the caramelized sauce with some balsamic vinegar and a little water to deglaze.

Massie says it’s important to rest the tri-tip before slicing and to cut across the grain rather than with it. After he divides the meat and potatoes into equal “Zoned-out” servings, it’s meal time.

To download the recipe for Super Radical tri-tip, click here.

Massie is the instructor for the CrossFit Specialty Course Culinary Ninja, which is designed to give you confidence in the kitchen while you learn the basics of balanced recipe development as informed by CrossFit’s nutrition principles.

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Culinary Ninja courses.

Video by Nick Massie.

If you’re searching for an alterative breakfast with a kick, let chef Nick Massie show you how to create bacon-wrapped jalapeño poppers.

“It’s essentially a jalapeño popper full of sweet potatoes and shrimp and then wrapped up in bacon,” says Massie, who runs PaleoNick.com. “You can eat ’em hot or cold.

The ingredients are simple: jalapeños, sweet potatoes, shrimp, bacon, mayo and sriracha sauce.

Massie begins by cutting the jalapeños in half, and he’s careful to evenly cut the stem for visual appeal.

“The first bite is with the eyes,” Massie emphasizes.

After scooping out the pepper’s membrane and seeds, he cuts slits in the shrimp to flatten them. He then stuffs the jalapeños with sweet potatoes, tops each one with a crustacean and rolls the whole thing in a strip of bacon.

After the poppers spend an hour in the oven, he’s got 16 blocks of carbs and protein. Massie mayo is optional but adds 16 blocks of fat for a balanced Zone creation, and you can add sriracha sauce and cilantro to take things to the next level.

“It’s so good it hurts, baby,” says Massie, sampling his own creation. “If that’s a five-block meal, then I can handle the Zone Diet, no problem.”

To download the recipe for Henry Ford’s world-famous assembly-line jalapeño poppers, click here.

Video by Marston Sawyers, Nick Massie and Julian Marquez.

In this video, Nick Massie of PaleoNick.com takes a brief respite from wall-ball shots to share his recipe for Thai turkey meatballs.

These meatballs contain ginger, cilantro and coconut milk—traditional Thai ingredients—but Massie uses cauliflower as a substitute for rice, offering a healthier option for CrossFit athletes.

After combining the turkey, vegetables and spices, he shapes the meatballs and browns them in a skillet, turning them occasionally to get good coloring and caramelization on every side.

The cauliflower is shredded in a food processor until it has a risotto-like texture. It serves as the base for the “fried rice” in the dish.

“Beautiful,” Massie says as he adds the finishing touches. “The flavor is bound to bring you to your knees.”

To download the recipe for Thai turkey meatballs, click here.

Massie is the instructor for the CrossFit Specialty Course Culinary Ninja, which is designed to give you confidence in the kitchen while you learn the basics of balanced recipe development as informed by CrossFit’s nutrition principles.

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Culinary Ninja courses.

Video by Nick Massie.

This time on The CrossFit Kitchen, Nick Massie of PaleoNick.com figures out the only way to make pizza better: using crispy bacon as the crust. This breakfast pizza takes bacon and eggs to a whole new level, and a side of broccoli brings balance to the dish.

Massie’s first step is to toss the veggies with a drizzle of olive oil and his own Veggie Victory spice blend. The broccoli florets then go on a sheet pan to roast in the oven while he builds the pizza. The next step is to fry up a thick layer of bacon in a heavy cast-iron skillet and crack 12 eggs on top.

“Now as a culinary ninja, you’ll be able to crack all of them without breaking the yolk,” Massie says.

Once the bacon crisps and the eggs set, he chops the pizza into eight slices and serves with a side of roasted broccoli.

Massie is now the instructor for the CrossFit Specialty Course Culinary Ninja, which is designed to give you confidence in the kitchen while you learn the basics of balanced recipe development as informed by CrossFit’s nutrition principles.

To download the recipe for bacon-crusted breakfast pizza, click here.

Video by Nick Massie.

This recipe from Nick Massie of PaleoNick.com combines wild shrimp, Italian sausage, zucchini and squash “noodles,” and a creamy Thai-inspired sauce to create a healthy path to the satisfaction of a pasta dish without loading up on carbs.

First, Massie crushes and minces the garlic cloves before toasting them in a heavy cast-iron pot prepped with olive oil. He then adds the sausage to the pot, and while he waits for it to brown, he uses a mandolin to slice the zucchini and squash into long, noodle-like strips. The noodles are then added to the pot with the sausage and garlic.

For the next step, Massie preps the shrimp by cutting them in half. This “increases the spread, which is going to … also make it seem like there’s more shrimp in your dish than there really is,” he explains.

Once the proteins are cooked and the noodles are softened, the tomato puree, coconut milk and basil chiffonade come together to make the sauce, which is then blended with the other ingredients. The whole mixture is piled high and garnished with a sprig of basil.

This dish is “proof positive that you don’t have to say ‘basta’ with the pasta,” Massie says.

To download the recipe for creamy shrimp zucchini, click here.

Video by Nick Massie.

Nick Massie of PaleoNick.com takes his inspiration for this dish from the molcajete, a stone mortar and pestle commonly used in Mexican cuisine. Massie uses halved acorn squashes for his “mortars,” piling them high with juicy carne asada, shrimp and tomatillo salsa and baking them until they caramelize and bubble.

First he toasts the garlic in olive oil, and then he adds the tomatillos, browning them to get some color for the sauce. Next, he cuts the squashes in half and removes the seeds with a spoon.

“You can save these seeds if you want to toast them up,” he says.

After drizzling the squash halves with oil, he sprinkles them with Cheechako Tako and puts them in the oven until they’re half-cooked.

The next step is to add water to the saucepan to finish off the tomatillos—ready when “they’re kind of giving out their seeds and just soft to the touch,” he says. At that point, the tomatillos can be blitzed with a hand blender or food processor.

Massie prepares the filling by seasoning the beef with Cheechako Tako and mixing in the shrimp and onions. Finally, he adds the salsa to the meat mixture, pours everything into the “molcajetes” and finishes them off in the oven.

To download the recipe for acorn squash molcajete, click here.

Video by Nick Massie.

Just in time for Super Bowl Sunday! In this video, Nick Massie of PaleoNick.com shares his recipe for kickin’ like Van Damme chicken, a dish he calls “the bigger brother” to his bacon-wrapped jalapeño poppers.

Massie’s kickin’ chicken features a careful arrangement of chicken fingers on a bell-pepper base. That combo is topped with jalapeño slices and wrapped in thin-sliced bacon, and it’s served layered over a creamy puree of parsnips.

In preparation for the dish, Massie performs a chandelier cut on a bell pepper to make the popper body. He then divides the chicken and jalapeños and starts stacking. After Massie wraps each stack in bacon using a “double tuck” technique, the poppers are ready to go in the pan.

This dish, Massie notes, is special because it uses parsnips for its carbohydrate. Parsnips, he says, are a sweet and minty “alternative to most of the carbs that we eat regularly.”

Once the poppers reach an internal temperature of 165 F, they can be placed on top of the pureed parsnips. For a finishing touch, the chef adds some Massie Mayo and cilantro.

To download the recipe for Kickin’ Chicken, click here.

Video by Nick Massie.

This time on The CrossFit Kitchen, Nick Massie of PaleoNick.com creates finger-lickin’-good lemon-pepper chicken.

Start by roasting the squash and chicken. In the meantime, heat a little olive oil in a cast-iron skillet and toast the garlic. Next, add the onions, mushrooms and stock to start a savory topping for your chicken. Three minutes later, toss in the roasted bell peppers and add a little romance with Massie’s own Lemon Pepper Love spice mix. Bring to a simmer, reduce the heat and finish by stirring in butter.

When it comes to the parsley garnish, Massie reminds us to be particular: “This is flat-leaf parsley or Italian parsley—different from the curly stuff. Don’t get the curly stuff.”

The final result is a bed of butternut squash topped with zesty chicken and a mouth-watering veggie jus. Served family style or in individual portions, this hearty meal will keep you warm and full on winter days.

To download the recipe for lemon-pepper chicken, click here.

Video by Nick Massie.