Cuban Picadillo (Paleo, Whole30, AIP, Nightshade Free)
This Cuban picadillo is flavorful and nourishing. It’s easily adapted to be paleo, whole30, and AIP compliant.
Have you ever had picadillo? It’s a flavorful and filling way to turn simple ground beef in a delicious meal! It’s traditionally made with simple ingredients ground beef, tomatoes, onions, olives, garlic, and herbs. Best of all, it’s easy to make and can be made in one pan (plus some optional cauliflower rice for serving.
Traditional Cuban comfort food is typically made with bell peppers, red spices, and other nightshade foods, which you can certainly add to this meal. However, I’m going to show you how to also make it nightshade free! This is one of those dishes that I seriously used to feel left out on as I’m nightshade free, but I promise this tastes just as good without nightshades.
The Ingredients You’ll Need for the Cuban Picadillo
Ground chuck (or ground beef)
Ground beef chuck yields really great flavor in this recipe, but you can also just normal ground beef to keep it simple.
Onions and garlic
These add a lot of flavor to picadillo and cook quickly.
Green olives
Green olives are my favorite part of picadillo! I’m not a huge green olive fan just as a snack by itself, but they really add a lot of depth to the picadillo. You can use canned green olives to make it easy.
Capers
Capers add a lot of extra salt to the picadillo, so be careful with salting to taste. In my opinion, you’ll want to taste it first, and then add salt!
Raisins
This is an optional step, but it adds a nice touch of sweetness
Tomato sauce (or nomato sauce)
You can use a canned tomato sauce without any strong seasoning, or a nomato sauce to keep it nightshade free.
What to serve this picadillo with…
Plantains
The Latin flavors of plantains and picadillo pair really well together. You can make tostones, simply pan-fried plantains, or homemade plantain chips!
Cauliflower rice (or regular rice)
Picadillo is often paired with white rice, but cauliflower rice is another great option.
You’ll also love these recipes…
Cuban Picadillo (Paleo, Whole30, AIP, Nightshade Free)
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp avocado oil
- ½ medium onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 lb ground beef chuck, sub ground beef
- 1 tsp cumin, omit for AIP
- ½ tsp black pepper, omit for AIP
- 2 tsp oregano
- 1 cup tomato sauce, sugar-free (sub nomato sauce for AIP)
- 2 tsp blackstrap molasses, omit for whole30
- ⅓ cup water
- 2 bay leaves
- ½ cup green olives
- 1 tbsp capers
- 2 tbsp raisins, optional
- 1 tbsp cilantro, chopped
Instructions
- Using a large deep skillet, heat the avocado oil on medium heat.
- Add the onions and garlic and saute minutes or until the onions are translucent.
- Add the ground beef and seasonings. Brown the ground beef, using a wooden spoon to crumble the beef. Drain the excess fat from the pan if necessary.
- Add the tomato sauce, molasses, water, bay leaves, and stir. Bring to a low simmer and cover for 10 minutes to allow the sauce to thicken.
- Stir in the olives, capers, raisins, and cilantro and salt further to taste.
- Serve warm with cauliflower rice or plantain chips
Notes
I loved this!! I did substituted chopped dates for the raisins and used cinnamon for the cumin, since I’m AIP, added in a little pure wasabi powder for some extra heat. Thank you for this recipe!!
Love those additions!! Thank you, Melissa!!
Can you sub the black strap molasses with anything like maple syrup?
That should work! I would just use less as it’s a lot sweeter.
Hello, you have made it to my list of favorite people! I have been looking for a picadillo recipe, but they have all been too complicated. Yours was easy and DELICIOUS! You were right, it didn’t even really need salt after the olives and capers. I can’t wait to make it again. I’ll add raisins next time.
Thank you so much!
Well.. my grandma lived in Cuba for 6 years. She made it all the time for us, but her recipe was different, now I make it they way she did.
Our recipe doesn’t have cilantro, tomatoes or molasses, but it doesn’t have finely chopped red bell pepper.
Glad to see something similar though.