Are you hungry on your keto diet, but it's not meal-time? Then keto snacks can be the answer. Snacks can buy you some time, allowing you to delay meals to fit your busy schedule.
Snacking, however, should perhaps not happen every day. One of the best parts of eating keto is that hunger may be kept at bay for hours after meals. If you regularly need to snack, try adding more fat to your meals ( here's how).
Check out some great keto snack options below, and common snacking mistakes to avoid.
Easy whole foods
Take the edge off of your hunger with these tasty options. Almost no preparation required! Keto basics like cheese, avocados, olives and macadamia nuts keep healthy fats, front and center, and minimize carbs.
The numbers below the snacks are the percent of digestible carbohydrates, i.e net carbs. So for example, a hundred grams of avocado (3½ ounces) contains 2 grams of net carbs.
A slice of cheese, a few olives, some fatty cold cuts, or a few slices of bacon fit the bill for keto snacking. If you snack on nuts, choose the lowest-carb choices like macadamia nuts, pecans or Brazil nuts (be careful of cashews.) A hard-boiled egg is a great keto snack - try it with mayo, cream cheese, a keto dip, or butter.
Keto snack recipes
Cook up some keto snacks at home to have tasty choices easily on hand. Below are some popular options. The green circle shows net carbs per serving.
Again, the numbers are net carbs (fiber excluded) in 100 grams (3.5 ounces.)
Vegetable sticks: Snack freely on the lowest carb vegetables. Carrots are a bit higher in carbs though, and can add up quickly towards the daily limit.
Dip: What goes great with veggies? Cream cheese, sour cream or any yummy, high fat dipping sauce. Here are popular options:
Berries and cream
Berries: Modest amounts of fresh or frozen berries are okay from time-to-time but too many can take you out of ketosis. Best keto choices are raspberries and blackberries. Blueberries' carbs can add up quickly. See our guide to keto fruits and berries
Heavy whipping cream: For a decadent treat with berries, put a dollop of whipped heavy cream (33 to 40% fat) on top, but don't add any sugar or artificial sweeteners - let its natural sweetness shine through. Be careful though - it is so delicious that it is easy to eat more than you need, which could stall weight loss.
Here are a couple of recipes you may want to test:
Chocolate
Net carbs per 100 grams (3.5 ounces).
Some are amazed that on a keto diet you can occasionally have a chocolate treat. Keep it to a small amount - probably one or two squares at most - of high-cocoa chocolate of 70% or higher. Avoid regular dark chocolate and milk chocolate as they have too many carbs.
One square of 85% chocolate has 2 net grams of carbs. A square of 70% chocolate has 3.5 net carbs. Shaving a square of 70% or 85% chocolate over whipped cream makes a little go a long way.
Other keto snacks
Pork rinds: Also called cracklings, chicharrones, or pork crisps, these are a zero carb treat when you just have to have something salty and crunchy. Artisanal pork rinds - increasingly being made by keto entrepreneurs - are superior in taste to the commercial packaged product.
Beef jerky: Read the packages and choose the lowest net carbs, as many commercial brands have lots of sugar. Most brands typically have at least 9 grams of net carbs per 100 grams. Many people make their own. Here's a recipe
Biltong: A South African dried, spiced meat, made usually of beef, venison or ostrich. It typically has no sugar and is just meat marinated for a number of days in salt, spices, and vinegar and then dried. You can make it at home. Here is a recipe
Chips
Note that recipes with yellow circles may need to be eaten in moderation if you want to stay in ketosis.
Cheese
Milk coffees: Cafe lattes and cappuccinos have lots of carbs in their milk sugars. A 16 oz (470 ml) latte has 18 grams of carbs. The same size skim milk latte has 19 grams. Drink coffee black or with a little milk or cream. Or, if you want more energy from fat, try these other hot keto drinks
Juice, regular sports drinks and vitamin waters: Full of sugar. Do not drink.
Fruit: Nature's candy. While berries are fine from time-to-time, you might want to avoid other higher carb fruits. A small banana has 20 grams of carbs. See our keto fruit guide
Cashews: The high carb nut. Choose lower carb options, see our keto nuts guide
Horrible choices
Common snack foods like chips, nachos, donuts, candy and chocolate bars are all very bad for your health and your waistline. Do not eat them on a keto diet. But here is the great news: a keto diet can often reduce and sometimes even put an end to cravings for these foods.
A word of warning: be very wary of "keto" or "low carb" versions of cakes, cookies, chocolate bars, candies, ice cream, and other sweets. They might maintain people's cravings for a sugary taste, and can make you eat more than you need. They are often full of sugar alcohols - that can raise your blood sugar - and artificial sweeteners, whose health impacts are not yet known. Weight loss may also stall or slow. Learn more
Quick bites
Sometimes you just want a little something to delay lunch or dinner. Consider a quick combination:
- Slice of cheese with celery, cucumber, radish or wrapped in lettuce
- Celery filled with cream cheese, natural peanut butter, brie or other soft cheese
- Slice of cheese smeared with butter
- Cucumber or lettuce spread with mayo
- Parmesan crisps smeared with butter
- Slice of salami and cheese, rolled together
- Slice of bacon smeared with peanut butter
- Spoonful of butter, ghee or coconut oil melted into coffee or tea
- Cup of Bulletproof coffee or Keto hot chocolate
More recipes
Want some keto hors d'oeuvres? Trying to find something crunchy and tasty to serve friends coming over? Our many recipes for keto snacks will give you lots of yummy choices. Even friends who are not keto will want the recipe.
All keto snacks
Packaged snacks on the go
Maybe you are traveling. (If so, check out this awesome guide.) Maybe you need something in your desk for those nights where you are stuck at the office. Maybe you are carpooling to soccer practice when you should be eating dinner. Regardless, you need shelf-stable, keto-friendly calories.
Here is a list of packaged snack options that are keto-ish. Check the macros to see if they suit your personal regimen.
We've included links to some of these snacks solely for your convenience. Diet Doctor will not benefit from your purchases.
So whether you snack on our Oven Baked Brie Cheese at home or a bag of pork rinds in the car, keep it keto and reinforce your healthy choices for a healthy lifestyle.
Finally, sometimes the best snack is a bite or two of yesterday's dinner. With that in mind, for even more inspiration, please see all of our keto recipes.
More
Want more? Living keto goes beyond recipes. Enjoy our selection of guides to help you understand keto and keep it deliciously simple.
Get lots of weekly keto meal plans, complete with shopping lists and more, with our premium meal planner tool (free trial).
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