What side dishes work best on the keto diet? When you cut out french fries, mashed potatoes, and rice, you may be wondering what to pair with your favorite entrees.
Fortunately, you have plenty of options. Fresh salads, roasted vegetables, and low-sugar fruits can make your plate colorful, appetizing, and nutritionally balanced. Plus, you can use low-carb veggies to replace your former starchy sides. Keep reading for new, flavorful keto side dishes that will step up your next meal.
Food is meant to be enjoyed, but if you entered the low-carb lifestyle for weight loss or health goals, you might want to think further than flavor on your side dishes. When selecting fruits, low-sugar veggies, or even keto baked goods, keep the following things in mind:
#1: Choose the highest-quality produce you can reasonably afford: Select organic leafy greens and saving conventional produce for the “clean fifteen,” or those with minimum pesticide residue.
#2: Remember that macros still matter within your keto meal plan: Choose sides high in dietary fiber and low in net carbs. But on keto, feel free to roast veggies in olive oil, grass-fed butter, or coconut oil for added flavor and healthy fats.
#3: Focus on getting as many micronutrients as possible: Aim for veggies filled with vitamins and minerals. While keto breads or crackers are tasty, they don’t deliver as much nutrition as fresh or roasted vegetables.
Even if you miss ordering onion rings or fries, you’ll love the following low-carb recipes for side dishes. Here are winning ideas for low-carb dips, soups, salads, vegetables, and reinvented favorites that fit perfectly within a ketogenic diet.
This side dish gives you a dose of antioxidants within every spoonful[*]. This cranberry sauce recreates one of your favorite holiday sides without the added sugar. Made with oranges, fresh cranberries, and sweetened with stevia, no one at your table will know this recipe is low-carb.
How can you make low-carb stuffing without the bread? Tons of veggies. This side dish is really a cauliflower casserole packed with mushrooms, onions, and celery, then seasoned with sage, rosemary, and parsley. As an added benefit, gut-healing bone broth is used to marry all the flavors together, coming with a few extra health benefits[*][*].
If you’ve been craving buffalo wings, you’re going to love this healthy recipe for buffalo bites. Instead of chicken, you’ll dip cauliflower florets in hot sauce for a vegetarian, gluten-free twist on your favorite appetizer. You’ll fry your cauliflower bites in grass-fed butter, then transfer them to the oven to bake until crisp.
This chicken and hemp heart recipe is a workhorse of nutrients. You get the essential amino acids from pastured chicken breast, and the anti-inflammatory effects, omega fatty acids, and digestion-boosting fiber from hemp hearts[*]. Plus, it tastes just like chicken nuggets, only better.
This low-carb side dish will dress-up any backyard bbq or family gathering. Bacon, cheddar cheese, and green onions are tossed over coleslaw for an extra spin on the classic coleslaw recipe. For dressing, use this zero-sugar, keto-friendly mayo and you’ll be completely carb-fine.
This fresh, crunchy salad is a new take on the Italian classic. Cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, cucumbers, and shallots are tossed in a homemade dressing made from olive oil, balsamic, and garlic for a dish you can’t resist. Pair with zucchini noodles or a low-carb keto lasagna for a low-carb spin on an Italian meal.
Do you love a good cup of chili? Then you’ll love this beanless, low-carb version — made with ground turkey, cauliflower rice, and onions. Pour in full-fat coconut to make your soup extra creamy, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and enjoy.
Be honest for a second: How much do you miss potato chips? While potato chips are not keto-friendly, you can bake or fry many vegetables at home to satisfy those crunchy cravings. With this recipe, you’ll bake kale into chips, sprinkle with sea salt, and spray with avocado oil for a side dish that tastes just like your former favorite snacks.
Remember when you were younger and wanted nothing to do with anything green on your plate? That was long before you realized veggies roasted in bacon fat were positively delicious, and Brussels happen to be the favorite among said vegetables. In this recipe, you’ll roast Brussels sprouts until charred, sprinkle with salt and pepper, then serve with bacon bits for a savory, satisfying side.
Spaghetti squash often earns a bad reputation as a low-carb pasta substitute on the keto diet. However, when sprinkled with a little salt and pepper, roasted spaghetti squash works well all on its own as a side dish. Pair with your favorite steak, pork loan, or roasted chicken breast for a balanced meal.
This is the cleaner, more nutritious version of the Caesar you get at restaurants. This keto salad recipe calls for real chicken real dressing, and only romaine hearts (instead of the less nutritious outer leaves) for vitamin K, omega-3s, iron, and all 9 essential fatty acids.
Just in case you haven’t noticed, cauliflower is an extremely versatile vegetable. You can roll it into a pizza crust, bake it into macaroni and cheese, or mash it into potatoes. This mashed cauliflower recipe is loaded with healthy fats, blending parmesan, heavy cream, and butter into the final product. Pour over a gluten-free keto gravy, and it’s ready to serve.
While high-quality dairy is fine to consume on keto, it causes some to experience digestive discomfort. If you are one of those people, you will be happy to know you can still enjoy this recipe. This creamed spinach is made with lactose-free cream cheese, making it a safer option for the lactose intolerant.
If you love spicy chips and salsa, spicy potato chips, or any other snack food that packs a bit of heat, you’ll enjoy this side. These crunchy snacks are made with parmesan, sharp cheddar, and jalapenos, baked until crispy. Serve alongside your favorite Mexican-inspired entrees — like this enchilada casserole or these low-carb tacos — to complete your meal.
This keto recipe recreates one of your all-time favorite side dishes: French fries. Celeriac (or celery root) is actually a tuber, just like potatoes, so it tastes very similar to potatoes. However, this recipe contains just nine grams of carbs — far fewer than you’d get from regular fries or even sweet potato fries.
When you think of your favorite salads, cauliflower salad might be the last thing that comes to mind. But in this potato-free recipe, you’ll use low-carb cauliflower florets as the perfect substitute to white potatoes in a faux, sugar-free potato salad. Load it up with celery, bacon, hard-boiled eggs, mayo, and green onions, then enjoy at your favorite picnic or backyard barbecue.
Hopefully, this list of side dish recipes gives you tons of ideas for your next low-carb meal. But the best advice is simply not to overthink this.
While making faux mashed potatoes, low-carb French fries, or veggie chips can be fun, there are plenty of keto side dishes that require far less work. Virtually any fresh, roasted, or grilled vegetables (with the exception of starchy vegetables) is already a keto-friendly side. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper on them, and you’re good to go.
If you need to review which vegetables are keto-approved, review this Full Ketogenic Diet Food List. It will help you determine which veggies make the perfect low-carb sides and which should be avoided.
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