Interested in cooking up keto-friendly recipes this holiday season? Check out this list for ideas on how to do just that
The ketogenic diet—or keto, for short—is a very low-carb and high-fat diet that’s found to be effective for rapid weight loss, and so is often used as a dietary intervention for conditions like obesity and type 2 diabetes. The most common type of keto diet is the “standard ketogenic diet,” which refers to an intake of 70% fat, 20% protein, and 10% carbs. This means having a diet consisting mostly of meat, fatty fish, eggs, cheese, nuts, seeds, and healthy oils, and limiting anything high in carbs, such as rice, pasta, fruit, root vegetables, and beans. You can count out sugary foods, sugary drinks, alcoholic beverages, and anything that’s processed or has unhealthy fats, too.
Anyone taking the keto route is then restricted from the kinds of comfort food the masses indulge in the most during the holiday season. That being said, there are ways to circumvent this obstacle while adhering to restrictions. For ideas on how to cook up delicious yet low-carb comfort foods, check out our list below.
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Cold comforts
While you may not be free to indulge in ice cream, frozen treats aren’t totally out of the realm of possibility, even when you’re on a keto diet.
You can get creative with homemade keto ice cream, using heavy cream, vanilla extract, and your choice of unsweetened milk. Greek frozen yogurt is another go-to pick for keto practitioners since it’s full-fat dairy.
Chocolate goodness
Chocolatey desserts are at the heart of many households’ holiday celebrations, but to be sure that the treat you’re indulging is low-carb, why not make fat bombs instead?
Fat bombs are ketogenic must-haves for anyone with an unfulfilled sweet tooth. To make this, the only ingredients you’ll need are unsweetened cocoa powder, your choice of nut butter, and your choice of sweetener. Once you have these ingredients, you can mix them in a bowl until it has the consistency of playdough, shape them into balls, and you’re all free to eat them to your heart’s content.
Veggie alternatives
Carb-heavy dishes like rice meals and pasta are also common comfort foods that keto practitioners have to limit their intake of, but there are ways to make these household staples more keto-friendly. For one thing, there are plenty of low-carb pasta noodles available on the market, so you can still recreate your favorite pasta dishes at home by swapping out the starchy and wheat-based ingredients with keto-friendly products. Alternatively, you can cook with vegetables to add more substance to your diet.
For pasta dishes, you can get creative with vegetables by cutting them into thin strips to mimic noodles, and the popular pick for this technique is zucchini. On that note, eggplants are also great substitutes for lasagna sheets and they even pair well with ricotta cheese. You can also swap out the rice in your rice meals for cauliflower, which is jam-packed with nutrients and low in carbs. Making cauliflower rice is a bit of a tedious process if you’re new to it, so it’s a good thing that you can buy it pre-made in grocery stores, too.
