The Best Keto Thanksgiving Recipes (2024)

FAQs

How do you survive Thanksgiving on keto? ›

A few general tips for making your Thanksgiving keto-friendly: Swap out mashed potatoes for mashed cauliflower, nix adding any flour to thicken recipes like green bean casserole or creamed spinach, and load up on the low-carb veggies like Brussels sprouts, spaghetti squash, and mushrooms.

Gravy can be keto-friendly if made with low-carb thickeners and ingredients. Choose recipes that align with keto principles, or explore alternative recipes.

There Are Plenty of Conscious Ways to Have a Keto Cheat Day

Or, if it's Thanksgiving, don't offer to cook green beans or turkey (which are already keto-compliant). Instead, bring a low-carb pumpkin pie or make mashed cauliflower instead of potatoes.

Sweet potatoes, being a naturally high-carb food, are unfortunately not keto-friendly. Nutritionists believe that the high carb content in sweet potatoes cannot easily fit into keto macros, the common ratio for which is 70% fat, 25% protein, and 5% carbohydrates.

The basic rules of keto are eating few carbohydrates and emphasizing fat with a moderate intake of protein. In order to be in a state of ketosis, you will likely have to track the amount of carbohydrates you eat by weighing out your food.

As you can see, bread is by far the food people miss the most, followed by dessert/sweets and beer. Below are our best suggestions for low-carb versions of these foods.

Keto practitioners incorporate a variety of different condiments into their diets, including hot sauce, low-carb BBQ sauce, sugar-free ketchup, mustard, ranch dressing, mayonnaise, guacamole, soy sauce, sour cream, and more.

Steak is perfect for the keto diet because of its abundance of healthy fat, protein, and essential micronutrients. In fact, nutritionists consider it the best fat and protein source for keto dieters. The best part is that there are many cuts to choose from, almost all of which contain zero carbohydrates.

Net carbs are calculated by taking the total grams of carbohydrate in a food and subtracting the amount of fiber. In this case, popcorn contains 6 grams of carbs per 1 cup serving and 1.2 grams of fiber, bringing the net carbs per serving to 4.8 grams. Yes friends, popcorn is indeed a keto food.

Regular Crust

This type of pizza crust can have up to 33g of carbs without any added sauce or cheese. If you're limiting your carbs to 20-50 grams per day, one slice of this type of crust will likely kick you out of ketosis.

Can you do keto 5 days on 2 days off? ›

Keto cycling doesn't have a strict definition. Some people choose to have five or six days on keto followed by a day or two off. Others will do keto for 10 to 12 days followed by three to four days off. Devine typically doesn't recommend taking more than two days off keto.

Peanut butter can definitely be part of a keto diet, but it's best to stick to plain options that are free of extra flavors and sweeteners. Almond butter is a good choice, too, and it's slightly lower in carbs. Additionally, you should be mindful of your portion size if you're trying to lose weight.

You still need to exercise portion control with most keto-friendly fruits to be within the limits of a keto diet. Keto-friendly fruits include avocados, watermelon, strawberries, lemons, tomatoes, raspberries, peaches, cantaloupe, star fruit, and blackberries.

While cottage cheese is known for its high protein content, it also contains a relatively high amount of carbs and not that much fat, making it a less-than-ideal choice for keto. A ½-cup serving of cottage cheese contains 88 calories, 2.4 g of fat, 4.5 g of carbs, and 11.6 g of protein, per the USDA.

Food and drinks allowed on a no-carb diet include meat, fish, eggs, cheese, butter, oils, water, and plain coffee or tea. If you're less stringent, you can also eat nuts, seeds, non-starchy vegetables, and high fat fruits like avocado and coconut since these foods are low in net carbs.

It's important that you do not just fall back into whatever old eating patterns you had before going keto! This could no only result in nasty side effects, but also, weight regain. Weight regain after restrictive diets like this is SO common it's almost textbook.

Make sure you are eating enough fat. Being much more energy-dense than carbohydrates, fats are also more satiating. They will also ensure that you stay in ketosis. Increase the size of your meals with nutrient-dense foods.

Keto practitioners say that you can absolutely have cheat days while observing keto. But it's important that you do it right to stay in ketosis and on track with your weight loss goals.

You'll Lose Water Weight

A sudden lack of carbs will make you lose weight. It's mostly water weight at first, though. This is mostly because cutting carbs also wipes out the glycogen stores in your muscles. Glycogen helps your body retain water.