Bread, an indispensable staple of most meals. Think about it, most cultures over the world have come up with a form of bread in their history. From the Greek pitas to the French baguette, the Italian ciabatta to the Indian naan, every cuisine has its side of crusty or soft, flat or raised kind of bread. All these breads have the very same inconvenient for low-carb or keto dieters. Carbs, a lot of carbs.
So, I have to break it to you, traditional pitas are not keto friendly, naans are not keto friendly, sourdough breads are not keto-friendly. The list goes on, because none of the common breads are keto friendly. Some keto breads are starting to arrive in grocery stores, but they generally don’t taste like the real deal.
But the good news is that yes, you can eat bread on keto! You’ll find below our very best keto bread recipes, from oopsies to burger buns, super-fast microwave buns or traditional loaves. A bunch of low-carb easy recipes that are healthy, quick to make and above all, delicious.
Can I buy keto bread?
Before we dive into our most popular keto bread recipes, let’s understand why you shouldn’t eat store-bought bread on a keto diet. Commercial breads are all made with carb-loaded flours – white flour, wholemeal flour, corn flour, etc.. They are all way too high in carb. To be very precise, a typical slice of white bread has about 13g of net carbs, which is half of the typical keto carb macros for a whole day! In one slice. A slice of wholemeal bread is even worse, despite the increased amount of fiber, they come with about 15g of net carbs. So stay clear of regular breads!
If you are wondering whether gluten-free breads you can find in the same aisle are keto, the answer is no. Typical commercial gluten-free loaves would have between 10g and 13g of net carbs per slice.
Now, there are some Keto breads available in store and, these are of course keto-friendly. But beware, in order to be both Keto friendly and last long enough, they are made with tons of eggs, thickeners and food preservatives. Plus they tend to be quite dull. You are unlikely to find buns or oopsie breads!
How to make keto bread?
The easiest thing to do to make delicious keto bread is to pick one of our most popular recipes below and follow the instructions! But here are some additional tips.
Choose low carb flours
There’s no secret, to make low-carb bread you need low-carb flours. How do you know if a flour is low-carb? We define as low-carb the flours, meal or grounds that contain a very low amount of net carbs. Therefore, low-carb flours generally contain a high amount of fiber. It should be noted that net carbs are the amount of carbs per 100 grams of product after taking away the fibers. As a general rule, any flour with less than 21 grams of net carbs per 100 grams is considered low-carb – don’t panic, the addition of other ingredients in the recipe will take the carbs down in the final product.
The table below lists the most common low-carb flours for baking bread (data from nutrition data). For comparison purpose, regular white wheat flour is loaded with 73g of net carbs per 100g.
Combining flours
Unlike traditional baking, low-carb baking requires to combine flours in order to create the most delicious bread textures. Obviously, you will find some keto bread recipes that make use of only one flour. But these recipes most likely use a huge amount of eggs to compensate for the lack of texture. As a result, these keto bread recipes often have an overpowering egg flavor, they don’t store very long and can be very cake-like more than bread-like.
- Almond flour or hazelnut flour – perfect to create moist breads with a soft texture. If used on its own with eggs, almond flour have a cake-like texture so it has to be mixed with another flour for a real bread-like texture.
- Coconut flour – perfect to add fiber and bulk to your bread. However, coconut flour contains a lot of fiber – 37g per 100 grams. Consequently it absorbs a lot of moisture in the recipe and can dry your bread quickly if you don’t add enough fluids in the recipe.
- Psyllium husk – perfect to replace eggs and create an egg-free keto bread. Husk binds ingredients together and adds the chewy elastic texture we all love in bread – just like gluten does in regular wheat-based bread.
- Flaxmeal or chia seed meal – these flours add elasticity to bread. They should be used in small amounts, around 1/3 cup per bread loaf.
- Sunflower seed flour or pumpkin seed flour – these flours are great substitutes to almond flour if you are allergic to nuts. They can’t be used in similar volumes as almond meal and add the same properties to your bread. They might just be slightly more difficult to source.
- Peanut flour – a delicious flour in desserts and a great way to add peanut butter flavor to muffins, cookies or loaf
Our favorite combinations of flours are
- Almond flour + Coconut flour + Flax meal + Psyllium Husk: For a round bread-like texture
- Almond flour + Coconut flour + Psyllium Husk: For a crispy crust and soft inside.
- Flax meal + Coconut flour: To get a hard, dense bread
- Almond flour + Psyllium Husk: For a soft bread
Be precise, weigh your ingredients
Low-carb baking is not hard but it uses high-fiber flours that are highly water absorbent. As a result, if you don’t measure your ingredients precisely your bread dough can easily end up way too wet or way too dry. I recommend you use an electronic scale for success.
A wide range of low carb bread recipes
There is a wide range of keto breads that you can make using low-carb flours including:
- Bread loaf – bread that can be sliced and used as a sandwich base. It doesn’t include fruits or sweets
- Rolls – short, round, served usually before or with meals often with butter
- Bun – for burgers or just to use for your sandwiches.
Most popular keto bread recipes
Find below a round up of all our favorite bread recipes. Don’t hesitate to comment if you made them or if you would like to find another recipe here!
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Muito bom adorei este artigo sou fã da dieta low carb
Thanks for your great help as always!! The low carb flour content table saved my life..Yours is absolutely clear and simple . I💖your web , your gluten free low starch recipes ,all your information and even I love your followers that ask such usefull cuestions that you answer with your big experience on that matter of making delicious subs to healthy eating. Huge work you do here…
Oh thank you so much for this lovely message. I am glad you enjoy my low carb recipes. Have a lovely time browsing around. XOXO Carine.