Invariably when someone suggests you try this diet or that diet the first thing you want to know is “What am I going to have to give up?” The keto diet is no different. Fitting your eating around less than 50g of carbs makes the list of things you’re giving up quite long in fact. Event things that used to be considered ok to eat on other healthy diets. Things like sweet potatoes, which are ok on the Paleo diet, just won’t fly on Keto.
So one of the strategies to deal with what you’re giving up is to start finding ways to make “keto friendly” versions of the foods you want. Overall I’m ok with this strategy. After all if you’re sticking to your diet, what does it matter if the foods you’re eating are designed to remind you of the things you aren’t supposed to have. Having said this, when it comes to starting with keto I do recommend a month of strict keto before you start looking to work around what you aren’t supposed to eat. The reason is that if you’re including things in your meal plan that remind you of foods you loved to eat before you’re fully adapted to keto you run the risk of indulging on the real deal. If you feel that you can do these keto alternatives without the temptation, though, go right ahead.
This isn’t going to be an exhaustive list by any means, just a short one of a few adaptations I’ve made or used.
My first one, to replace rice, is riced cauliflower. It isn’t a perfect alternative though as it has what I call a temperamental window. It’s easy to not cook it enough so that it’s too hard to give the same mouth feel as rice. It’s also easy to over cook it and your riced cauliflower quickly becomes mashed cauliflower. Here’s how I typically use it. I usually buy it riced instead of chopping it up myself. I’ll microwave it in 30 second intervals until it’s warm but not hot. I’ll then cover it with whatever I would have used to cover the rice with. The heat and liquid content of that usually heats and softens the riced cauliflower from warm to just right. Again, it’s all about getting the right mouth feel. A nice dish is to brown some sausage, add a small amount of Rao’s Tomato Sauce, and serve it on top of the riced cauliflower with a little shredded mozzarella on top.
My next one is a breakfast alternative. If you like McDonald’s Sausage McMuffin with egg there’s a keto alternative. Cook an egg on the stove while browning some sausage patties in the oven. They do sell rings to make the egg circular like McDonald’s does ( http://a.co/d/ffxvpVO ). Instead of using muffins you just use two sausage patties, placing the egg and cheddar between them. It’s a little messier but so delicious.
If you really just need bread though there are recipes for that too that are keto friendly. My favorite is Fathead Dough. Here’s a link to a recipe from Keto.Connect on it ( https://www.ketoconnect.net/fathead-pizza-crust/ ). Once you’ve made the fathead dough it’s easy enough to use it to create different things. You can wrap it around some sausage and cheddar and then bake it in the oven at 350F until golden brown and you have delicious sausage bites. You could form them into buns to use with hamburger patties to make keto hamburgers. You could wrap it around a hot dog. Lots of options.
And the final one I’ll list today is noodles. You can make keto noodles with a spiralizer and a zucchini. You can get the spiralizer pretty cheaply on Amazon ( http://a.co/d/dNrkDiu ), although you might be able to shop around locally and find one. It’s easy to use, and if you get the model I linked it offers the ability to vary the way the noodles come out. Once you’ve spiralized them though I’d use them quickly. You can basically use them in any recipe you’d use noodles in. Just keep in mind that like noodles the more you cook them the mushier they get. If you can, to maintain a more al dente type noodle, use them raw or only slightly heated.
So there you have it, a short list of ways to create keto alternatives to foods you enjoyed before keto but can’t have now. Again, this is a very small list. If you’d like to hear about specific foods you like that yo’d like to make keto just leave a comment below and I’ll try and find an alternative for you. There are tons of keto alternatives out there, including sweeteners and desserts. Some require you to cook, some come premade. But that’s for a later post. Hope you’re all having a great day and I’ll see you soon.
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