Keto and coffee might not seem like the best combination at first glance. But actually, there are endless beverages you can make that can still be enjoyed by all those following a keto diet.
A keto diet, in its simplest expression, is that which refrains from eating as many carbs as reasonably possible. This can be something as obvious as white bread as well as sugar, which many of us use to sweeten our daily cup of coffee.
So you see how this might be a little tricky—coffee is very tasty, but it really isn’t something that most people drink without adding a little carb to it. Whether these carbs come from sugar or milk, the fact is that coffee goes, most of the time, hand in hand with carbs.
In this article, we’ll explore a few ideas for having keto coffee—coffee without carbs—as well as share a few short recipes to help you get started!
Keto Coffee Ideas
Keto Egg Coffee
Vietnam is the second-largest producer of coffee in the whole world. And they actually have a vibrant, rich culture around coffee and have come up with more than a few famous recipes that people enjoy all over the world.
One of these famous recipes is egg coffee. The principle is quite simple: use the yolk of the egg to replace milk. The yolk has a certain umami taste and has a creaminess that can easily surpass that of milk if done correctly.
The funny thing is that this recipe actually came about because of a milk shortage. The country was at war and a clever barista thought to replace milk with egg yolk. And thus, egg coffee was created.
How to make egg coffee?
Ingredients:
- 200ml brewed coffee
- 2 egg yolks
- Carb-free sweetener of your choice
Instructions:
- Separate egg whites and yolks. We will only use the yolks here, so you can save or discard the whites.
- Brew your coffee.
- While the coffee is still piping hot, add the yolks.
- Stir vigorously for thirty seconds.
- Ádd sweetener.
- Enjoy!
Butter Coffee
There isn’t one single recipe for butter coffee. That’s because it is a very old invention and people have been adding butter to their coffee for a long, long time. It is possible that people added coffee to their coffee as early as the 17th century when it was first brought to Europe.
Butter coffee consists simply of coffee, black, with a tablespoon or two of butter added to it. Unsalted butter would be ideal for most people, as it doesn’t add so much foreign flavor to it. However, salted butter is also a good idea.
Salt, after all, is actually an ingredient in several different coffee recipes, even if in very small quantities. So salted butter isn’t completely out of the picture.
You can also try with other types of butter; almond butter and peanut butter are two accessible, plant-based butter that adds a whole other layer of flavor to your drink. Ghee, a type of butter (clarified butter) that is native to India, is also a popular option for this type of drink since it has a sweeter taste.
But let’s focus on a more modern take on this famous recipe: bulletproof coffee.
Bulletproof coffee is very popular, particularly among the keto community, because it was the first big idea to come out of the keto movement.
The real goal of bulletproof coffee isn’t simply to make a tasty keto coffee. That has been done before. Bulletproof coffee wants to also create a coffee that is as healthy as possible for you by using the very best available fats.
This is done by using grass-fed butter instead of regular butter and also adding MCT oil, which has a lot of benefits to your health. You can also use coconut oil.
How to make Bulletproof coffee?
- 200ml brewed coffee
- 2 tbsp MCT oil
- 2 tbsp grass-fed butter
Mix them all together, and you’ve got yourself the perfect beverage for starting the day as healthy as possible and as full of energy as humanly possible thanks to the high caloric value of this drink!
Carb Free Milk
Perhaps the most obvious—and maybe boring—the solution is to find alternatives to cow milk that don’t contain carbs. Seems easy enough, right? But most people don’t know where to find such a thing because we’ve been fed cow milk our whole lives.
So let’s take a look at some other types of milk that are more keto-friendly:
- Almond milk: This type of milk comes from almonds, which are mostly fat and protein. Most of the nutritional content in almond milk comes from fat, then protein, and then trace amounts of carbohydrates.
Almond milk has a decent texture and a subtle flavor that adds a lot of value to your coffee. - Coconut milk: Coconut is a type of fruit that has been consumed for thousands of years. It is very high in fat and has little in regard to protein or carbs.
Coconut milk has a delicious taste that makes it a popular ingredient for coffee beverages even when it isn’t trying to be keto. So, coconut milk is one of the most used keto alternatives precisely because of its great taste. - Soy milk: The most widely popular alternative milk, soy milk, has a better texture than almond milk, but a taste that’s not as good as coconut milk.
In terms of nutrition, however, soy milk has a lot of protein and is more valuable to our health than most other plant milks.
As you can see, there are many options out there that are alternatives to regular milk and can be used in a keto diet.
Although some plant-based milk maybe a little more expensive than regular milk, this is not always the case. And even if it is, it’s definitely worth it when we take into account just how much better for our health these alternatives are.