Keto Egg Recipes
Posted on: July 18th 2019
Whether you want to lose weight, lower blood sugar levels, or get healthier, you may want to try the keto diet. Luckily, on this eating plan, you can enjoy all your favorite foods, including eggs. Part of the fun of this low-carb diet is finding out how many ways you can make tasty, healthy meals that only feel indulgent.
One of the foods you can freely integrate into your eating plan is the egg. This whole food has high levels of fats and proteins and low levels of carbohydrates, making it a perfect addition to the keto diet or any other low-carb lifestyle. Discover the new and delicious recipes you can make with eggs that fit seamlessly into your keto eating style.
What Is the Keto Diet?
You may have heard about the keto diet or even follow it, but there is probably more about this eating style that you don’t know. For starters, the eating plan calls for consuming high fat, low-carb, and moderate to low protein levels. Reducing both carbs and proteins is vital because if you eat too much of either, your body will not burn fat, which is the aim of the diet.
The name comes from ketogenic, which is the process of your body making ketones. When you don’t eat carbs or protein in large amounts, your liver needs to break down fat in the body. The process of breaking down fat produces ketones, which your body uses for energy instead of sugar.
When your body is making ketones for energy, your body is in the state of ketosis. When in ketosis, your body more effectively burns fat without making you feel tired or hungry. Because you’re not eating sugar or carbs, you won’t get the highs and lows from blood sugar swings you may have experienced before.
The keto diet has many variations on the theme of low carbs and high fat. The different types of keto diet vary in their macronutrient levels, allowing you to adapt the menu to your needs.
- Standard: The most common form of the diet calls for no more than 5% of your food from carbs, 20% from protein, and 75% from fat.
- High-protein: The high-protein alternative allows the same 5% of your calories from carbs. Proteins increase to 35%, and fats decrease to 65%.
- Cyclic: Depending on your workout and carb needs, you may find the cyclic ketogenic diet to be a better option. It cycles between five days of keto eating and two of higher carbs.
- Targeted: If you regularly work out, you may follow a targeted ketogenic diet, which increases the number of carbs you can eat around your workouts.
As with any diet, always talk to your doctor about whether this diet is for you. Some medical conditions may preclude you from eating to induce ketosis. For any concerns or to see which version of keto is best for your lifestyle, talk to a doctor or professional dietitian. These people have the specialized training to know what is the best way to eat healthfully for your body and any medical conditions you have.
Can I Have Eggs on Keto?
Most foods on the keto diet are naturally high in fats and low in carbs. You won’t find a lot of processed foods in keto recipes. Because eggs usually have fats and protein and small amounts of carbs, they are great additions for both healthfulness and convenience for the keto diet.
Because you want to reduce your carbs as much as possible, you need to watch the foods you serve with your keto eggs. For example, if you regularly ate an omelet and toast for breakfast, you will need to find an alternative to the bread. While you may find recipes for keto egg salad, you should not serve it as a sandwich on a bun or with wheat crackers. Instead, try eating the salad in lettuce cups or another low-carb alternative.
Eating eggs is a great way to get balanced nutrition on a keto diet. Not only are they convenient, but they also cost less than other types of protein you may purchase. You can enjoy as many eggs as you like on this diet.
Are Eggs Good for Ketosis?
When you want to induce ketosis, you need to reduce the number of carbs you consume to no more than 5% of your diet. Eggs are a low-carb food you can enjoy alone or with other high-fat sides to reach ketosis. As with any food on the keto diet, always pay close attention to how you cook the dish and other added ingredients. You cannot serve your omelet with ketchup or barbecue sauce because both are too high in sugar to get you to a ketosis state. However, you can enjoy your omelet with oil, butter, or mayonnaise.
Eggs are such an efficient way to reach ketosis that some use them to jumpstart their diets by going on a keto egg fast. This temporary diet is not the same a ketogenic eating, but it is a way to begin a keto diet. Like any fast, the egg fast is not sustainable for the long term. Talk to your doctor before starting the fast to see if you can benefit from it.
What Is the Keto Egg Fast?
The keto egg fast is a way to get jump-started on your keto diet or to overcome a plateau in weight loss. Because this diet restricts your eating to only a few variations on eggs, do not continue it for more than a few days. This fast does not allow even low-carb fruits or vegetables, which reduces the total amount of nutrients you get.
On a typical day of the fast, you will have eggs and cheese for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with boiled eggs as a snack and coffee or tea to drink. You also need to drink at least 100 ounces of water daily to maintain proper hydration.
Part of the problem for many dieters, whether on a keto diet or keto egg fast, is finding tasty recipes to fit into their lifestyles. If you have eggs on hand, finding dishes to make becomes easier.
Keto Egg Recipes
Morning, noon, and night, eggs help you stick to your keto diet. The versatile egg can be a minor ingredient or the star of the recipe. If you follow a keto lifestyle, always keep a carton of eggs handy in your refrigerator. With those, you can prepare a fast, flavorful, and low-carb meal.
1. Breakfast
Get your metabolism running with a healthy, filling breakfast. Keto breakfast recipes are some of the least unusual compared to what you may typically eat, unless you always started the day with a bowl of sugary cereal. Hearty sausage and bacon, along with eggs and cheese, create the centerpieces for many keto diet breakfasts. Try these breakfast ideas to get started. Just don’t forget to limit your carbs with any side dishes you choose.
If you enjoy the portability of breakfast sandwiches, you can still have an egg-filled, handheld entrée. Swap out the biscuit, muffin or toast for sausage patties. Delish’s recipe for a keto sausage breakfast sandwich takes only 15 minutes to make and includes creamy avocado for a dose of fiber and minerals. This recipe calls for frozen sausage patties to cut down on the cooking time and preparation. Feel free to use your own freshly made sausage patties instead. To keep your hands grease-free during your commute, hold the sandwich between paper towels.
For those mornings when you can’t resist the thought of pancakes, give in to your cravings with keto pancakes, starring eggs and cream cheese. These pancakes whip up in minutes, and thanks to the inclusion of cream cheese, they have a flavor reminiscent of miniature cheesecakes. You can have your cheesecake and eat it, too, when you are following a keto meal plan. For a slightly heartier version, add some almond meal to the batter. The result tastes more like the pancakes you know and love. Try both to see which you prefer. Just don’t forget the sugar-free syrup to go with your short stack.
On a lazy weekend morning, you can feed a crowd with this vegetable-filled breakfast casserole from Food Network. Spicy chorizo sausage, peppery radishes, savory celeriac, and creamy Monterey Jack cheese come together in a dish bound by a dozen eggs. This dish has enough flavors to satisfy even those who don’t follow the keto diet.
You may feel concerned about getting enough fiber in your diet on the keto plan. Incorporating low-carb vegetables can help ease your concerns. One fibrous veggie that tastes better the less you cook it is the Brussels sprout. As with cabbage, if you overcook sprouts, you will end up with an odorous mess. However, this recipe for Brussels sprouts hash walks you through the way to get perfectly crisp-tender sprouts to serve as the backdrop for fried eggs. It’s a visually arresting recipe that will please the palate as much as it does the eyes.
Don’t dismiss the diner favorite of steak and eggs. You find this breakfast in diners because it comes together quickly, but tastes like it took longer. When you tire of sausage and bacon in the morning, don’t give up on your keto lifestyle. Serve up some steak and eggs. In Tasteaholic’s recipe, the entire dish, including avocado, only has three net grams of carbs, for a breakfast that won’t put a massive dent in your carb allowance for the day.
The next time you feel left out when your co-workers dive into a box of doughnuts and cinnamon rolls, bring your spiced breakfast bun to the office. You can enjoy cinnamon roll taste, including the cream cheese icing, without all the carbs. Food Network’s recipe uses unconventional baking ingredients to keep the carb count low. Follow the directions carefully to ensure success with this recipe. When finished, you will have a dozen keto-approved cinnamon buns to enjoy or share.
When you need a tasty spice to pick you up in the morning, make this breakfast taco skillet, filled with all the flavors you love in tacos without the carby shells. In this dish, eggs, cheese, and taco meat create the base for the fillings. As with any taco recipe, feel free to change up the toppings as your taste and diet dictate.
While breakfast recipes often remain unchanged or only require slight tweaking to make them acceptable on a keto plan, lunch and dinner are not as easy to adapt on your own. Luckily, you can find a wealth of recipes that cut the carbs without reducing the flavor. The secret behind these crave-worthy keto concoctions is using eggs in the recipes.
2. Lunch
Lunch recipes often need to be fast and portable. If you work in an office and need to carry your keto-friendly meals with you, you want something that still tastes good after sitting in an office refrigerator or insulated lunch bag for several hours. On the keto diet, bread-heavy sandwiches with sugary condiments no longer fit into your eating plan. However, you still have high-fat, low-carb options that will get you through the afternoon.
Cobb salad is a staple of many restaurants. This salad, filled with light vegetables and topped by meats and boiled eggs, is the perfect lunch to power your day. Some recipes, however, include sugar-filled dressings. This iteration of the dish from Tasteaholics substitutes the traditional thick dressing for olive oil and vinegar. You still get all the creaminess you could want, though, from the inclusion of avocado on top of this salad. This recipe is easy to prepare ahead of time and transports well in a lunch tote. Save money by skipping the overpriced restaurant salads and bringing this Cobb salad for lunch.
A portable picnic version of the classic chicken salad sandwich are these stuffed eggs. Like the traditional recipe for deviled eggs, this dish includes boiled whites filled with goodness. In this case, the filling is an Old Bay-spiced chicken salad recipe. Increase the number you make to have lunches for all week or to bring for a potluck meal outside. The filled whites make a protein-packed alternative to bread you would typically have a chicken salad on. This recipe proves you don’t have to give up your favorite creamy chicken salad when you go on keto.
Like chicken salad, tuna salad is a lunch staple for many, as are BLTs. Food Network’s recipe for keto tuna salad cups marries the flavor of both afternoon favorites into one satisfying, keto-friendly dish. By bringing your favorite salad in lettuce cups instead of between bread slices, you get all the flavors you want without the bread to bog you down. Lettuce cups hold the mixture, filled with tuna, bacon, and boiled eggs. You can enjoy these cups without worrying about getting your hands dirty or finding a fork for your lunch.
Sometimes, you want a lunch that warms you up as much as it satisfies your hunger. Egg drop soup is easy to make, and this recipe only has half a gram of carbs per serving. Though this soup does not reheat well, it only takes 10 minutes to make, so you can quickly prepare it anywhere you can boil the broth on a stovetop. With a bone broth base, this recipe surpasses the standard salty stock used at restaurants. If you want something to bolster the staying power of your bone broth snack, make this soup for extra protein and fat to hold you over until dinner.
Don’t let your keto lifestyle keep you from the pizza taste you love. With some almond flour, mozzarella cheese, and eggs, you can prepare a pizza crust for topping with your favorite keto-approved additions. To save time, bake the dough and make the sauce the night before and toss them together into a dish to reheat at the office. You only need the dough and sauce to heat through and the cheese to melt before eating, so this dish is one you can warm in your office microwave. Your tasty, low-carb pizza may be the envy of your other carb-conscious co-workers at lunchtime. Share the recipe with them or make enough to share.
If you’re following an egg fast, a simple egg salad will be a lunch mainstay during the fast. This recipe incorporates Dijon mustard for an extra kick without the carbs. Whip up a batch of this simple salad on Monday to get you through the fast without worrying about preparing your low-carb lunches in the mornings before work.
While lunches often focus on soups and salads that come together quickly on hurried weekday mornings, you can afford to spend more time making your dinners.
3. Dinner
Keto recipes at dinnertime often have heartier portions and need immediate serving. Unlike lunches that may sit for hours before you eat them, dinners can go straight from the oven to the table. This preparation flexibility increases the options you have for keto-friendly dinners. As with lunches, eggs play a critical role in the flavor and composition of these recipes. With so many uses for eggs, maybe you should stock up and get two dozen eggs or more on the next grocery shopping trip you make.
If you love bread, try this keto alternative that swaps out wheat flour for almond meal and uses eggs for leavening. Make it a star of a sandwich or serve it as a side with an entrée. Though it requires two hours to make, you’ll have low-carb bread all week long from this recipe. Make this recipe on a Sunday night to have with your dinners for the five days. Top toasted slices with butter for a comforting option to serve as a snack or with your meals.
For a noodle-filled dinner without the carbs, make your own with only three ingredients — eggs, wheat gluten, and cream cheese. This recipe has an unconventional cooking method for the noodles. Instead of boiling them, you bake these delicate strips in the oven. Though the technique is unconventional, feel free to use these noodles as the base for more traditional pasta sauces. If using store-bought sauces, read the label to ensure they do not have added sugars.
Following a diet can be especially tricky around the holidays. While the main course may be low-carb meat, traditional sides like mashed potatoes and bread stuffing are not keto-friendly. For your next holiday meals or practice before the big day, make this fluffy keto stuffing. The ingredients include fragrant thyme, sage, and onion. The yolks and whites help bind the ingredients together while adding to the dish’s fluffy texture. Serve it alongside turkey or bake it in the bird to make it even more flavorful from the juices of the turkey.
Of course, any breakfast or lunch can stand in for a healthy, hearty dinner. Feel free to mix up the recipes throughout the day. If you feel like keto pancakes for dinner and noodles for lunch, don’t be shy about trying your meals at a different type of the day. Just make sure you start with fresh, healthy ingredients.
Make Sauder Eggs a Healthy Addition to Your Keto Diet
If you choose to follow the keto diet, getting food for the recipes you want to make is easy, especially if you incorporate healthy eggs into your lifestyle. Eggs fit perfectly into keto eating methods because they have the right amount of fats and proteins without a lot of carbs. You can enjoy them all day for any meal — a versatility other low-carb foods lack.
To ensure you get the best outcomes from your recipes, start with the freshest ingredients. Regardless of why you choose the keto diet, you still deserve good food. Fresh Sauder eggs make a tasty addition to your low-carb breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Find them at your local grocer.
