The Best Keto Thanksgiving Recipes (2025)

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.

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.

Here are the main foods that are high-in-fat, low-in-carbs and are great starting place for anyone wanting to dip their feet into keto diet: Meat: Steak, ham, sausage, bacon, turkey, and chicken. Cheese: Cheddar, cream cheese, goat cheese, mozzarella, or blue cheese (always unprocessed).

Smoked Turkey Breast: Whole30, Paleo, Keto, Gluten-Free

This healthy smoked boneless turkey breast recipe is so easy, needs only a few ingredients, and is a great lean protein that's also Whole30, paleo, gluten-free and low carb/keto. It's perfect for a family friendly weeknight dinner or great for meal prepping.

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.

The bottom line. You should avoid cheat meals and days on the keto diet. Consuming too many carbs can kick your body out of ketosis — and it takes several days to 1 week to get back into it. In the meantime, your weight loss may be disrupted.

Eating more than 50 grams of carbs may disrupt ketosis.

With keto diets, however, carb restrictions vary from person to person. Some people can eat more and still stay in ketosis, whereas others may need to restrict their carb intake more in order to stay in ketosis.

Bread: Around 2 to 3 slices of white or whole wheat bread typically contain around 50g of carbohydrates. Oats: Approximately 50g of dry oats (about 1/2 cup) provides around 50g of carbohydrates. Fruits: Consuming around 2 medium-sized bananas or 3 medium-sized apples can give you close to 50g of carbohydrates.

A lot of people think that the keto diet is all about consuming meat and meat alone. But eating too much meat that is processed, like sausages, smoked meat, bacon and hot dogs is definitely not good. These kind of meat contain gluten, preservatives and sugar, that will increase carb intake and kick body out of ketosis.

Can you eat peanut butter on 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.

Almond milk.

This faintly nutty-tasting milk is made from almonds. A 100-gram serving of plain, unsweetened almond milk contains 0.67 grams of carbohydrates, making it a great choice for a keto diet.

Can you eat beef jerky on the Keto Diet? A Keto-Friendly snack made with beef jerky, nuts, salami, and olives. Yes, you can eat beef jerky on the Keto Diet, just make sure it's carb free and you don't over-snack which can kick you out of ketosis. In a perfect world, snacking wouldn't be needed when on the keto diet.

Given it's low in fat and high in protein, turkey bacon is also a great choice for many diets, including gluten-free, keto-friendly, and dairy-free.

Consider easing in. “Prior to starting a keto diet, individuals may benefit from tapering down their carbohydrate intake, instead of reducing carbs cold turkey,” says Lara Clevenger, a ketogenic dietitian-nutritionist with a private practice in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.

Even if you enjoy a bit too much turkey, stuffing, potatoes or pie, there's no reason to fret, says Jamie Kandora, clinical nutrition manager for Tidelands Health. The important thing is to not let one day of overeating deter you from your long-term health goals.

People following the keto diet should be eating foods like fatty fish, eggs, dairy, meat, butter, oils, nuts, seeds and low-carb vegetables. “Fat bombs” like unsweetened chocolate or coconut oil can help people reach their daily goals for fat intake. Keto-compliant foods like red meats and nuts can be costly.

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.