Embarking on a ketogenic diet can feel like navigating uncharted culinary territory. The exclusion of many common foods can be daunting, making it essential to find resources that provide inspiration and guidance. Keto cookbooks offer a wealth of recipes that align with the diet's principles, ensuring that you can stick to your goals while enjoying nutritious and delicious meals. These cookbooks cater to various preferences, from quick and easy recipes perfect for busy weeknights to more elaborate dishes for special occasions.
Understanding the Ketogenic Diet
A ketogenic diet is a very low-carb diet similar to the Atkins diet. The primary goal of a keto diet is to induce a state of ketosis, where the body, deprived of glucose from carbohydrates, begins to burn fat for fuel. This metabolic shift can lead to weight loss and other health benefits. Keto cookbooks can help to provide new recipe inspiration that will ensure you stick to your diet goals and still have plenty of nutritious, delicious meals to cook for breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus snacks to keep you going too.
Top Keto Cookbook Recommendations
Here's a curated list of some of the best keto cookbooks available, each with its unique strengths and focus:
Best Overall Keto Cookbook: Keto Kitchen by Monya Kilian Palmer
Monya Kilian Palmer, a chef with experience at Le Cordon Bleu and Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck, brings a wealth of culinary expertise to this cookbook. Having followed a keto diet since 2018, Palmer focuses on flavor and includes tempting photography to accompany her recipes. Keto Kitchen features recipes like Thai prawn curry and brown butter scrambled eggs, along with innovative ideas like "mug breads" for quick homemade bread. Palmer has also written two follow-ups to this original: Lazy Keto Cooking and Budget Keto Cooking.
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Best for a Soft Approach to Keto Cooking: Essential Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet Cookbook by Molly Devine
Registered dietician Molly Devine combines the principles of the ketogenic diet with the heart-healthy fats of the Mediterranean diet. With 100 recipes, including Greek egg and tomato scramble and braised short ribs in red wine, this cookbook offers interesting inspiration for those seeking a less strict approach to keto. While it lacks recipe pictures and is an American cookbook, it provides a unique blend of dietary approaches.
Best for Midweek Cooking: The Easy 5-Ingredient Ketogenic Diet by Jen Fisch
This American cookbook features 130 keto recipes that require only five ingredients, making it ideal for busy weeknight cooking. Jen Fisch, a keto blogger and YouTuber, provides a helpful list of "foods to enjoy" and "foods to avoid" on the keto diet, highlighting the variety of ingredients that can be incorporated. Recipes include salmon Caesar salad, bacon and egg cauliflower hash, and slow-cooker barbecue ribs. The fact that over half the recipes take less than 30 minutes to make is also a plus.
Best Keto Bible: Keto Cookbook for Beginners by Gerald Hubbell
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With a whopping 1,000 recipes, this book provides an extensive collection of keto-friendly dishes. The recipe index at the beginning divides recipes into clear chapters, such as Breakfast & Eggs, Salad & Soups, Poultry, and Desserts. There's also a section dedicated to slow cooker, air fryer, and instant pot recipes. Recipes are presented in a simple textbook format with American measurements and include options like Greek sea bass with olive sauce, cheesy courgette muffins, barbecued pork chops, and coconut panna cotta with caramel.
Best for Vegans: The Essential Vegan Keto Cookbook
This cookbook addresses the unique challenges of following a ketogenic diet as a vegan. With 65 recipes, it offers creative ways to meet the high-fat, moderate-protein goals of the keto diet without relying on meat and dairy. Recipes include sunflower seed waffles, veggie pot pie, and peanut butter truffles.
Best for Slow Cooker Fans: Keto Slow Cooker & One-Pot Meals by Martina Slajerova
For those who love the convenience of slow cooking, this book offers a wealth of advice and recipes. It includes a comprehensive list of do's and don'ts for slow cooking, along with a table of suggested portion sizes and carb levels for vegetables on the keto diet. The 100 recipes include Italian sausage frittata, pork lo mein, and spiced chocolate cake.
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Best for Information: Ketotarian by Dr. Will Cole
Dr. Will Cole argues that the heavy proportion of meat and dairy in the keto diet may lead to dietary problems. This book focuses on a primarily plant-based approach to keto, with 75 veggie, vegan, and pescatarian dishes. Ketotarian provides a generous amount of information on the science behind the keto diet, along with solid nutrition advice.
Additional Keto Cookbooks to Consider
The Complete Ketogenic Diet for Beginners: Your Essential Guide to Living the Keto Lifestyle by Amy Ramos (2016)
This book is a user-friendly guide to get started. Amy’s goal was to make this an all-in-one resource for keto beginners. This affordable, highly-rated cookbook includes 75 easier beginner-friendly keto recipes that take less than 30 minutes to make, from cauliflower cheddar soup to pesto zucchini noodles and unique, flavorful smoothies.
Simply Keto: A Practical Approach to Health & Weight Loss by Suzanne Ryan (2017)
Suzanne Ryan lost over 100 pounds in one year! Suzanne’s cookbook has well over 100 recipes, so you’ll have plenty to choose from. Suzanne’s story is inspiring! Thanks to the ketogenic lifestyle, she lost almost 40% of her total body weight and gained a healthier relationship with food. The book is packed with:Grocery shopping tips, Keto and weight loss FAQs, Useful advice for beginners, A 30-day meal plan, Options to reduce dairy or go dairy-free, Tips for navigating coffee shops, restaurants, and convenience stores.
Keto Meal Prep by Liz Williams
The Keto Meal Prep cookbook by Liz Williams is an informative guide to meal prepping split into three major meal plan types: beginner, performance, and maintenance. Keto Meal Prep includes: Eight weeks of menu plans and recipes, Meal prep and batch cooking tips for weeknight meals that are ready to serve, Storage advice to keep food fresh, Meal plans with higher protein content, Useful info for tracking macros.
The Keto Paleo Kitchen: 80 Delicious Low-Carb, Grain- and Dairy-Free Recipes by Vivica Menegaz (2017)
For those following a paleo ketogenic diet, this cookbook by Vivica Menegaz provides 80 grain- and dairy-free keto-friendly recipes. The idea of the paleo diet is to resemble the traditional diet of our hunter-gatherer ancestors during the Paleolithic era. Paleo might also be called the Stoneage or caveman diet. People go paleo to avoid allergens, boost their health, and more.
The Ultimate Guide to Keto Baking: Master All the Best Tricks for Low-Carb Baking Success by Carolyn Ketchum (2019)
Keto desserts can be just as delicious as sugar-loaded sweet treats. If you’re looking for a keto dessert cookbook to delight your palate, look no further than the Ultimate Guide to Keto Baking by Carolyn Ketchum. Here are some of the positives of Carolyn Ketchum’s keto dessert cookbook: Explains the details and nuances of baking, Emphasizes why it’s important to closely follow keto baking directions, Mouthwatering images, Over 150 sweet and savory baked goods to replace many of your old carb-heavy favorites, including bread, rolls, crackers, and, of course, desserts! Info on choosing the best bakeware and accurately measuring ingredients.
Other Books About Low-Carbohydrate Living
There are numerous other books about low-carbohydrate living. Books by Gary Taubes, John Yudkin, Richard K. Bernstein, Robert C. Atkins, Stephen D. Phinney, Jeff Volek, Eric Westman, Jimmy Moore, Robert K. Su, William Davis, Michael and Mary Eades, Denise Minger, Dr. Terry Wahls, Catherine Shanahan, Malcolm Kendrick, Nina Teicholz, Zoë Harcombe and many others.
Additional Resources
In addition to cookbooks, numerous online resources can provide keto recipes and guidance. Ketogenic.com, for example, offers a wide array of delectable, low-carb recipes created by talented recipe developers.