For those embracing a ketogenic lifestyle, navigating the menus of popular coffee chains can be a challenge. Dunkin' Donuts, with a few smart choices, can be a great option for satisfying your coffee cravings while staying within your macros. This guide provides everything you need to know to order keto-friendly iced coffee and other treats at Dunkin', or even recreate your favorite Dunkin' flavors at home.
Navigating the Dunkin' Menu on Keto
Low-carb living doesn't have to mean sacrificing your Dunkin' run. By making informed choices, you can enjoy a satisfying and keto-compliant experience.
Ordering Tips for Keto Success
- Stick to Plain Coffee and Customize: The key to keto at Dunkin' is to order plain coffee drinks and then customize them with keto-friendly options. Gone are the days of ordering sugary holiday drinks and limited-edition lattes.
- Unsweetened Flavor Shots are Your Friend: Dunkin' utilizes sugar-free flavor shots instead of sugar-free syrups, making them a great way to add flavor without the carbs. Be careful not to confuse these with the sugar-laden flavor swirls.
- Skip the Bun! When it comes to food, avoid breakfast bagels and sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwiches. Order any of their sandwiches and wraps without the bread for a low carb option
- Be Aware of Hidden Sugars: Refreshers, unlike unsweetened iced tea, are typically loaded with sugar.
Keto-Friendly Drink Options at Dunkin'
Dunkin' offers a surprising number of keto-friendly beverage choices.
Coffee Base Options: You have quite a few coffee base options for keto dunkin donuts drinks.
Cold Brew Coffee (Iced): A medium-sized iced cold brew contains approximately 5 calories, 0g fat, 1g carbs, 0g fiber, 0g sugar, 0g protein, and 1g net carbs. Remember that these values will change depending on the size you order.
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Customizing Your Coffee: For those who prefer hot coffee with cream or a latte, customizing is key. Consider the following:
- Milk Options: Dunkin' offers several milk options. Their coconut milk is unsweetened, making it a great low-carb choice. While they don’t have typical heavy cream and rather heavy cream that’s half cream and half, half and half, it’s good to know the net carbs per serving of each milk option if you want to add it to your coffee.
- Flavor Shots: Take advantage of Dunkin's sugar-free flavor shots to add flavor without the sugar.
- Blueberry: Add a blueberry shot to your iced green tea (unsweetened).
- Raspberry: Another great option if you like Raspberry tea and don’t want all the sugar.
- Coconut: Make any of their base teas a little more interesting by adding a shot of coconut!
Tea: Iced tea at Dunkin' is a naturally low-carb choice, just make sure it's unsweetened.
Keto-Friendly Food Options at Dunkin'
While Dunkin' is primarily known for its coffee and donuts, there are a few food options that can work on a keto diet.
- Breakfast Sandwiches (Without the Bread): Order breakfast sandwiches like the bacon, egg, and cheese without the bread. A bacon egg and cheese no bread has 220 calories, 3g carbs, 17g fat, 13g protein. You can also order any other sandwiches and wraps without the bread for a low carb option.
- Snacking Bacon: Their small bag of snacking bacon is a low carb option if you do a half serving (5 net carbs).
Recreating Keto Dunkin' Iced Coffee at Home
To cut costs and carbs, your best option is the DIY approach. With this keto iced coffee recipe, we’ll show you how to have keto iced coffee without leaving the house. Iced coffee can be made in various ways depending on your budget, time, keto goals, and flavor preferences.
Basic Keto Iced Coffee Recipe
This recipe provides a foundation for creating your perfect keto iced coffee.
Read also: Keto Calorie Counting: A Detailed Guide
Ingredients:
- Brewed coffee, cooled
- Ice
- Heavy cream or unsweetened coconut milk
- Keto-friendly sweetener (such as stevia or erythritol)
- Optional: MCT oil, coconut oil, sugar-free flavor extracts
Instructions:
- Brew the coffee to your preferences and how you normally make it. Allow coffee to cool down to at least room temperature.
- Fill a glass with ice.
- Pour cooled coffee over the ice.
- Add heavy cream or coconut milk to your desired level of creaminess. Ask for the last ¼ to be filled with a large splash of cream, steamed. This gives you the creamy latte feel.
- Sweeten to taste with your preferred keto-friendly sweetener.
- Stir well and enjoy!
Tips for the Perfect Homemade Keto Iced Coffee
- Iced coffee on a budget: If you want to cut costs as much as possible, it isn’t necessary to use every ingredient on the list. Feel free to skip the stevia and use only 1-2 tbsp of heavy cream.
- Save time with cold brew: By using cold brew coffee (or previously-cooled coffee), all you have to do is take it out of the fridge, pour over ice, and mix in your preferred ingredients.
- Blend in more ketosis-boosting fats: To further enhance ketone production and energy levels, try blending MCT oil and/or coconut oil with your black coffee before pouring it over ice.
- Add your favorite keto-friendly flavorings: If you have sugar-free liquid vanilla or cinnamon extract, or any other sugar-free flavorings at home, try mixing in a few drops.
- Blend it for a quick keto frap (blended iced coffee): To transform your coffee into a refreshing frap, put your cooled coffee, ice, and the other iced coffee ingredients into the blender and blend it to your desired texture.
- Sweetener options: If you are looking for a sweetener to use other than stevia, I recommend using a liquid keto-friendly sweetener or a powdered low carb sweetener from our sweetener guide.
- Creamer options: When it comes to coffee creamers, heavy cream is ideal for keto and mixing with iced coffee.
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