If you’re on a keto diet and have a raging sweet tooth, you’ve got options. You can always rely on keto ice cream, high-fat low-carb brownies, or a luscious cheesecake fat bomb to fulfill any cravings that arise. Candy-wise, you probably won’t be able to grab a sweet at just any convenient store or concession stand, but there are plenty of keto candy options that fit the diet—you just have to know where to look. Here, all you need to create a sweet keto candy stash.
Finding Keto Candy
Your first thought might be to start perusing the many sugar-free candy options available, but a lot of sugar-free candy isn’t keto. Though they’re lower on the glycemic index than regular sugar, some sweeteners used in sugar-free candy, like maltitol and xylitol, can still have an effect on blood glucose, which means they might kick you out of ketosis. Keto candies are usually sweetened instead with stevia, monk fruit, or yacon, or erythritol, a sugar alcohol.
Besides scanning the ingredients for sweeteners, you can use the macro values of candy to determine whether it will comply with the keto diet. The general rule of thumb on the keto diet is that you should aim for 75 percent of your calories to come from fat, 20 percent from protein, and 5 percent from carbs. You’ll want to look for a candy that fits within your allowances for the day, even if it doesn’t have those precise proportions of fat to protein to carbs. Looking to specialty brands is your best bet; Because the diet is so low-carb, you won’t find that a lot of mainstream candies just so happen to be keto other than the darkest of chocolates.
Keto Candy Recipes
If you already have keto sweeteners on hand and don’t want to mess with reading labels, making your own candy is always an option. Here are some promising recipes from around the web.
- Sugar-Free Keto Candied Pecans
- Homemade Keto Almond Joy Candy Bars
- Homemade Sugar-Free Gummy Candy
- Easy Keto Peanut Butter Cups
- Chewy Keto Caramel Candy
- Keto Butterscotch Candy
Keto Candy You Can Buy
Prefer the convenience of store-bought? Here are some of the best keto candies you can have shipped to your door.
- SmartSweets will meet all your gummy needs with options like peach rings and sweet fish.
- If you love a salty-sweet treat, try ChocZero Dark Chocolate Keto Bark with almonds and sea salt.
- Macadamia nuts are ideal for keto dieters since they’re relatively high in fat and low in carbs compared to other nuts. Get your fill with Perfect Keto Chocolate Macadamia Nuts.
- If you’re a Mounds fan, go with coconut butter cups. Evolved Keto Cups are made with five ingredients: coconut butter, cacao, cacao butter, MCT oil, and monk fruit extract.
- A dairy-free option, Bett3r Keto 80% Dark Chocolate Bars have 31 grams of fat and 15 grams of net carbs per bar.
- Get a satisfying crunch from pumpkin seeds with Kiss My Keto Pumpkin Seeds & Sea Salt Dark Chocolate.
