When you want to bake or cook on the keto diet, these are the best low carb flours that you can buy. Plus, I'll share how to use them along with recipes I highly recommend making.
Article Index
- Low Carb Flours I Recommend Buying
- Frequently Asked Questions About Low-Carb Flours
Just because you are on a keto diet doesn't mean you have to give up on bread and other treats - you just can't use regular wheat flour. All low carb and keto flours on this will be gluten free. Thankfully, there are quite a few low-carb and keto flour options to choose from.
This is fantastic news for me!
I love eating cupcakes, sandwiches, and baked treats. That's why I created so many recipes with low carb flours that taste just like traditional recipes. The copycat recipes I created taste so much like traditional baked goods that I can stick to my macros.
Let's get started!
Low Carb Flours I Recommend Buying
When you are trying to cook or bake with low-carb flour, you need something that is high in fats, fiber, and low in carbs. Most of the flours on this list are made from ground-up nuts or seeds, so they meet that criteria.
Some of them you probably already know about - like coconut and almond flour. Some other low carb flours are not as common - like hazelnut or sunflower seed flour. However, all of them have their own uses and tastes.
Read through each of the types of flour on this list and learn how to use them, including some of my favorite recipes that use them!
Almond Flour
In a ¼-cup serving of almond flour, there are 11 grams of fat and 6 grams of carbs. This is the most popular keto flour that is easily available just about everywhere.
There are two types of almond flour:
- Almond meal
- Almond flour
Both types are made from ground-up almonds but almond meal is made from almonds that have skins and they aren't ground as fine. They give recipes a grainy texture.
Almond flour is finely-ground almonds and has a mild flavor that doesn't taste like nuts. But almond flour and almond meal aren't the same thing. Typically, the flour is made with blanched almonds and is finely ground.
My favorite recipe with almond flour is almond flour pancakes! They are the best breakfast recipe.
Coconut Flour
The next most popular keto-friendly flour is coconut flour! This is made from ground coconut meal (The meat or pulp of the coconut is ground up into a fine flour).
This kind of flour is really healthy for you. It is high in lauric acid - a type of healthy fat that is known for fighting infections.
Coconut flour soaks up more moisture than other types of flour, so when you cook with it, you will need to use more wet ingredients in the recipe.
For more information regarding coconut flour, check out this whole helpful guide I put together!
My favorite recipe to make with coconut flour is low-carb pizza crust. It has the perfect texture and it satisfies any pizza cravings.
Peanut Flour
A ¼-cup serving a peanut flour has 16 grams of protein and 8 grams of carbs. This is ground-up peanuts and so it still has the strong presence of peanut flavor as well.
It might be confusing, but peanut flour is not the same as PB2 powder. Peanut flour is made from extracting the oils and making it a paste and then making it flour. PB2 is powdered peanut butter, so it has sugar and salt in it too.
The best thing to make with peanut flour is something sweet. I love how my peanut flour brownies turned out, especially since chocolate and peanuts go so well together!
Sesame Flour
In ¼-cup, there are 10 grams of fat and 3 grams of carbs, making this a very low-carb flour. It's made from grinding sesame seeds into a very fine powder.
The downside to using this flour is that it has a strong sesame seed taste. You will definitely be able to taste that flavor in your foods. Sukrin makes one of my favorite sesame flours and I agree with them - sesame flour is perfect for biscuits, bread and pizza.
In fact, I made a nut-free savory bread with sesame flour that I still love!
Sunflower Seed Flour
Another one of the rarer keto-friendly flours is sunflower seed flour. In ¼-cup, there are just 5.7 grams of carbs and 7.7 grams of protein.
As the name implies, it is made by grinding up sunflower seeds. This is an excellent choice if you have a nut allergy.
In fact, you can create your own sunflower seed flour if you have a food processor. Just pulse the sunflower seeds until you have a flour-like consistency, and try to avoid over-grinding it.
This is another flour that tastes really good as a pizza crust. It comes out looking and tasting like flatbread!
Hazelnut Flour
Grinding hazelnuts produces nutty hazelnut flour! Since it is made with ground-up nuts, it has a really low carb count. ¼-cup has 12 grams of fat and 8 grams of carbs.
It has a little more carbs than some of the other choices on this list, but it is still a fantastic low-carb choice.
Just like coconut flour, hazelnut flour tends to make things a bit drier, so use extra butter.
My favorite recipe that uses hazelnut flour is this one for hazelnut cookies.
Oat Fiber
One thing you need to know right away is that oat fiber is not oat flour. Oat fiber is made from the husks of the oat so it is not ground-up oats.
Just like psyllium husk, oat fiber has just as much fiber as it does carbs, so it has basically 0 grams net carbs in ¼ cup!
When you combine it with almond flour, you can make pancakes that will remind you of hotcakes. My oat fiber buttermilk pancakes are some of my favorites now!
Psyllium Husk
Another popular ingredient in low-carb cooking is psyllium husk. In ¼-cup, there are only 0.1g net carbs because there is just as much fiber as there are carbs. This makes it an almost carb-free flour!
Before you start trying to cook with psyllium husk flour, understand that since it has so much fiber, it can also give you indigestion. It's known to cause gas, diarrhea, and even constipation.
I usually like to use it in conjunction with other flours. It made my keto-friendly bread come out with almost no carbs!
Flax Meal
Flaxseed meal is also called flax meal. It is basically whole flaxseed that is ground up into a flour consistency. Since it is made up of ground seeds, each serving only has 1 gram net carbs!
Flaxseed meal does, however, have a mild nutty flavor. Anything you make will have that flavor - which is why I like to use it in muffins with other ingredients.
This flax meal bread tastes just as delicious as muffins.
Pork Rinds
The fact that pork rinds are in this list may confuse some new keto dieters. However, they are a great replacement for flour or bread in many low carb baking recipes.
It's tough to call them "flour" since they are basically deep-fried pig skins, but pork rinds are used in place of flour in lots of keto recipes.
Pork rinds don't have any carbs - nope, none! ¼-cup does have 4.9 grams of protein and 44 calories.
I like to use pork rinds when I need something for texture. I used it in my keto meatloaf and stuffing, and in both cases it acted just like breadcrumbs. It also added the perfect texture to my keto crab cakes!
Frequently Asked Questions About Low-Carb Flours
When you are trying to choose the best keto-friendly flours, these are the most common questions people ask. See if your question is answered on this list!
Which is the best low-carb flour for baking?
The most popular types of flour for low-carb baking is either coconut or almond flour, but almond flour is probably used the most.
No matter what, please follow the recipes before you try to create your own. Almond flour needs fewer wet ingredients than coconut flour.
Which is the best keto-friendly flour for frying foods?
Most people prefer to use pork rinds when they make things like keto-fried chicken. Since the pork rinds are already fried, they have the best texture when you fry the foods!
Which is the lowest-carb flour?
With less than 1 grams of net carbs in a ¼-cup serving, psyllium husk is the lowest-carb flour on the list.
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