Is peanut butter keto friendly?

These caramel apple topping peanut butter fat bombs point to yes! But let’s explore that question before we get to the simple recipe.

Peanut Butters Isn’t A Keto-Free-For-All

When starting a low carb diet, peanut butter may be one of the foods you look forward to eating by the spoonful. Keto dieters rejoice when they come from the stingy world of low calorie diets. These calorie controlled plans don’t allow for too many foods with high-fat content, like peanut butter.

When you switch over to a ketogenic diet, you get to eat ALL of the nut butters you can shove in … right?

Mmmm, not so fast.

Eating any nut butter by the spoonful isn’t great advice on any diet. This even rings true for a low carb, moderate protein diet.

It’s true that a spoonful of peanut butter from most brands sold at the grocery store won’t kick you out of ketosis. That doesn’t mean it’s a good choice to spoon too much peanut butter down your throat willy nilly. This is especially the case since not all peanut butter brands are created equal.

What’s the criteria to make peanut butter keto-friendly?

Full disclosure – my view of a keto lifestyle is a bit different from the other experts you may find. These differing views helped me lose more than 100 pounds. I made it to my goal weight with these strategies, even after struggling with yo-yo diets for decades. I’d say there’s a method to my madness.

These simple strategies have also helped hundreds of women bust through longstanding weight loss stalls on a keto diet – so hear me out.

Before we bring out the big guns, I wanted to let you know this blog contains affiliate links where I receive a small commission. I also link to the same resources that helped me lose 100 pounds with a low carb lifestyle. Click through so this info can help you too!

Keep Keto Simple

Most keto blogs you stumble across will tell you all about the best natural peanut butter brands. Next the blog might dive into the grams of net carbs. This is when you get a quick math lesson since you learn the low carb equation of subtracting grams of fiber from the total carbs. If you stick around, you might even learn more about grams of protein and how to keep them moderate.

Ta da – you just learned how to succeed on keto in a few quick steps! Are you ready to reach your weight loss goal?

Mmmm … probably not yet.

Carb content is important. Moderating protein is also part of a keto diet. However, I believe many keto resources make simple topics like finding a keto-friendly peanut butter too complicated.

How My 100 Pound Weight Loss Journey Began

Remember when I said I lost 100 pounds with a keto lifestyle? I began with a low-carb diet. I lost my first 70 pounds by keeping things stupidly simple.

To keep this blog honest, I needed to take steps to improve digestion before I moved onto a full ketogenic diet. Even though I tried countless low carb plans in the past, I was never able to stay consistent with low carb diets. Poor digestion was the reason.

If you’ve been stuck in yo-yo diets for some time, improving digestion could be the thing holding you back from long term weight loss.

The thing is, I never even realized I had digestive issues. Once I took the free keto digestion course, I found out my digestion was a wreck! Taking simple steps to improve digestion helped me finally stick to keto after many failed attempts.

Beyond improved digestion, I kept low carb very simple at the beginning. I kept track of how many carbs I ate each day in a food journal. When I followed low carb, I ate no more than 25 grams of carbs with most meals. Beyond that, I ate enough grams of fat and protein to feel good.

I didn’t worry about food quality or which peanut butter brand had the least amount of sugar. I kept things really simple while I allowed my body time to adjust to this new low carb lifestyle.

Just like that – I lost 70 pounds. I also stuck with a low carb diet longer than a few weeks for the first time. This was after decades of failed attempts.

What’s my point?

Don’t Overcomplicate Keto

If you’re brand new to keto, you don’t need to research the best pure peanut butter brand. You don’t have to read the ingredient list with a magnifying glass before choosing the best brand.

Don’t stress over researching what the heck palm oil is or how many tablespoons of peanut butter you can eat daily before your blood sugar levels go too high. There’s no need to comb through nutrition data of every popular nut butter you can find before you make a decision.

This info does have a time and place when it comes to getting the best results with a keto diet. When you’re brand new to keto, you already have enough changes to make. You don’t need to add more stress by completely overhauling every aspect of your diet overnight.

If you’re new to a low carb lifestyle, keep it stupidly simple!

Seek out your favorite low-carb foods, keep track of how many carbs you have left to reach your daily carb goal, and then eat enough fat and protein to feel good. Losing weight with a keto diet can really be that simple.

Lowering daily carb intake goes a long way for weight loss results. This is especially true for a beginning keto dieter.

Improve As You Lose

When you start racking up pounds lost, then you can continue to improve choices. Once you have this low carb thing down, then it’s time to research things like the difference between sugar-free peanut butter vs unsweetened peanut butter.

Getting started with a simple low carb, high fat diet is what’s important. All of the research in the world won’t bring down the chronic inflammation that’s keeping you stuck. You won’t lose any weight with a keto diet with more research alone. You have to take action.

Once the pounds start dropping and you feel good about losing weight with keto, then it’s a good idea to continue research.

A keto diet is great for weight loss. When you follow keto the right way, you’ll also get a ton of health benefits to go along with your new way of eating.

Perhaps you started on a keto journey to fit into your skinny jeans. While that’s a great motivator, better health should always be your end goal.

Weight loss happens because you improve health – not the other way around. You’ll have a hard time keeping off what you lose if your only focus is the amount of net carbs in a food. While that’s a good starting point, a great way to keep weight off long term is to continually improve the choices you make.

So start simple … and continue to improve as you go. Easy peasy!

How to Choose a Keto-Friendly Peanut Butter

Let’s get to the best choices when it comes to a high-quality peanut butter.

Whether you choose a peanut butter with a crunchy or creamy texture is up to you. The things that really matter when it comes to choosing a keto friendly peanut butter are added sugars, added sugar alcohols, and added vegetable oils.

Small amounts of sugar in the brand of peanut butter you choose can be ok. While it’s always best to seek out brands without sugar, sometimes you can’t find it. When I say small, I’m talking tiny. If in doubt, use a peanut butter that has no more than 6-8 grams of carbs per serving. When you add the carbs to your daily carb count, always track total carbs in lieu of net grams of carbs.

You have to pay attention to portion size when it comes to peanut butter. A two-tablespoon portion of unsweetened peanut butter has 7 grams of carbs.

While you should be able to fit this into your daily carb count, if you don’t measure out a serving then two tablespoons can easily turn into four! If you limit your keto diet to only 20 grams of carbs per day, hopefully you can do the simple math to see how this is a problem.

I also don’t love the “keto friendly” peanut butter brands that use sugar alcohols in their nut butters. Too many people have adverse reactions with products that use sweeteners like erythritol. Plus food marketers tell you to subtract out the sugar alcohols from total carb counts. That’s just tricky marketing tactics at play since this strategy can lead you straight to a keto weight loss stall.

I haven’t come across too many vegetable oils when I read most peanut butter nutrition facts. If you see anything labeled with canola oil or soybean oil, put it back. The entire point of following a keto diet is to bring down chronic inflammation. Even though the government says otherwise, highly processed vegetable oils keep you chronically inflamed.

(But in the case of inflammatory vegetable oils, we do 😉)

It’s easiest to go with an organic peanut butter that can be stored at room temperature. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the brands that have to be stored in the fridge. I happen to enjoy the convenience of peanut butter that can be stored in the pantry.

Organic Keto-Friendly Foods Are Best

Maybe you noticed I skipped right past the big O word.

Whether it’s almond butter, creamy peanut butter, or even non-nut butter foods like meat and veggies, using organic brands whenever possible is important. Conventional foods are grown with toxic pesticides. When you eat these foods, you ingest the extra toxins that come along with them.

Curious where these extra toxins get stored? Or right – in your fat cells.

While perfection isn’t required when it comes to eating 100% organic, the more organic choices you make – the more health benefits come from a real food diet.

Is Peanut Butter Considered A Healthy Fat?

Even though a combination of peanut butter and dark chocolate is one of the fat bomb recipes I made the most often when first starting keto, it doesn’t top the list of my favorite healthy fats. That honor is bestowed upon coconut oil. Coconut oil is the easiest fat for most people to digest. It’s also filled with the saturated fats your body and brain need to thrive.

I’m not saying peanut butter is completely off limits when it comes to a keto diet. I believe you should first focus on the fats found in high quality meats, eggs, butter, and coconut oil. Fill in any extra fat you need to feel satiated with delicious peanut butter treats like these caramel apple topping fat bombs.

Oh right – the entire point of this blog is to talk about this keto fat bomb recipe! Sometimes I get carried away when it comes to helping you make a keto diet super simple 😂

How to Make Caramel Apple Topping Fat Bombs

Caramel apple topping fat bombs are a simple keto fat bomb recipe that has only 4 ingredients.

When these fat bombs are slightly warmed, they remind me of licking the toppings from caramel apples. I did this every fall while growing up, right before throwing the apple away. After all, who wants nutrients from real foods when you can just lick the toppings off of another caramel apple?

Again – not the best advice from a health blogger. This behavior was definitely in my past. So are apples since they contain too much sugar to keep most people in ketosis.

This recipe is very simple as far as fat bomb recipes go. Start by lining a mini muffin pan with mini muffin liners.

Next, melt the peanut butter and butter together in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir with a whisk while the fats melt together.

Once melted, remove the fat mixture from the heat. Allow it to cool for a few minutes before you add the vanilla extract and heavy cream. After you add the final ingredients, stir to combine well. Then add the mixture into the lined mini muffin tins in 1 tablespoon increments.

Place in the freezer until firm, or approximately 20-30 minutes. Store these in the fridge or the freezer in a ziploc bag or other airtight container.

What About Keto-Friendly Sweeteners?

I personally don’t add sweeteners to fat bombs. The peanut butter and vanilla extract combo in this recipe is sweet enough if you train your palate to not rely on too many keto friendly sweeteners.

I ditched all low carb sweeteners a few years ago. Even though I lost weight while keeping sweeteners in my keto plan, eventually they led to cravings for the carbs I still struggled to avoid.

If you’re still accustomed to very sweet foods, you can add your favorite keto sweetener. If you’re unsure how much to add or which are the best keto sweeteners, check out this free Keto Sweetener Guide.

Peanut Butter Fat Bombs Wrap Up

As mentioned earlier in the blog, these taste great straight from the fridge or even warmed up in a toaster oven. If you’re wondering how many fat bombs you can eat in a day, that really depends on what else you eat.

To fit these in, make sure to add in all of the carbs to your daily carb count. Only eat fat to satiation. Don’t keep stuffing these in because they taste good.

If you’re looking for other recipes to cure your keto sweet tooth, check out keto peanut butter bars, keto peanut butter cups, or two ingredient peanut butter cookies.

Want a sweeter version of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups without any added sweeteners? I’ve got you covered with these dark chocolate almond butter cups.

Don’t forget to save this recipe to your favorite dark chocolate keto-friendly Pinterest board. Keep scrolling for the nutritional data and full recipe card.

Make Weight Loss Easy on Keto

If you’re new to keto, or even if you’re starting over, check out the Keto Quick Start Course.

You’ll learn the Ready stage of the Read, Set, Keto! Method. This self-study program shows you how to boost metabolism on keto, or how to start keto again. It includes all of the basic info you need to get started with an easy keto lifestyle.

The Keto Quick Start Course has helped hundreds of women bust through long standing keto plateaus. You can finally figure out how to lose the weight and keep the weight off for good.