Keto fats, sauces and oils – the good, the bad and the ugly

By , medical review by Evidence based
Many foods taste better with a little something — a buttery sauce, a spicy dip, a flavorful relish, a savory marinade. And a keto diet allows plenty of room for enough fat to enjoy every meal.

What fats, oils, sauces, and dips can you add to your food and stay keto? What’s best for your health?

Here’s a simple guide, with the lowest-carb (keto) choices to the left:

LC-Fats-Sauces-2_170506_2

Go-to list

Here’s a handy list of the amount of carbs, per 100 grams (3.5 ounces), in common fats and sauces.

Or, better yet, make your own. Check out our scrumptious recipes linked below.

Flavored butter recipes
Butter 0
Coconut oil 0
Vinaigrette 0
Mayonnaise 1
Béarnaise sauce 2
The best low carb and keto dips and dressings
Hollandaise sauce 2
Ranch dip 2
Aioli 2
Mustard 2
Guacamole 3
Thousand islands dressing 3
Heavy cream 3
Soy sauce 4
Blue-cheese dressing 4
Salsa 6
Pesto 8
Tomato paste 15

Sauces

Butters

Similar keto guides

Keto vegetables
Keto fruits
Keto nuts
Keto snacks
Keto alcohol
Keto drinks

20 and 50 grams of carbs in different ways
Keto sweeteners
Dairy
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  1. Net carbs = digestible carbs, i.e. total carbs minus fiber. ↩

  2. In a review of more than 40,000 products at a large Canadian grocery retailer, 66% were found to contain one or more added sugar:

    Canadian Medical Association Journal Open 2017: Added sugar in the packaged foods and beverages available at a major Canadian retailer in 2015: a descriptive analysis [ingredient analysis study; ungraded] ↩

  3. Are you concerned about saturated fat? In all likelihood, you may not need to be. Although still somewhat controversial, several recent systematic reviews of randomized trials have failed to show a connection between eating saturated fat and increased heart disease risk:

    Open Heart 2016: Evidence from randomised controlled trials does not support current dietary fat guidelines: a systematic review and meta-analysis [strong evidence]

    Nutrition Journal 2017: The effect of replacing saturated fat with mostly n-6 polyunsaturated fat on coronary heart disease: a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials
     [strong evidence]

    Learn more here: A user guide to saturated fat ↩

  4. Although you don’t need to go out of your way to add fat, in a recent study lasting two years, nearly 200 people followed a keto diet that allowed them to eat as much fat as they needed to feel satisfied:

    Frontiers in Endocrinology 2019: Long-term effects of a novel continuous remote care intervention including nutritional ketosis for the management of type 2 diabetes: a 2-year non-randomized clinical trial [non-controlled study; weak evidence] ↩

  5. This is based on clinical experience of low-carb practitioners and was unanimously agreed upon by our low-carb expert panel. You can learn more about our panel here [weak evidence].

    Scientific evidence shows how industrial seed oils are truly new to human nutrition.

    Millions of years ago, the only vegetable fats our ancestors consumed likely came from wild plants.

    World Review of Nutrition & Dietetics 1998: Dietary intake of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids during the paleolithic [overview article; ungraded]

    Around 4000 BC or earlier, pressed olive oil became a staple in the diets of people living in Italy, Greece, and other Mediterranean countries.

    American Society for Horticultural Science 2007: Olive oil: history, production, and characteristics of the world’s classic oils [overview article]

    Around 100 years ago, there was very little vegetable oil in the food supply, and it did not form a significant part of the diet.

    Journal of the American Oil Chemists Society 1974: Fat in today’s food supply – level of use and sources [overview article; ungraded]

    The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2005: Origins and evolution of the Western diet: health implications for the 21st century [overview article; ungraded]

    The consumption of soybean oil increased more than 1,000-fold between 1909 to 1999.

    American Journal os Clinical Nutrition 2011: Changes in consumption of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in the United States during the 20th century [observational study, weak evidence] ↩

  6. Chemical Engineering Transactions 2017: Recovery of vegetable oil from spent bleaching earth: state of-the-art and prospect for process intensification [overview article; ungraded] ↩