Emilee Unterkoefler
Everyone appreciates a delicious meal featuring their favorite comfort foods. If it also happens to be low carb, even better! It can be hard to take a break from bread, rice, and pasta, but these tasty meals will make you forget you’ve given up anything.
There’s no better time than spring and summer to embrace healthier foods. You can even convert some of your favorite comfort foods into a new and exciting version, like a loaded baked potato transformed into a loaded cauliflower bake.
Below, you’ll find some of our favorite substitutions for pasta, tortillas, cereal, and snacks, followed by some delicious low-carb recipes.
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Low-Carb Substitutions
Eating low-carbohydrate foods is no easy feat, especially if you’re new to the challenge! But fear not! With thousands of products and endless recipes dedicated to the cause, you’ll have all the help you need.
Below are some common substitutions:
- Snacks: This list of low-carb options is perfect for snacking and enjoying meals with simple replacements.
- Pasta: These keto-friendly alternatives all work. From thin strands of spaghetti squash to oodles of zoodles, you’ll have plenty of wholesome options to try.
- Gnocci: Trader Joe’s has cauliflower gnocchi in the frozen section, or you can try the kale version, if you prefer.
Hopefully, that gave you some ideas for creating your own works of low-carb cooking art. If not, though, below you’ll find nine oven-friendly, guilt-free recipes that taste just as delicious without bread or pasta.
Easy Cheesy Loaded Cauliflower Casserole
With under 10 minutes of prep time, and a quick 20-minute oven session, you get all the flavors of a loaded baked potato with a major slash in carbohydrates.
Cauliflower, sour cream, cheese, and bacon bits come together in this rich, flavorful casserole. Serve it up with a few grilled chicken breasts or pork chops. It’s perfect for anyone on the keto diet.
Get the Recipe: Wholesome Yum
Eggplant Lasagna with Meat Sauce
We can all appreciate a layered lasagna dish smothered with subtly sweet ricotta and homemade tomato sauce. Once the Italian herbs and fresh mozzarella work their way in, there’s no going back.
Luckily, eggplant wears many hats. It’s a wonderful protein alternative and can even take the place of thin sheets of lasagna.
Once the notorious nightshade (which we call eggplant) is extracted from its bitter flavors and cooked into a lovely dish, you’ll fall head over heels. This recipe is a perfect example.
Get the Recipe: Peace Love and Low-Carb
Low-Carb Pizza Crust (Sans Cauliflower)
We’ve all seen the craze over cauliflower crust, but don’t fret if you hate it—this pizza doesn’t have one. What it does have is a low-carbohydrate version of pizza dough that doesn’t involve ricing or mashing any cauliflower.
Using almond flour and cheese, you’ll learn to make a simple, thin-crust pizza featuring all the crispy, flavorful ingredients you love most. Top it off with your favorite sauce and a bit of mozzarella, and enjoy every bite.
Get the Recipe: Simply So Healthy
Enchilada Chicken Rollups
Rather than rolling up all your favorite Mexican-inspired ingredients into a tortilla, you’ll learn to create a mouthwatering dish using zucchini instead. After slicing those green gourds, you just grill them until they’re pliable.
From there, you’ll have low-carb wraps perfect for enveloping shredded chicken and cheese. The shredded cheddar and enchilada sauce brings this dish to life, but don’t forget the flawless finish of some sour cream.
Get the Recipe: Skinnytaste
Asparagus Stuffed Chicken
Asparagus and mozzarella cheese go hand in hand to create the perfect filling, stuffed into a tender oven-roasted chicken breast.
The seasonings coat the chicken just right before they’re seared and cooked through. It’s beyond easy to make, and the results are truly delicious.
Get the Recipe: Gimme Delicious
Oven Roasted Pork Tenderloin
This recipe takes you through all the do’s and don’ts of cooking a pork tenderloin without letting it dry out. You’ll also learn about marinating, browning, and letting the meat rest before slicing. All the tips are worth a read if you’re new to roasting a tenderloin.
Once it’s seared and roasted, this tasty pork dinner boasts a wonderfully earthy, buttery flair, thanks to the herbed butter blend used to coat the meat.
Get the Recipe: Sweet C’s
Eggroll in a Bowl
You’ve likely heard about eggroll in a bowl, as the dish went viral all over social media. It’s basically the stuffed ingredients of an eggroll—cabbage, ground pork, and the Asian-inspired flavors of soy sauce, rice vinegar, and sesame oil—minus the crispy shell.
This recipe is super quick and easy to whip up. You don’t even have to shred a head of cabbage, just buy a bag of coleslaw mix instead.
Get the Recipe: Peace, Love and Low Carb
Baked Parmesan Herbed Salmon
Prep this simple salmon dinner in just a few minutes, then let your oven do all the hard work in this wonderfully flavorful meal. Using fresh parmesan, garlic, and loads of herby parsley, you’ll have a lovely dinner everyone will love.
Keep things low-carb by serving this up on a bed of cauliflower rice pilaf or a simple plate of garlic parmesan zoodles.
Get the Recipe: Stay Snatched
Pizza Stuffed Mushrooms
Bulky portobello mushrooms and pizza toppings work as a team in this delicious pizza rendition. Be sure to follow the instructions for double-baking your mushrooms because they release a lot of water when cooked. If you stuff and bake the mushrooms raw, it’ll lead to a very watery (and unpleasant) dining experience.
Whenever we stuff mushrooms, we start by coating them with a bit of oil, then oven roasting until the mushroom water is released. Pat them dry once they come out, then stuff your mushrooms as desired and bake.
Get the Recipe: RecipeTin Eats
Saying goodbye to bread and pasta to go low-carb can be tough. But any of these yummy recipes will have you asking, “spaghetti who?” Speaking of spaghetti, be sure to try these 10 low-carb versions of that delicious dish next.
