It’s 5:30 p.m. You’ve just made it home from a long day at work, and you’re tired. You can’t face running to the store for complicated ingredients or spending hours preparing a fiddly keto recipe. Ordering a pizza is looking more tempting by the minute.
What you need is some mealtime inspiration.
We’ve pulled together some of the best keto dinner recipes out there. These recipes are simple, straightforward, and, most importantly, delicious.
Tip: Want an even easier solution? Get your tailored custom meal plan from us: just head to our homepage and click “Continue” to begin.
Whether you’re putting together dinner based on what’s in the fridge or looking for the perfect recipe to follow, here are some tips on how to create a healthy keto dinner.
Some great ingredient options for your keto dinner include:
To get the weight loss benefits of a keto diet, your body needs to be in ketosis: a state where you’re burning fat rather than carbohydrates for energy.
For this to work, you need to be getting around 70–80% of your calories from fat, 10–20% from protein, and just 5–10% from carbs.
The keto diet has been proven to help with suppressing appetite and improving the feeling of satiety. Additionally, a well-formulated keto diet can help reduce triglyceride levels (which is healthy for the heart) and cholesterol, as well as improve insulin sensitivity and blood sugar levels.
Keto may also be more effective than other diets for weight loss. A 2020 meta analysis concluded that the ketogenic diet can help improve weight control and metabolic parameters related to glycemic and lipid controls in overweight and obese people (especially individuals with type 2 diabetes) more so than low-fat diets.
Some studies have suggested that the keto diet is specifically helpful in short-term weight loss. However, most analyses suggest that long term, the keto diet’s efficacy is comparable to that of other weight loss strategies.
Try this keto beef stew recipe as a great comfort food for cold winter nights. It uses beef chuck roast seared and then simmered until tender, along with mushrooms, celery, onions, garlic, and herbs. There’s no thickener (as flour is too high in carbs for a keto diet), but your stew should end up naturally thick after reducing.
If you’re feeding your family, you could easily serve this along with bread or potatoes for those family members who are eating a higher-carb diet than you.
This easy and delicious Hunan beef stir fry uses beef steak strips, broccoli, and bell peppers, along with zero-carb seasonings and flavorings. (You could easily switch out the veggies for alternative low-carb veggie options, like eggplant or zucchini.) Xanthan gum is used as a thickening agent. This stir fry takes around 15 minutes to cook — plus the prep time for the Hunan sauce.
For the perfect keto dinner, serve this dish with cauliflower rice. If you’re also dishing up a portion for non-keto followers, go with regular steamed rice.
Not a rice fan? Try zucchini noodles instead.
Looking for a new Taco Tuesday option now that you’re following a keto diet? This beef taco recipe could be your new favorite keto dinner. Each taco contains just 5g of carbs due to the clever use of cheddar cheese taco shells that have just 1 carb each. As another alternative, try using red or green leaf lettuce as your shells.
These beef tacos are quick and easy to make, and the recipe is enough to make six tacos — enough to feed multiple people or to have plenty of leftovers for meal prep. Once you’ve made the ground beef, it’ll keep for up to five days in the refrigerator.
This quick keto skillet lasagna is easy to make and takes less than 30 minutes, making it a great option for a busy weeknight. It cleverly uses cabbage as a replacement for lasagna sheets and has just 6g net carbs.
This recipe makes six servings — plenty for you and a few others! If it’s just you eating keto, then you can keep the leftovers in a covered container in the fridge for up to a week. Alternatively, you can portion it out for the freezer.
5. Keto Thai coconut chicken soup
Looking for a lighter keto dinner idea? Try this Keto Thai coconut chicken soup. Not only is it packed with flavor, but with plenty of chicken and shrimp included, it’s also hearty enough to fill you up. (If you’re not keen on seafood, you can simply use extra chicken instead of shrimp.)
This recipe does include a few ingredients you may not always have on hand, like coconut cream and fish sauce, so check the recipe before your next grocery trip and pick up anything extra that you need.
6. Keto chile relleno casserole
This delicious keto chile relleno casserole has just five ingredients (plus a little salt) and is a great option for dinner parties or family meals. It does include poblano peppers, so if you don’t like your food too spicy, you can simply reduce the number you use. Preparing the peppers does take a bit of time, but hopefully, you’ll agree that the results are worth it.
This full keto chicken recipe makes eight portions, and each serving has just 2g net carbs. And you can easily freeze this casserole for three to four months, giving you an easy option for weeknight meals.
If you’re looking for an easy, budget-friendly chicken recipe that fits in with your keto diet, then this peanut butter chicken is perfect. It’s a simple but tasty chicken dish that could easily become a new favorite.
Any leftovers will freeze well, so this is a great one to try if you’re batch-cooking your keto dinners for the week ahead. (A slightly smaller portion of this would also make a great lunch.)
8. Creamy chicken, bacon, and cauliflower bake
If you have some ingredients in your fridge to use up, like bacon and cream, this creamy chicken, bacon, and cauliflower bake is ideal. It’s also a good option if you have cauliflower that might otherwise go to waste (perhaps you’ve got bored of cauliflower rice).
This one takes around 10–15 minutes of prep time plus only 25 minutes or so to bake, so it’s a quick option for weeknight dinners. It can easily be halved or doubled, too. Furthermore, it uses chicken thighs instead of breasts, so it’s a more budget-friendly choice.
Craving a rice bowl? This recipe uses chicken and cauliflower rice — plus avocado and mushrooms — for a delicious dinner. You’ll need to prep the chicken breast a little bit ahead of time: between 30 minutes and 2 hours before you want to start cooking.
Compared with some of our other keto dinner picks, this one is a little more involved, taking around 30–40 minutes of hands-on prep and cooking time. This makes it a great option for weekends or days when you’re not too rushed.
This simple, light chicken keto dinner is one of the best keto chicken recipes for summer evenings — or any time of the year when you want a simple meal. It uses just three main ingredients (chicken, tomatoes, and mozzarella), along with various seasonings.
This Caprese chicken is great served with spinach or arugula (try adding fresh basil for an extra kick). Or you could switch things up and try it with keto-friendly veggies like asparagus or zucchini as a side.
Love the British classic fish and chips? This keto fish and chips is a delicious alternative: it cleverly cuts carbs by using almond meal as a replacement for breadcrumbs. The “chips” are made from avocado instead of potatoes.
This dish is perfect served with salad and lemon wedges, or you can enjoy steamed veggies like broccoli as a side.
12. Garlic butter shrimp & tomato sheet pan
Perfect for a weeknight dinner or special occasion, this sheet pan shrimp recipe is packed with flavor and takes just 10–15 minutes to cook. It’s easy to switch out ingredients to fit with whatever you have in your store cupboard; for instance, you could replace the capers with other options like pickles, green olives, or anchovies.
This recipe is easily doubled or tripled, so it’s a great one for feeding a crowd. You can also make it ahead of time and then reheat it once you’re ready to serve dinner.
13. Keto paella with cauliflower rice
This cauliflower rice keto paella takes just 20 minutes to prepare and is a healthy option for the family. It’s also a lighter dish that makes a great lunch or a perfect keto dinner.
The recipe includes detailed instructions on how to make the perfect cauliflower rice, so even if you’re not a fan of paella, it’s worth checking out this one for those tips alone.
14. Keto baked parmesan salmon
Another fast option, this keto baked salmon is crusted with pork rinds rather than breadcrumbs (or, if you prefer, you could use additional grated parmesan). The whole recipe has just 1.4g of net carbs per serving.
You can keep the salmon for 3–4 days in the refrigerator after cooking it, so this is a handy recipe if you want enough keto dinners for at least a couple of days.
This comforting, creamy keto fish pie is a great family-friendly option. You can get ahead by making the cheese sauce in advance, and the recipe is straightforward and versatile; it’s easy to substitute different types of fish or cheese, for instance, or add veggies such as mushrooms.
Instead of making a single, large pie, you could present the pies in individual ramekins if you prefer. Green vegetables make the perfect side dish.
Craving pizza? This keto-friendly pizza tastes just like the real thing, with the dough made from mozzarella, cream cheese, egg, and low-carb flour. This creates a chewy crust texture with crispy edges — just like a regular pizza.
You can top your keto pizza with whatever you want. The photos in the recipe show pepperoni, but you could easily use low-carb veggies (or a vegan pepperoni alternative instead). Any leftovers could make for a great keto breakfast the next day.
This delicious keto zucchini lasagna takes a little while to prep, but you’ll hopefully agree that the results are well worth it. It’s a great one to make in bulk for a family meal. And most of the ingredients are ones you’ll likely have in your store cupboard or refrigerator already.
A simple salad makes a great side. Or, if you’re feeding hungry non-keto dieters, you could add garlic bread or a baked potato.
18. Cauliflower mac and cheese
If mac and cheese was one of your childhood favorites, this cauliflower mac and cheese is a fabulous keto variant. The added turmeric gives it a bold, yellow color, and you can garnish this dish with paprika, chopped basil, and/or crumbled bacon.
With just four main ingredients, this is a simple and fast weeknight keto dinner to try — and it could easily become a weekly staple in your meal plan.
19. Spinach artichoke stuffed peppers
If you enjoy spinach artichoke dip, you’ll love these spinach artichoke stuffed peppers. They’re really simple to make: just mix all the ingredients together, pop them into the pepper halves, and bake.
You could serve the individual pepper halves as a starter or side or eat two or three as a light dinner.
20. Keto baked feta pasta with palmini noodles
Looking for a fast and simple dinner? Keto baked feta pasta has gone viral on TikTok and uses low-carb palmini pasta. This recipe has detailed step-by-step instructions and plenty of photos so you can easily follow along.
If you don’t want to use palmini noodles or can’t easily get hold of them, you can substitute any keto-friendly pasta.
Dinner doesn’t need to mean disaster for your keto diet. The ideas we’ve picked are fast, easy, and tasty. So why not give a keto dinner recipe a try today?
If you’re not sure what to choose, some of the best easy keto recipes are:
Want a little extra help and support, plus perfect dinner ideas every day? We’d love to get you set up with a customized keto meal plan from our team of experienced nutritionists. Just head to our home page and click “Continue” to get started.
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