Keto Shortbread Cookies (1g Net Carbs)
By Carine Claudepierre
Published on 07/30/2021 - Last updated on 10/12/2024
This recipe may contain Amazon or other affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
These 4-Ingredient Keto Shortbread Cookies with almond flour are ready in less than 15 minutes to fix all your sweet cravings with only 1 gram of net carbs. Bonus, these almond flour shortbread cookies are keto, with a vegan option, and gluten-free!
Ingredients and Substitutions
All you need to make low carb shortbread cookies are 5 ingredients:
- Almond Flour – this refers to ultra-fine almond flour, golden-white in color. Don’t use almond meal for keto cookie recipes. The texture of your cookies will be dry and grainy. Want to learn how to choose your keto flours?
- Erythritol – this is my favorite keto sweetener to make keto cookies that keep your blood sugar level in control. It also adds a lovely crispy texture to cookies compared to xylitol that keeps cookies soft. Another option is to use allulose or brands that combine erythritol and monk fruit.
- Softened Butter – like for traditional shortbread, remove the butter from the fridge for 1 hour or so before making the cookie dough. You can use vegan butter if vegan.
- Vanilla Extract – For flavor
How To Make Keto Shortbread Cookies
It’s very easy to whip a batch of keto shortbread cookies that taste like your favorite traditional shortbread!
- Next, add all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl, and using an electric beater or paddle attachment of a stand mixer, combine until a crumbly dough forms.
- Finally, use your hands to gather the dough crumble and for a cookie dough ball.
- Refrigerate the dough for 10 minutes in the mixing bowl.
- It’s up to you to press out cookies or roll out the dough and cut out shapes using a cookie cutter. I personally prefer option 1 because it’s faster. Divide the dough into 16 balls – one ball is about 1 tablespoon size.
- Roll each ball between the palm of your hands and place it on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper, leaving half thumb between each cookie.
- While these keto shortbread cookies won’t expand in the oven, it’s preferable to prevent them from touching each other.
- Using the back of a fork, press the top of each cookie gently to flatten them into about 1/2 inch thickness (1 cm). The thinner, the crispier they will be, so play with their thickness.
- To roll out the dough, encase the cookie dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper and start rolling with a rolling pin. Don’t roll too thin, or the dough becomes fragile, and the cookies bake too fast. Cut out dough with a cookie cutter and transfer the cut-out cookies to a baking tray covered with parchment paper. Gather leftover dough to reform a dough ball and roll for more cookies.
- These low-carb shortbread cookies with almond flour bake very fast. Place the cookie sheet in the center rack of a preheated oven at 350°F (180°C) and bake for 8 to 11 minutes.
- Baking time depends on the thickness of your cookies.
- If you roll out the dough and cut out thin cookies, they will bake super fast.
- Cool down the cookies at room temperature for 10 minutes on the cooking rack.
- Then, transfer on a cooling rack and wait 20 extra minutes before eating.
- The cookies are soft when out of the oven and firm up at room temperature. They reach their best texture after 30 minutes.
Flavoring Options
You can play with flavor and create a range of shortbread cookie flavors with this recipe. Add some of the below ingredients into the dough to change the flavor.
- For Lemon Shortbread Cookies: add 1 tablespoon of grated lemon zest and 1 teaspoon lemon extract instead of the vanilla extract.
- For Chocolate Chips Almond flour Shortbread Cookies – add 1/4 cup of sugar-free chocolate chips.
Decoration
To decorate the cookies, simply melt the following in a saucepan over medium heat:
- Sugar-free dark chocolate chips
- Coconut oil
Use a spoon to drizzle the melted chocolate on top of each cookie. Then, place the cookies in the fridge for 20 minutes to harden the chocolate. If you fancy some extra crunchy, why not add some of the following toppings:
- Sliced almonds
- Desiccated coconut
- Pinch of salt
- Peanut butter
Storage Instructions
You can store this keto shortbread cookie recipe in a cookie jar at room temperature for up to 1 week. If you keep the jar sealed, the cookies stay crunchy. Another option is to freeze your cookies and thaw at room temperature 3 hours before eating or overnight.
Allergy Swaps
You can’t replace almond flour with coconut flour in a keto cookie recipe. Both are keto-friendly flours, but they have different properties. For example, coconut flour contains four times more fiber.
Therefore, it’s a very liquid absorbent flour that often requires eggs or lots of liquid to hold ingredients together. For coconut flour keto cookies, follow some of my recipes below:
Frequently Asked Questions
I’ve listed below the answers to the most common questions about this recipe.
These low-carb shortbread cookies are the best snack on your keto diet.
They are full of fat to keep you full, taste sweet to fix your sweet tooth, and are convenient to bring everywhere.
One or two of these cookies should fix all your afternoon hunger and help you reach your fat macros.
These keto-friendly shortbread cookies are crunchy, slightly sweet, buttery, and even more delicious with a drizzle of sugar-free dark chocolate on top!
More Healthy Cookie Recipes
If you love baking cookie recipes, I have plenty of other delicious delicious recipes for you to try.
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Keto Shortbread Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 ⅓ cup Almond Flour scooped, slightly packed, excess swept
- ¼ cup Granulated Sweetener
- ¼ cup Softened Butter out of the fridge for 30-60 minutes – or vegan butter
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- ¼ teaspoon Sea Salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, add all the ingredients, and using an electric beater, beat until the batter forms a crumble.
- Gather the cookie crumble into a dough ball.
- Refrigerate the dough for 10 minutes.
- Scoop one tablespoon of dough, roll between the palm of your hand, and place onto the cookie sheet.
- Repeat until you form 16 cookie dough balls, leaving half thumb space between each cookie ball to prevent the cookies from touching each other.
- Flatten each cookie dough ball with the back of a fork into a 1/2 inch thickness – the thinner, the crispier, and the faster they bake.
- Bake in the center rack of the oven for 8 to 11 minutes or until the sides of the cookies are golden brown.
- Cool down for 10 minutes on the cookie sheet, then 20 minutes on a cooling rack.
- Serve plain, or add a drizzle of 1/4 cup melted sugar-free chocolate chips on top to decorate.
Storage
- Store in a cookie jar, sealed, for up to 1 week. They can be frozen. Thaw for 3 hours before eating.
Tools
Getting Started What Is Keto? Macro Calculator Sweetener Converter Intermittent Fasting Keto Fruits Keto Vegetables Keto Flours Fighting Keto Flu Healthy SweetenersWant My Kitchen Equipment?
Nutrition
About The Author
Hi, I'm Carine, the food blogger, author, recipe developer, published author of a cookbook, and founder of Sweet As Honey.
I have an Accredited Certificate in Nutrition and Wellness obtained in 2014 from Well College Global (formerly Cadence Health). I'm passionate about sharing all my easy and tasty recipes that are both delicious and healthy. My expertise in the field comes from my background in chemistry and years of following a keto low-carb diet. But I'm also well versed in vegetarian and vegan cooking since my husband is vegan.
I now eat a more balanced diet where I alternate between keto and a Mediterranean Diet
Cooking and Baking is my true passion. In fact, I only share a small portion of my recipes on Sweet As Honey. Most of them are eaten by my husband and my two kids before I have time to take any pictures!
All my recipes are at least triple tested to make sure they work and I take pride in keeping them as accurate as possible.
Browse all my recipes with my Recipe Index.
I hope that you too find the recipes you love on Sweet As Honey!
Disclaimer
The recipes, instructions, and articles on this website should not be taken or used as medical advice. You must consult with your doctor before starting on a keto or low-carb diet. The nutritional data provided on Sweetashoney is to be used as indicative only.
The nutrition data is calculated using WP Recipe Maker. Net Carbs is calculated by removing the fiber and some sweeteners from the total Carbohydrates. As an example, a recipe with 10 grams of Carbs per 100 grams that contains 3 grams of erythritol and 5 grams of fiber will have a net carbs content of 2 grams. Some sweeteners are excluded because they are not metabolized.
You should always calculate the nutritional data yourself instead of relying on Sweetashoney's data. Sweetashoney and its recipes and articles are not intended to cure, prevent, diagnose, or treat any disease. Sweetashoney cannot be liable for adverse reactions or any other outcome resulting from the use of recipes or advice found on the Website.
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Found this recipe today and just had to make it immediately. So easy! I love shortbread cookies and these were on point.Used my food processor; with a small cookie dough scooper I was able to get 24 cookies. Thank you for this recipe!
I am so happy to read your comment! Thanks for trying my recipes. XOXO Carine.
I made it today with coconut oil. Big mistake!! It was all crumbly ???? still taste good though. Thank you for the recipe!
I made these cookies yesterday and they were great! I used two tablespoons of butter and one tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. In all my baking I use an organic powdered stevia, which comes in mixed with granules, and it is easy to mix. It worked really well. I will do them again on the weekend, as they keep well too.
Thanks for the recipe 🙂
You are welcome ! I am so glad you enjoy those simple low carb cookies. Enjoy the blog, XOXO Carine.
Hi Carine, I just made these. Theses tastes so good! I used Kerry gold butter and erythritol. Thank you! I will be keep making these. Very easy to make.
Thnaks so much for the lovely feedback, it makes me very happy ! Enjoy the low carb recipes on the blog. XOXO Carine.
These are very good! I’ve made them twice and they have been eaten up in one day! So happy to use monk fruit in them!
Amazing! Thanks for the lovely comment and enjoy the low carb recipes on the blog, XOXO Carine.
Can I use stevia and monk fruit combined? I only have a container of that in my cupboard.
Sure, monk fruit stevia blend work really well here! Enjoy the cookies. XOXO Carine.
This has been my go-to little pick me up cookie recipe for a few months now, and I just love it! They have also become my boyfriends favorite cookie! I use coconut sugar. Thank you!
This makes me SO happy to read your comment! I love when my recipes makes people feel good and happy. Enjoy the recipes on the blog and thanks SO much for trying my recipes and reporting back! XOXO Carine.
I made this for the kids and even though they avoid almonds like the plague, they loved it! They were so shocked when I told them it had almonds in it! lol #parentingwin
Thank you for an amazing recipe. I am pretty sure I stuffed up the butter proportion as I doubled the recipe but still turned out delish!
Yeah ! I love to read comments like this. This is SO good when we can sneak healthy food in our kids plate ! I also have an easy almond coconut cookies recipe that they make love if you like, check it out here. Have a lovely day and thanks for sharing your lovely comment. XOXO Carine.
Would you be able to use stevia? Instead of coconut sugar? Or is coconut sugar not too bad. I have Gestational Diabetes. Thanks
Hello! I would recommend sugar free crystal sweetener as I am using in the recipe. Coconut sugar has a lower GI than regular sugar but I would not recommend this if you have diabetes/gestational diabetes. Brands that will work well in this recipe are swerve or Lakanto monk fruit sugar. Both are safe for you and won’t raise your sugar level. Enjoy the low carb cookies. XOXO Carine.
I have just baked these cookies. May I ask? The textire of my shortbread cookies are soft on the inside. Is this the correct texture? I used stevia and finds that the sweetness taste kinda of weird for me. I live in Malaysia and the monk fruit sugar you mentioned, it’s not available in my country. So, can i do without any sweetener the next time I bake tbem?
Hi, That’s because you are not using the right sweetener. You shouldn’t replace monk fruit sugar with stevia. You are losing the texture that is why the cookies ends up so soft. If you can’t find monk fruit sugar in Malaysia other substitute that will work here are erythritol (100 %sugar free) or coconut sugar or any unrefined crystal sugar like rapadura sugar. Enjoy the cookies! XOXO Carine.
This recipe is soo easy, I absolutely like the taste of it, and that‘s that low in carbs. Thank you, have a blessier Christmas.
Hello! I am so glad you love them. Iam totally with you, this is so good to enjoy a cookies without the extra carbs and sugar! Enjoy the blog and Merry Christmas from New Zealand. XOXO Carine.