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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Can margarine be used instead of butter? Also can a wheat free 1:1 rating all purpose flour be used?
Yes, it does work fine with vegan butter, but I haven’t tried with a wheat-free all purpose flour. Let me know if it works!
Thank you for the recipe. Is it possible to make those cookies with à cookie press?
I think you might struggle as the dough is quite thick, but if you managed to do it, let me know!
Fantastic, perfect texture for a keto shortbread cookie. Firm and crisp, just like the real thing with a different but great flavor as close to the real thing as I’ve found so far. Thanks for sharing the perfect crisp cookie recipe as I’ve tried so many that have failed by being soft and cake-like. Using an erythritol based sweetener is KEY!!! Thanks for this lovely recipe 😃👍🏼💖
Omg these taste so good. I used lemon extract to get a lemon flavor. Love the texture, you wouldn’t know it was keto!
What would work instead of butter for a non dairy batch?
There’s some good quality vegan butter I would recommend like earth balance
I started making these because you say they are vegan. As I began to add the butter I stopped and said, “Wait! Butter is NOT vegan!”. So I grabbed the stick of butter out and used coconut oil instead. They were WAY to crumbly and fell apart as I attempted to shape them and flatten them, so I stuffed everything back in the fridge to try again another day. Today, I took out the dough, crumbled all the balls so I would have the dough mixture again and added vegan friendly “egg” aka milled flaxseed with water, plus sprinkled some baking soda in and voila! Perfect dough that held together beautifully. They have taken much longer to cook than your recipe calls for though, the first batch at least 14 minutes. (Maybe mine were thicker?) Also, I used almond extract instead of vanilla and total yum!
When the recipe calls for butter, you should use vegan butter instead of coconut oil. It will work the same as butter.
These came out great! I did have to add a little more liquid to the recipe to get the consistency needed for them to hold together, but they came out really nice and taste so good with a great consistency. To make these low histamine, I excluded the vanilla extract and used coconut milk instead (not the full fat kind). I also used coconut sugar instead of erythritol, and ghee instead of butter. Can’t wait to make more!
Thanks for the lovely feedback!
You left the salt out of the recipe. At the top it says 5 ingredient and salt is listed
Thanks for spotting this! I updated the recipe card, enjoy the cookies, XOXO Carine
I just sprinkled salt on them and ate them anyway lol.
YUM! These came out great! Added 1/2 tsp of almond extract and made 20 perfect little cookies! So nice to have a little Low carb treat! Added to my low carb/keto Arsenal. Thanks for the recipe!
Me encantó la receta, se puede hacer con harina de coco
Great recipe. My cookies Came out exactly like on the pictures.Tasting great with a cup of coffee!
I made these this afternoon to have with your banana pudding. I just had to try one once they cooled. Carine, they are FABULOUS! I will definitely be making them again and again.
I just made these cookies and they are delicious! Although not my mom’s English Shortbread, they are very close and so much healthier. I followed the recipe exactly and they came out perfect. I am so happy to have found a site I am confident I can use for desserts. I can’t wait to try the lemon cookies! Thank you!
Thank you ! So glad you love them. XOXO Carine
I would love to try this recipe. But I just wanted to double check the monk fruit sugar ingredient, is that pure monk fruit you used or monk fruit erythritol blend? I have the pure monk fruit version in powder and wasn’t sure of the quantity as for this recipe as it’s almost 300x sweeter than sugar supposedly. Thanks a mil!
My recipes aways use either pure erythritol or blend of monk fruit erythritol. I never use pure stevia or pure Monk fruit in my recipe. Enjoy the cookies !
Thanks! And can I mix this by hand? I don’t have an electric mixer.
Sure! I would probably use a fork to press the soft butter into the flour and erythritol then knead with my hands to form a dough ball. Let me know how it goes! XOXO Carine.
I’ve made some of your recipes that were good but these cookies really aren’t very good. The monk fruit ruins the taste. Sorry.
The recipe use pure erythritol or monk fruit erythritol blend not pure monk fruit ! I never use pure monk fruit in my recipes, it is 300x sweeter and very bitter. I hope it gets better next time. XOXO Carine
can you use coconut butter instead of margarine?
The recipe use pure softened butter. I didn’t try something else so I am unsure how it will goes sorry. Enjoy the recipes on the blog, XOXO Carine
I have to say that I really struggle with this recipe. I think my ratio is wrong, but the never stuck together and was just crumbles. Tried it four times.
I am German and not used to bake with cup measurements, especially for the butter or margarine I found this very messy to squish it into the cup measurer and it feels very inaccurate.
Your blog is my absolute go to favorite and I have used your recipes countless times with great success.
Would you mind terribly to measure the the gram amount of the margarine next time you bake these cookies?
Have a great day!
I am sorry to to hear that. You can convert the recipe in grams using the US/metric link above the ingredients. You must use soft butter, always place the butter out of the fridge for 3 hours before making the recipe. Also you need to use an electric beater to combine the ingredients perfectly and easily or a food processor. I hope it gets better next time. Enjoy, XOXO Carine
Thank you so much for for your nice reply! Can you imagine I never even realised the metric option was there….
Thank you!!!
It is a pleasure, any question leave a comment I am hear 🙂 Take care XOXO Carine
I followed the recipe exactly because I made some cookies before using Monk Fruit and I didn’t like they came out. These came out delicious. Probably ate more of them than I should have the first night.
Thank you so much! Enjoy the recipes on the blog, XOXO Carine
Can I use Vanilla Extract instead of Essence?
Sure, both will work very well. Enjoy the cookies, XOXO Carine.
I love your recipes! BUT I’m not sure why every single one of the oven timings are off for me. For these cookies, I had to leave them in for nearly 17-20 mins, following all the other directions. I’m in the northeast US so maybe that’s it?
This is very strange indeed. ll oven are different, I use a brand new oven on convection mode, it bake faster than conventional mode, that might be the reason why yours took longer to bake. But if the result is as tasty and delicious, that is the main thing 🙂 Thanks so much for making my reipes from US, I am from New Zealand! XOXO Carine.
Can I use granulated erythritol or does it have to be in powdered form? Thanks
Both works. Enjoy the shotbread cookies. XOXO Carine.