Keto Fries
What can you do when you want some French fries while on Keto? Most people would probably just eat the real thing and then get back on track tomorrow. However, we wanted to try out some low carb alternatives to potatoes for you. Not all of these choices worked very well, so we've saved you the time and money so that you can pick the right Keto compatible food for when you really want French "fries."
Daikon, Rutabaga, Turnip & Jicama
For this test, we used jicama, daikon radishes, rutabaga, and turnips. These are all "root vegetables" with lower carbs but they all have a fairly high moisture content and so they take a little more time to cook and fry. We sliced them like French fries, hoping to trick our brains into thinking that these were the real thing. We fried these veggies in a Presto Deep Fryer, which worked great!
The first trial was a daikon radish. At about 9 carbs for a whole radish, you get a lot of pieces for a whole radish. Unfortunately, this didn't turn out that well. The pieces were soggy and the flavor wasn't that great and it didn't taste at all like French fries. On to the next choice!
For our next choice, we tried using jicama. This vegetable is still pretty full of carbs, so you should be mindful about not eating too much of this. Unfortunately, these were very soggy so we stopped eating after the first bite. I wouldn't recommend using jicama as a replacement for French fries, especially given the higher carbs. On to the next option!
Next, we tried rutabaga. This is still pretty high in carbs, but in a small amount, you should be able to try some. When we fried this vegetable and let it drain on paper towels, we were very impressed by the color - it really looked like fries. When we finally tasted the fried rutabaga, we were nearly impressed. They tasted almost like fries, but there was a slight "flavor" that kept them from being excellent. However, after two bites, it did feel like we were eating the real thing.
This was our best pick so far, but we still had one more option to try!
Our last choice was frying up a turnip. The fried turnips also looked like French fries and their flavor was good, however they were just a bit too soggy. We even tried cooking them longer, but the texture just wasn't there. At least the turnips were very low carb.
In Conclusion:
Unfortunately, nothing really comes close to the real thing. French fries are (apparently) meant to be made with potatoes for a reason. Though the rutabaga was close in texture to French fries, it's still pretty high in carbs. The other choices were soggy and and didn't work well as an alternative to French fries. If we were to do this again, we would try double frying these to see if these turned out less soggy.
We hope that we saved you the pain from being forced to try these yourself - most of the choices were just OK and weren't worth the extra carbs. In fact, this experience left a bad taste in our mouths. To solve this, we ate some slices of extra cripsy bacon, and then we were happy again.
