People on the keto diets are conscious of their food intake considering the fact that keto only allows an exceptional amount of carbs per day. The entire ordeal of keto diets is to limit your carbohydrates consumption to only 30 – 50 grams per day.
Limiting your carb intake puts your body into a state of ketosis which essentially means your body will be burning fat for energy rather than taking other energy sources. So, ultimately, with more fats burned, you will end up losing a healthy amount of weight.
Since there is a little room to wiggle around with the carbs intake, people may often consider keto diets too hard to follow. It is widely assumed that the carb composition of regularly consumed foods like eggs (protein source) and salads is too high. But that is not the case at all!
In fact, there are plenty of ways to incorporate the same regularly consumed foods like eggs and salads into your keto diet. We know both eggs and salads are healthy and can be an excellent source of nutrition for your body.
But, what about eggs and salad on a keto? Do they go well together on a keto diet? Is egg salad keto? Let’s find out:
Is Egg Salad Keto?
Based on the carb content of egg salad, it is surprisingly low which makes egg salad keto friendly. Egg salad is absolutely perfect for keto lunch option as it is not only delicious but can also be made quickly.
Technically speaking, for a food to be considered keto it must have a small amount of carbs. Now, taking into account the carbs composition of an egg salad, a ½ cup of egg salad only has over 1.7 gram of net carbs which is just perfect!
Considering this, it may even make sense to make egg salads as a regular part of your keto diet plan.
Egg salads are essentially a nutrient powerhouse and contain a good amount of proteins, fats, dietary fiber, calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc, vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B12, C, D, K, E and so many more essential minerals.
Looking at all these nutrients, you can get an idea of how good egg salad is for keto diets. Just by eating a small portion of keto friendly egg salad, you can meet most of your dietary needs.
As a result of meeting these dietary needs and fulfilling the nutritional requirements of your body, you will have an overall healthy body with improved organ function and staying generally fit.
In terms of eating egg salad too often or in higher serving sizes, you do not have to worry about egg salads kicking you out of ketosis. Since a half cup serving of egg salad has only 1.7 grams of net carbs, you will likely have to eat more than a dozen eggs to kick your body out of ketosis.
While the nutritional values of egg salad may be tempting, it would be wise to consume egg salads as part of a balanced keto diet. You need to add other keto friendly foods to your keto diets, or you will potentially be missing out on other delicious foods you can have on a keto diet.
Now that you have an understanding of how keto friendly egg salad is, let’s look at the overall nutritional profile of egg salads to give you an estimate on what nutrients you can benefit from.
Egg Salad: Nutritional Profile
There is no doubt egg salad is a nutrient powerhouse and filled with essential nutrients. But to quantify this information, let’s look at the nutritional profile of a ½ cup serving of egg salad:
| Nutrient | Amount |
| Net carbs | 1.7 g |
| Fiber | 0.3 g |
| Total carbohydrates | 2.1 g |
| Energy | 266 calories |
| Fats | 24.5 g |
| Starch | 0.1 g |
| Sugar | 1.4 g |
| Sugar alcohols | 0.1 g |
| Protein | 8.5 g |
| Cholesterol | 250 mg |
| Glycemic load | 0.52 |
| Calcium | 41.1 mg |
| Iron | 0.9 mg |
| Magnesium | 8.9 mg |
| Phosphorus | 121 mg |
| Potassium | 128.2 mg |
| Sodium | 491.7 mg |
| Zinc | 0.7 mg |
| Selenium | 20.5 mcg |
| Folate | 35.1 mcg |
| Vitamin A | 102.3 mcg |
| Vitamin B1 *Thiamin* | 0.1 mg |
| Vitamin B2 *Riboflavin* | 0.3 mg |
| Vitamin B3 *Niacin* | 0.1 mg |
| Vitamin B5 | 1 mg |
| Vitamin B6 | 0.1 mg |
| Vitamin B12 | 0.7 mcg |
| Vitamin C | 1 mg |
| Vitamin D | 1.4 mcg |
| Vitamin K | 42.1 mcg |
| Vitamin E | 1.5 mg |
| Choline | 198.4 mg |
As you can see, the list of nutrients in egg salad is pretty long and so is the list of health benefits you can receive from eating them. Let’s look at the health benefits of eating egg salad on a keto diet in the next section.
7 Health Benefits Of Eating Egg Salad On Keto:
Here are some potential health benefits you can receive from simply eating egg salads on a keto diet:
1. Boosts HDL levels in your body:
HDL basically refers to high density lipoprotein which is a type of cholesterol. In fact, it is often associated with the good cholesterol in your body.
Ideally when you consume egg salad, the egg part raises your HDL levels which substantially lowers the risks of:
- Cardiovascular complications
- Lesser risk of strokes
- Lower risk of suffering from general sickness and diseases
2. Serves as a source of choline:
Egg salad contains 198.4 mg of choline in just a single cup serving. Choline is a vital nutrient required by your body but unfortunately it is often looked over and people do not get enough of the nutrient.
It is as crucial as the vitamins requirement and therefore is often linked with vitamin Bs. Consuming choline from safe foods aids in building cell membranes in your body. Furthermore, choline is also known to help create the molecules responsible for signaling in your brain.
3. Lowered risk of heart complications:
There are two types of cholesterol in your body, HDL, and LDL. HDL is often considered the good type of cholesterol whereas LDL is considered the bad type. An increased amount of LDL cholesterol is associated with increasing the risks of heart complications.
To further add, LDL is classified into two subcategories including small and large LDL particles. This is important to add here because having small LDL particles in your body indicates towards an increased risk of heart issues.
Now, consuming egg salad allows you to alter the size of the small LDL particles and balance out its negative effects by changing their size from small to large – thus lowering the risks of heart complications in your body.
4. Improved Eye Health:
This might come as a shock but if you consume egg salads, the egg part along with the salad contains lutein and zeaxanthin depending on what you use as ingredients. Irrespective of the type of salad you opt for, you will benefit from the lutein and zeaxanthin content in eggs.
Ideally, as you grow old or your screen time increases, it negatively impacts your eye health. Both lutein and zeaxanthin are essential antioxidants that help lower the adverse effects on your eye health.
Both of these antioxidants move towards the retina of your eye and are accumulated there. Due to the presence of these antioxidants in your eye, it substantially improves your eyesight and general eye health in terms of:
- Lowering the risks of cataracts
- Lowering the risks of macular degeneration
Furthermore, egg salad is also a rich source of vitamin A, which can be seen from the nutritional profile of egg salad. Unfortunately, vitamin A is also neglected which is pretty bad for your health.
The reason behind this is that a deficiency of vitamin A in your body can lead to blindness. But, since egg salads contain vitamin A, you do not have to worry about blindness as you will be providing your body with a source of vitamin A.
5. Rich source of proteins:
Generally speaking, when following a keto diet, you are also required to take care of your protein intake. Fortunately, egg salad will be just about perfect to meet your protein requirements under a keto diet.
Proteins are essentially the building blocks of your body and are responsible for a variety of bodily functions including:
- Making tissues
- Making molecules
Both of which are responsible for improving structural and functional aspects of your body.
The proteins in egg salad are considered complete proteins comprising of all of the amino acids in balanced quantities. Consuming egg salads will not only boost the primary function of proteins in your body but also lead to a number of other health benefits including:
- Weight loss
- Increasing muscle mass
- Lowering your blood pressure levels
- Optimizing your bone health
So, adding egg salad to your keto diet will not only add a delicious meal to your diet, but also provide your body with a boost in terms of weight loss and improving your overall health.
6. Leads towards a feeling of fullness:
Surprisingly, egg salad may not seem like a meal to fill up your belly, but it actually leads towards a feeling of fullness which stays for quite a while. Due to the feeling of fullness from egg salad, you will not only be consuming less calories but also not crave any more food.
On a side note, there actually is an index referred to as the satiety index which allows you to determine which foods tend to cause a feeling of fullness. Fortunately, eggs are on top of the index meaning you will not be craving any food or feel hungry after eating egg salad.
This allows you to manage your food intake better and also helps in managing your weight as well.
How Can You Eat Egg Salad On Keto?
The best part about eating egg salad on a keto is that it is widely versatile. There are plenty of options for you to incorporate egg salad into your keto diet and can be consumed as both a lunch and a dinner option.
Either way you opt for, it will serve as a rich source of nutrients for your body while keeping your carbohydrates intake at a minimum. Here are a few ways you can eat egg salad on keto:
- Egg salad with keto chaffles
- Egg salad with radishes
- Egg salad with cucumber slices
- Egg salad with broccoli florets
- Egg salad with cauliflower florets
- Egg salad with green beans
- Egg salad with zucchini slices
- Egg salad with yellow squash slices
As you can see, the list goes long and depending on what option or recipe you choose, you will get to experience different and healthy nutrients.
If you’re not sure about the recipes for making egg salads on keto, don’t worry. We have got you covered. The next section of this article has a detailed insight into some of the most popular keto egg salad recipes that are undoubtedly safe in terms of their carbs composition:
Keto Friendly Egg Salad Recipes:
When looking for keto egg salad recipes, it may get complicated considering that there are hundreds of different recipes and hundreds of people slightly changing the ingredients in the recipes to get an absolutely new one.
We understand it can be overwhelming, but just to get you started, here are some of our top picks:
1. Keto Egg Salad With Bacon:
Ingredients:
- Boiled eggs – Either hard boiled (for a crumbly texture) or slightly soft-boiled (for a jammy texture)
- Bacon – Must be sugar free in order to keep the carbs zero
- Mayonnaise – When looking for mayonnaise make sure it is keto friendly (generally mayonnaise made with avocado oil and with no added sugar would be preferred)
- Yellow mustard – preferably Dijon mustard or any yellow substitute you may find
- Fresh herbs – parsley and green onions
Side Ingredients (These are the secondary ingredients and are used to bring a slight variation in the primary ingredients. You can skip this section if you are okay with the primary ingredients mentioned above):
- Smash an avocado and use that instead of the mayonnaise
- For a herby touch you can add one teaspoon of minced dill (must be fresh)
- To add some crunchiness, you can add 1 tablespoon of the following: celery, pickles, diced red onion.
There is no hard and fast rule for using the side ingredients and you can vary them as per your liking.
Instructions:
- Start by preparing and boiling the eggs. Take a saucepan, add cold water and place the eggs in it. Make sure the water fully covers the eggs. Let the water boil at low-medium heat and leave it for 8 – 10 minutes for hard boiled eggs. For soft boiled eggs, you need to leave it for 5 – 7 minutes.
- Once boiled according to your desired type, remove the eggs from the saucepan. When taking out the eggs, make sure to use a spoon. Let the eggs cool down and once cooled, you need to peel and chop them into small bits. The size of the chopped eggs comes down to your preference and you can either chop them into medium sized or small sized bits. If you’re opting for an aesthetic texture, you need to chop the egg into 7 – 8 pieces.
- Afterwards, you need to get the parsley, green onions and mince them thoroughly.
- Next, take the bacon and cook it.
- Once the bacon is cooked, split it into two portions.
- Take one portion of the bacon and add all of the ingredients mentioned in the list to a bowl. Mix all of the ingredients thoroughly until you get a uniform consistency.
- Add salt and pepper to taste, sprinkle the egg bits, and finally add the bacon portion you separated earlier.
- Serve and enjoy!
On a side note, this recipe is just to get you started. There are plenty of other healthy and similar keto friendly egg salad recipes that you can try out.
The best part about all of these recipes is that you will not need any special ingredients as most of them use the spices, salts, and ingredients that are readily available in most households.
But keep in mind, when trying out a new recipe make sure you do not add such ingredients that would raise the carb content of the salad. Otherwise, it will pose a potential threat to your ketosis and may kick your body out of the ketosis state.
Wrapping Up – Is Egg Salad Keto?
Is egg salad keto? Absolutely! Egg salad is very low in carbs and filled with essential nutrients including proteins, fiber, and vitamins depending on the type of recipe you are opting for. Ultimately, it will lead to improved weight loss and better overall health due to the nutrients in eggs and the green salads.
Regardless of the recipe, the carbohydrates in egg salad are extremely low. So, even if you consume large amounts of the egg salad, it will not kick you out of ketosis whatsoever.
This is ideal because with egg salads, you can try out different recipes and add a fun little twist to your lunch and dinner meals without having to worry about consuming too many carbs.
If you'd like to learn more about keto friendly foods, click on one of the links below: