Sugar Free Sugar Cookies (Low Carb, Keto, Nut Free, Gluten Free)
These Amazing Sugar Free, Nut Free, Keto Sugar Cookies are the Best Low Carb Sugar Cookie Recipe you will ever need or want again! Only 1 carb per cookie with frosting!
Best Low Carb Keto Sugar Cookie Recipe
It’s that time of year that we all start planning our delicious recipes for the holidays and especially your favorite Christmas cookies!
The classic cookie in my opinion is always the cut-out sugar cookies, but if you decided this was your year to eat less sugar or reduce your sugar intake, these refined sugar cookies are not something you want to indulge in.
I’m here to bring you hope because for those of us who have been doing this lifestyle for a long time, the ultimate best sugar cookie dough can in fact, be made without sugar and still be just as tasty as traditional sugar cookies!
And it is even possible to make these keto cut-out cookies, nut free as well !! I’ve done it for my tree nut allergic son and he loves them as do the rest of the family members!
Sugar Free Sugar Cookies is an oxymoron, I know! But it is possible and they are just as good when you want the traditional holiday cookies without cheating on your low carb or keto diet!
Don’t believe me? You must give these low-carb sugar cookies a go and then tell me what you think!
Carbs in Classic Sugar Cookie
According to the app Cronometer, one basic iced sugar cookie has 14.1 grams of carbs, .2 fiber so 13.9 g net carbs. Quite high for just one cookie and will surely spike your blood sugar.
Our keto easy sugar cookies have just 1 g carbs per cookie with icing!
BEST KETO BUTTERCREAM FROSTING OR ICING
If you’d like a more sugar free buttercream frosting to spread on these keto cookies that’s fine too and works equally as well. You could use my recipe for sugar free cream cheese frosting if you prefer over buttercream.
I felt it was easier to make a thin icing to simplify the process and dipping was easier to me than spreading or adding to a piping bag.
Can I Swap Different Flours?
The brands I like for sesame flour are Kevala and Sukrin which both show fiber. You can also just use hulled sesame seeds and grind them in a blender to be finer for this recipe.
If you want to make these almond flour sugar cookies, you can swap out the sesame flour for almond, though I have not tested it in this recipe. I have tested swapping sesame for almond in other recipes without issue. If the dough looks a little bit too wet using almond flour you may need to increase by adding 1/4 cup at a time.
I don’t recommend swapping the sesame with all coconut flour as coconut flour is denser and needs a lot more liquid and eggs. If you were making these cookies with just coconut flour, the rest of the recipe would need to change.
Obviously to keep these low carb and keto, I don’t recommend swapping with all purpose flour or whole wheat pastry flour, but if you aren’t watching carbs, they could be used in place of sesame.
You could also swap out the sesame flour with a gluten-free flour blend like from Bob’s Red Mill. You could leave out the gelatin in this great recipe since most gluten free flours add xanthan gum, just be sure to check it’s included.
Can I Change the Sugar Substitute?
If you’re not using Swerve or erythritol, no problem, you can swap it out with Monk Fruit & Allulose sweetener or just Allulose. Here’s my Sweetener Guide & Conversion Chart.
CAN I LEAVE OUT THE GELATIN?
I would not leave out the beef gelatin powder because it truly helps with the nice chewiness in the texture of these cookies.
Any gelatin will work here, but not collagen peptides which does not gel up like gelatin.
You could swap out the gelatin with xanthan gum if you prefer.
SUGAR FREE SPRINKLES
The cookie and the icing is keto friendly and completely sugar free. The festive little decorations on top of the icing in my photos are not keto friendly unfortunately.
But since these are for my kids to make I couldn’t forgo letting them decorate to their hearts content.
Recently I’ve found two companies that sell sugar free sprinkles! The first company is Good Dee’s and the second is from Stoka Nutrition.
HOW TO MAKE KETO CUT-OUT SUGAR COOKIES
INGREDIENTS
You will need just a few basic ingredients you probably already have in your pantry.
Butter– unsalted and softened is best. If you only have salted butter, just eliminate the added salt in the recipe.
Low Carb Sweetener– I used Swerve but you can certainly use whatever low carb sweetener you prefer. Here is my Sweetener Guide & Conversion Chart to help you with measurements. See notes above on what I would swap with.
Pure Vanilla Extract– a good brand since some have unpleasant aftertastes.
Eggs– I always use room temperature eggs since I have chickens. It helps incorporate ingredients better when they are room temp.
Sesame Flour & Coconut Flour– These are the nut free, low carb flours I used in my recipe which makes a really nice chewy texture.
Beef Gelatin Powder– Powerhouse ingredient that creates a wonderful chewy texture and hold the cookie together for frosting.
Baking Soda & Baking Powder– Both are helpful in this recipe.
Sea Salt– Helps to balance sweet desserts, but leave it out if using salted butter.
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 4 cookie sheet pans with parchment paper to make 48 cookies. (Divide dough in half for making only 24 cookies and you can wrap the other half and freeze.)
Place the butter, Swerve and vanilla extract in the bowl of an electric stand mixer until combined.
Turn the mixer on low speed and add 1 egg at a time until incorporated.
In a large bowl, whisk together flours, beef gelatin, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
Add half the dry ingredients to wet in mixer and blend until well combined. Repeat with the remaining dry ingredients.
Spread half the dough out between two pieces of parchment on a stable work surface and use a rolling pin to roll out to 1/4 inch thickness. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap for the rest of the dough and place in the fridge or freeze.
Use cookie cutters to shape and place on two lined cookie sheets.
Gather up the scraps, re-roll the dough, and cut out more shapes. You should have 24 cookies on two pans.
If you are concerned about spreading, please freeze the sheet pans for 15 minutes prior to baking or you could also place just 12 cookies at a time on a lined baking sheet pan and then bake.
Place the two prepared baking sheet pans in the oven and bake cookies for 10-12 minutes or until slightly golden brown around the edges. Allow to cool completely before moving to a wire rack.
While the first batch of cookies is in the oven, repeat this process with the remaining dough.
How to Make Drop Sugar Cookies
Instead of rolling the cookie dough flat for cutting out shapes, roll the dough into small balls, about 1 tablespoon each then flatten slightly and place onto a parchment lined baking sheet pan. 12 per cookie sheet pan.
How to Store Sugar-Free Cookies Recipe
Once the sugar cookies are cooled completely you can store them in an airtight container and freeze for up to 3 months or you can refrigerate for 7-10 days.
You can store in the fridge or freezer with icing or frosting and decorations.
These Sugar Free Sugar Cookies are in my cookbook, Naturally Keto ORDER HERE on Amazon.
Tips for Making the Best Keto Sugar Cookies
Chill Cookie Dough to avoid too much spreading and will help keep their cut out shapes.
Don’t Roll cookie dough too Thin as they will not be sturdy enough for frosting.
Allow to Cool on baking sheet pan as low carb gluten free cookies are more fragile then traditional cookies and can crumble if moved while warm out of the oven.
SUGAR-FREE Cookie Recipes & Desserts for Christmas
Sugar Free Chocolate Cream Pie
Low Carb Peanut Butter Blossoms
Sugar Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Sugar Free Sugar Cookie Recipe
Sugar Free Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
Sugar Cookies
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened or 2 sticks
- 1 cup Swerve sweetener or225 grams
- 1 tsp vanilla extract or almond extract if you prefer
- 2 large eggs
- 2 cups sesame flour (240 grams) or blanched almond flour
- 1/4 cup coconut flour or 33g
- 2 tbsp beef gelatin powder or 1 tsp xanthan gum
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
Sugar Free Icing
- 3/4 cup Swerve confectioners sweetener divided
- 3 tbsp water
- natural food coloring
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 4 cookie sheet pans with parchment paper.
- Place the butter, Swerve and vanilla extract in the mixing bowl of a stand mixer until combined.
- Turn the mixer on low speed and add 1 egg at a time until incorporated.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flours, beef gelatin, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
- Add half the dry ingredients to wet in mixer and blend until well combined. Repeat with the remaining dry ingredients.
- Spread half the dough out between two pieces of parchment and roll out to 1/4 inch thickness. Cover the bowl with the rest of the dough and place in the fridge. Use cookie cutters to shape and place on two lined cookie sheets. Gather up the scraps, re-roll the dough, and cut out more shapes. You should have 24 cookies on two pans. ( If you are concerned about spreading, please freeze the sheet pans for 15 minutes prior to baking or you could also place just 12 cookies at a time on a baking sheet pan and then bake.)
- Place the two pans and bake cookies for 10 minutes or until slightly browned around the edges. Allow to cool completely before moving to a wire rack.
- While the first batch of cookies is in the oven, repeat this process with the remaining dough.
Icing
- Separate the Confectioner sweetener by placing 1/4 cup each into 3 different bowls. Add 1 tablespoon of water to each bowl and mix until smooth. Add food coloring to desired color. You can then dip the top of each cookie into the icing and let excess drip off, then place back onto baking sheet. Add decorations if desired. Let them set before storing.
- Store in an airtight container. You can also store and freeze these.
Notes
Nutrition
About Brenda
Brenda Bennett is a certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, certified Sugar Detox Coach, certified Keto Coach and certified Life Coach. She has been Sugar Free & Refined carb free for 17 years and has written 2 cookbooks, Sugar-Free Mom, and Naturally Keto and her 3rd book The 30-Day Sugar Elimination Diet, is a four part program to help you detox from sugar, eliminate cravings, balance blood sugar and lose weight all while eating a delicious, nutrient dense whole foods. Meal plan offers two tracks to follow, low carb or keto. She is the founder of the Sugar Free Fresh Start course and Sugar Free Tribe weight loss membership. Learn more.
Followed this recipe to a T. Very hard to work with the dough. Turned out like cardboard. I just can’t seem to find a good keto cookie.
Sorry you have issues with the dough, curious what low carb sweetener you used?
Any experience in using a substitute for the eggs in this recipe for a vegan?
Sorry, I have not tried subbing eggs in this recipe.
Did you mean cal not kcal?
Can I use lard instead of butter?
Yep!
Good golly Miss Molly. These are so good. Thank you for developing this recipe. You are a food scientist, aren’t you!
Hello I’m wanting to make these just wondering if I can use something other than coconut flour? My mum is allergic to it.
Thank you.
I wonder if you could use a protein powder?
I made theses cookies for Easter with Buttercream frosting and they were the best I have ever had, they melt in your mouth!! I did have to add quite a bit more almond flour and put the dough in the refrigerator. I also had to use a very basic cookie cutter as the dough tended to stick. The effort was worth it, they were delicious and I am so thrilled I can keep up the Easter Tradition in a more healthy way!! Thank you!!!!!!
Hi! I just made these delish sugar cookies!! And let me tell you…these are probably my best that I have made to date.
Here’s what I used:
I didn’t have sesame flour, I used almond flour. Now, the recipe calls for 2C sesame flour so I used just that of almond flour. It was still a little wet/sticky so I had to use an additional 1.5C of almond flour for a total of 3.5C almond flour. They came out perfect! It does tweak the macros however…I was able to get about 38 cookies from this batch and that came out to 1.6 NET gram of carbs per cookie w/o the frosting. I also used xantham gum as I didn’t have beef gelatin in hand and still came out perfect! These are definitely staying with us for any holiday! Thank you so much Brenda!
Cathy
Thank you for updating us on the almond flour amount!
Cathy, thank you so much for the recommendation on increasing the amount of Almond flour to 3.5 cups, that worked out so much better for rolling and getting them off the paper to the cooking sheet. I would definitely advise anyone using this recipe to do this.
Thanks again Ginny N
Your cookies turned out so well! What is the secret to avoid spreading? My cookies always spread and never look as “sharp” as yours
I usually freeze for an hour or longer.
I made my own sesame flour but dough e was very moist. I added more sesame flour but could not get them off the parchment paper. The only sesame seeds I could find were hulled sesame seeds. DO you think that is the problem? I am going to chill the remaining dough for longer and see.
Did you grind the seeds first?
Do you know if knox gelatin will work same as your powdered gelatin? I have a bunch here trying to use up.
Yes that will work.
I love sugar cookies and I have looked for a low carb recipe that tastes closest to the full carb version. This recipe gets an A+. The beef gelatin worked wonderfully and I made it with finely ground almond flour. Fabulous!
Did you use the same amount of almond flour as sesame in the recipe?
Good morning! Thank you for the recipe! I have great lakes collagen both the green label and red label. Could I use either of these in this recipe? Kathy
It won’t work the same as gelatin. You can use this from Great Lakes:https://amzn.to/2UpYicI
First of all, just thank you for all you do! You have fantastic recipes for someone, like me, who eats Keto. Now, for the question: what did you use for the decorations on the cookies?
The decorations my kids used are not sugar free, the icing and the cookie are but not the decorations.
Am trying these tomorrow–my husband has been feeling decidedly deprived of cookies since we started on Keto. I find that monk fruit sweetener has that “cooling” feeling when you eat it, but it isn’t unpleasant and it tastes the same. Thank you so much for this recipe!!
I just made these using Almond Flour. The dough is very soft. I succumbed to taking enough dough out of the fridge to roll and cut 1 cookie at a time. What a pain! Was it like that using the sesame flour? Also I used Swerve but I think like most of these alternative sweeteners is has a “minty” feeling as you eat it and an aftertaste as well. I find that to be true with pretty much anything I have tried. I can’t use sugar alcohols, they really upset my stomach. Any other suggestions?Also I had to turn my oven down to 300 for 10 minutes. The first batch was way too dark.
Oh wow that is a pain. I will test these with almond flour. Maybe it should be increased a bit as the sesame might be more dense then almond. Sorry you had trouble. Have you tried monk fruit sweetener?
Thanks. I have tried Monk fruit sweetener and I find the same thing. I think I’m leaning more towards Stevia in smaller amounts.
I find that if I mix monkfruit and stevia it helps cut down on the cooling aftertaste. And only in small amounts. Seems more than a 1/4 cup and it just doesn’t matter much. Just my experience.
Making these for a diabetic. Probably will use almond flour and measure by cups not grams. I understand due to moisture etc grams are more precise but…. Would the recipe be at it’s best w 2 cups of almond flour or do i need to do this another way.
enjoy the recipes and comments…..Thank you
I’ve not tested it using almond flour but I do think the same amount should work. If the dough looks too wet then add 1/4 cup more.
I just purchased your ketosis cookbook for $37 but immediately after making the purchase I rec’d an offer for $27. Can you please consider offering me a $10 credit? With Christmas and 3 kids to buy for I would feel so grateful to you for your kindness. Please consider this please. Sincerely, Mary K Swale
You must be mistaken for another blogger. I do not have a ketosis cookbook for sale.
It says right in this blog you have a cookbook
Naturally keto
My cookbook is for sale on Amazon but has never been $37 and not titled ketosis so I don’t think it’s the same thing she purchased. I can’t refund anything as I am not selling my cookbook personally, it’s sold by my publisher.
Do you use salted or salted butter?
I actually used salted and these were perfect but unsalted is fine too.
Beef allergy. Will regular gelatin do?
I would replace with xanthan gum, 1 teaspoon.
Have you made these dairy free? My daughter is gluten, dairy, and soy free(newly) and we are looking for recipes.
Maybe use a coconut oil for the butter? Though I’ve not tested it.
Amy,
If you don’t need this recipe to be keto, you could substitute a dairy-free baking margarine. We use fleischmanns unsalted sticks, but they do have soy lecithin (my soy-allergic son does fine with it, but double check with your allergist).
Hi Bethany, I don’t know if this would work for you, but how about a mixture of ghee butter (normally casein and lactose free, found at Whole Foods) and safe margarine for your little one? My husband is dairy intolerant but ghee butter is fine for him. I usually cut it down with margarine for two reasons: it has a very strong buttery flavor, which we are not used to any more, and it is quite a bit pricey. I have also seen olive oil as a butter replacement. If you are not afraid of experimenting, go for it!
im a bit confused (nothing new)… 1 oz of sesame flour is 10g if carbs…. how does 2 cups of that break down to 1 carb each, considering the 1 additional carb from coconut flour?
im looking forward to the recipe, using almond flour instead..
thanks, merry Christmas!
Sorry for the delay I was double checking my nutrition. I use Wordpress Recipe Plug in and I can input the nutrition manually if the database doesn’t have the ingredient, which it did not for the sesame I used. So first off, some sesame flours do not show any fiber. If you use actual sesame seeds and grind them you keep the fiber and you can certainly do that in this recipe. I used the Sukrin brand of sesame meal and not flour so I edited that above in the recipe to clarify also as you probably know, cups and grams aren’t compatible. I weighed my 2 cups I used and it was 170 grams which I added above for others to see, most nutrition calculators would say that 2 cups of whatever has 250 grams in it, but like I said I weighed and mine was 170grams. The Sukrin brand has only 6 carbs per 100 grams of sesame meal and 15 grams of fiber. I noticed other brands do not have any fiber and they are called sesame flour so you do have to be careful what brand you use. The Kevala brand is good too. But in any case you can simply buy sesame seeds and grind them in a blender to make them finer for this recipe. Bobs Red Mill has hulled white sesame seeds that for 29grams has 7 carbs and 5 fiber so you could use that.
Any substitute for sesame flour? Hubs is allergic to nuts and sesames… joy. what is the purpose of it? can i swap for more coconut flour?
I would have to test it out with coconut to be sure. I’ll work on it.
Is there a substitute for the beef gelatin powder? If not what else would you use it in? Thanks!!
I would suggest using about 1 tsp xanthan gum, but honestly I would also say to invest in a bag of the beef gelatin powder. It’s so good to make baked goods have a crispness to them. I use it in my chocolate chip cookie recipe, in my quick keto toast as well.