Six ways to stay low carb when you don’t want to cook

Six ways to stay low carb or keto when you don’t want to cook

By , medical review by – Updated August 30, 2020

Tea or coffee
Low-carb snacks
Reheat leftovers
Minimal cooking
Slow cooking
Intermittent fasting
Meal plan
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How do you stay low carb or keto when you don’t want to cook? What do you do when you come home late, tired, or you’re simply unprepared?

Below, find our best ideas for how to stay low carb when you don’t feel like cooking at all or don’t have much time to cook.

1. Drink tea or coffee

A soothing cup of tea or coffee may be just enough to curb your appetite, especially if you add some heavy cream or melted butter.¹ This may take you to your next planned meal, with no cooking.

2. Eat low-carb snacks

Fill your pantry and fridge with low-carb essentials so you can quickly make a platter with one or more of these low-carb snacks instead of cooking. Be sure to include at least one protein source.

Canned fish (tuna, salmon, sardines)
Variety of cheeses
Deli meat or cold cuts ²
Avocado
Nuts (Which are the best? Check out our guide.)
Frozen berries or other low-carb fruits
Cream
Pate
Beef jerky or pork rinds (with no sugars or wheat)
Full-fat yoghurt
Olives
Mayonnaise
Healthy fats – like olive oil – to drizzle over snacks such as mozzarella or veggies

3. Reheat leftovers

Keto pesto chicken casserole with feta cheese and olives

Keto hamburger patties with creamy tomato sauce and fried cabbage

Get in the habit of making double or even triple meals and vegetables. Freeze the leftovers. A meal is waiting, ready to reheat, when you don’t want to cook. Leftovers are superb for lunches too. Check out our planned leftovers worksheet for ideas.

4. Do minimal cooking

Boil an egg.³ Fry a steak or buy a hot cooked chicken (without bread stuffing or sweet sauces). Add a bag of salad, a selection of cheeses and homemade mayonnaise. Dinner can be ready in 10 minutes. Get creative with salads and use your low-carb pantry essentials.

You can also use our simple keto plates. Here’s some inspiration:

5. Learn to love your slow cooker

If you know you’ll be home late but have time in the morning (or even the night before), use your slow cooker. Slow cookers are a fabulous way to transform cheaper cuts of meat into satisfying comfort meals. This is easy ‘set and forget’ cooking.

What can you prepare in your slow cooker? Here are some great ideas to cook up:

6. Fast intermittently

Are you really hungry? Learn to understand your appetite and eat only when hungry. This may not be an option for a family but is great for individuals. And there is no faster (pun intended!) or simpler option.

Find out everything you need to know in our complete guide, Intermittent fasting for beginners.

Summary

Try to be prepared so you’re not in this position too often: planning meals for the week or even a few days at a time will help a lot. Try to set time aside each evening to cook, or batch cook once a week.

Low-carb recipes
Keto recipes

/ Libby Jenkinson

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No cooking meal plan

The meal plan below is available through Diet Doctor Plus. Not a member? Sign up for a FREE 30-day trial to get our no cooking meal plan and many other membership benefits. After the free trial ends, it’s only $9.99/month or $99/year.

Keto: No cooking #1

Want a week off cooking? Kitchen renovation, traveling, or heading on holiday – whatever the reason, we have you covered!

This week’s meal plan is crammed with no-cook, yet deliciously tasty meals, that are perfect if you’re looking to spend less time in the kitchen. With the exception of boiling a few eggs for the week, you won’t need to cook, heat, or warm anything this week. We’ve also helped speed up your mornings, with simple-yet-deliciously-filling butter coffee for breakfast on your weekdays.

This meal plan will keep you below 19 g net carbs per day. How great is that?

Full meal plan →

More guides

Breakfast guide

Lunch & dinner guide

Dining out

Instead of potatoes, pasta and rice

Low-carb bread

Snacks and desserts guide

Low carb when traveling

Guidelines in 31 languages

Visual low-carb guides

Are you concerned that butter, cream, cheese and other foods foods high in saturated fat are unhealthy? In all likelihood, you don’t need to be.

Although still considered controversial by some experts, several large systematic reviews of clinical trials have found no evidence that eating foods high in saturated fat increases the risk of heart disease, early death, or other health problems:

British Medical Journal 2016: Re-evaluation of the traditional diet-heart hypothesis: analysis of recovered data from Minnesota Coronary Experiment (1968-73) [systematic review of randomized trials; strong evidence]

Nutrition Journal 2017: The effect of replacing saturated fat with mostly n-6 polyunsaturated fat on coronary heart disease; a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials [strong evidence]

Learn more: A user guide to saturated fat ↩
Meat is a high-quality source of protein and other essential nutrients. The evidence linking it to heart disease, cancer, and other health issues is very weak: Guide to red meat: is it healthy? ↩
Eggs are an excellent source of protein. Although they’re high in cholesterol, eggs don’t seem to raise cholesterol levels much in most people, and they may even reduce some heart disease risk factors:

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2018: Effect of a high-egg diet on cardiometabolic risk factors in people with type 2 diabetes: the Diabetes and Egg (DIABEGG) Study—randomized weight-loss and follow-up phase [randomized trial; moderate evidence]

Nutrients 2017: Consuming two eggs per day, as compared to an oatmeal breakfast, decreases plasma ghrelin while maintaining the LDL/HDL ratio [moderate evidence]

Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care 2006: Dietary cholesterol provided by eggs and plasma lipoproteins in healthy populations [overview article; ungraded] ↩