These easy sugar free keto meringue cookies are perfect for your keto or low carb diet and are melt-in-your-mouth, delicious using just 4 simple ingredients and low calorie! Just 6 calories for 4 keto meringues!
Sugar Free Low Carb Meringue Cookies
Delicious sugar-free meringue cookies are a light, airy and tasty little treat for very low carbs. In fact, you can enjoy 4 meringues for a total of just 1 carb which is pretty wonderful, especially if you're on a keto diet.
Making these cute little keto meringues just take 4 ingredients and you can choose any sugar-free sweetener you prefer, but of course I'll share my favorites below.
Learn about all my tricks and tips below to get the perfect, crisp, melt-in-your-mouth delicious meringues without fail!
How to get Stiff Egg Whites
Testing out different strategies for this keto meringue cookie recipe has been something I've attempted many times over the years, only to give up and try again when I had the courage.
The issue has always been that I want perfection. I want the very best results and that perfect crunch all the way through the entire meringue. I do not want any aftertaste with the sugar substitute used.
Needless to say, some sugar free sweeteners do not work as well as the one suggested within the recipe below. The other issue I have always had was wanting these cute little cookies to have height and not go flat, and that my friends is all about stiff egg whites.
Make sure to use room temperature eggs that are FRESH!!
Make sure to have a very clean bowl to whip the eggs in.
Make sure to use an stand electric mixer or hand mixer.
Make sure no egg yolks at all is in the egg whites once cracked.
Make sure allow the stand mixer to whip as long as it takes to start seeing the egg whites pull away from the sides of the bowl.
You should be able to flip the bowl over and no egg whites will spill out. This can take as long as 10-15 minutes to get them nice and stiff.
Tools to Make Meringue Cookies
Stand Mixer- I love my Kitchenaid stand mixer and use it almost daily in my kitchen for savory and sweet recipes.
Silpat- Having the nice perfect little shaped circles on the silpat will help you get evenly shaped meringues that will bake evenly.
2 Baking sheet pans-You need to large sheet pans for this meringue recipe as it makes 44 cookies.
Easy Decorating Tool- For those of you who are like me and have a little bit of difficulty using a pastry bag, this tool makes dessert decorating so much easier and easy to clean as well!
Are Meringue Cookies Keto?
Traditional meringue cookies are not keto as they contain sugar and that will spike your blood sugar levels and kick you out of ketosis.
There are a few different types of meringue cookies, but it's rare to find any store bought meringue cookies that are sugar free, so just make my recipe!!
Swiss meringue cookies are softer and denser than classic meringues, often used for Pavlovas.
Italian meringue cookies are more sturdy then any other and often uses a simple syrup to sweeten the egg whites.
Classic French meringue cookies are light and fluffy. Sugar is beaten into the egg whites until dissolved.
Different Flavors of Meringue Cookies
The different flavor extracts can be found on Amazon by clicking the links in blue.
Lemon Meringue Cookies- Replace the vanilla extract with a teaspoon of fresh lemon juice and zest.
Almond Meringue Cookies- Replace the vanilla extract with almond extract.
Raspberry Meringue Cookies- Replace the vanilla extract with raspberry extract.
Banana Meringue Cookies- Replace the vanilla extract with banana extract.
Peppermint Meringue Cookies- Replace the vanilla extract with peppermint extract.
Maple Meringue Cookies- Replace the vanilla extract with maple extract.
Chocolate Meringues- Add 1 tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder.
Best Sugar Free Sweeteners for Meringues
I have tried using Swerve (erythritol) but found it to have a very cooling unpleasant aftertaste in these meringues. We had to throw the whole batch away as it was truly inedible.
I have tried using just vanilla stevia and found they really did not have any height or substance to them. I have not tried monk fruit or xylitol.
The newest Sweetleaf product that I received recently called Better than Sugar is by far our favorite in these cookies.
There is absolutely no aftertaste at all. It combines both erythritol and stevia as measures cup for cup for sugar. I only used ⅓ cup for these meringues and they are only slightly sweet, which is perfect for our family.
If you prefer or are just not used to sugar free sweetened recipes yet, please use about ½ cup which will yield much sweeter meringues. Use my Sweetener Guide & Conversion chart if trying a different sweetener.
Sugar-Free Low Carb Meringues
Sugar Free Vanilla Meringue Cookies (Keto)
Ingredients
- 3 large room temperature egg whites
- pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract *see paragraph above for flavor variations
- ⅓ cup Better Than Sugar or another sugar free sweetener
- optional; natural food coloring if desired- I didn't use any.
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 225 degrees F. Place silpats or parchment onto 2 cookie sheet pans.
- Place egg whites into clean bowl or stand electric mixer. Using the whisk attachment, start whipping on a low speed and as it begins to form continue to increase to medium speed. Sprinkle in salt and continue to whip egg whites. Drizzle in vanilla extract. When you start to see soft peaks forming, add a small amount of the sugar free sweetener. Continue to add small amounts while whipping at a high speed. Continue to whip until the egg whites have started to pull away from the sides of the bowl and you see stiff peaks. If you're unsure if they are stiff, you should be able to flip the bowl over and nothing moves or slips.
- Place half of the whipped whites into the decorating tool or pastry piping bag with a star tip.
- Make small swirls onto the baking sheet pan using the small circle shape on the silpat or on parchment paper measuring 1.25 inches. Continue with the remaining whipped whites. You should be able to make 44 cookies.
- Bake for 2 hours. Then shut the oven off and leave them in the oven for another hour. Remove from the oven and allow to sit out on the counter to completely dry out. This can take a few more hours. Store in an airtight container. We found ours crisp in the center of the meringue the next day.
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.
Chrystal
Can you color these instead of just dripping the coloring down the sides? If so, do you add when whipping egg whites or later?
Brenda Bennett
Yes add some natural food coloring to the whipped egg whites while it's whipping. I use this; https://amzn.to/3xhZdnx
Jlynne
LOL! I would not flip the bowl over to see if the whites are stiff enough. Can you imagine the mess if they fell out. 😆 Going to be making these soon; thinking about adding peppermint flavor for the holidays. Have you done this? How much peppermint extract did you use?
Debbie
I made these yesterday and they are delicious!!! I used Splenda in mine, and they were light and airy!! Thank you!
shalom
BTW, You have a typo:
"We had to through the whole batch away ..."
should be
"We had to throw the whole batch away ..."
Ann
wondering if anyone has tried powdered egg whites?
Debbra Ross
Is the sweetener you suggested a granulated or powdered sweetener? Or does it matter?
Brenda
If you click the link to it in the ingredients, it's confectioners. Yes I would say it does matter.
Rebecca
I have stevia and swerve in my pantry already and hate to buy yet another sweetener. Seeing as you said that Better Than Sugar is a mixture of the two, could I combine them with the same result?
Brenda
Yes that is what I have done in most of my recipes before trying this Better than Sugar. Combining the too helps to eliminate any aftertastes.
Debbra Ross
Would it be equal parts of both?
Joy
You say you did not like erythritol and yet that is what Sweetleaf is???? I hate it. Can you use Xylitol?
Brenda
I didn't like erythritol by itself when I made the recipe. Sweetleaf has combined stevia and erythritol and there is no aftertaste. You can certainly use Xylitol, I don't use it because I have a dog so not sure how much you should use.
jamoo
I am killing myself trying to figure out how to make meringues using 100% MONKFRUIT SYRUP sweetner... I think it's like 6x sweeter than sugar & you only need drops to sweeten anything. I despise Eurithytol- it does leave a slight aftertaste, need too much of it & has a very weird cooling effect in the mouth. I've found the 100% MONKFRUIT SYRUP, which is hard to find not mixed with the other (sub par, for me) sweetners out there... plus it has ZERO effect on metabolism or even KETOsis for that matter... BUT cannot figure out how to get meringues right.
My last batch held up & bake time (convection) was super short, but they were sooo lightweight that they literally melted in my mouth before I could even taste them. Kind of like a communion wafer type consistency.
Don't know how I could use this sweetner (+ cream of tartar & a flavoring) to get the right consistency of a proper meringue 'cookie' - ANY IDEAS?
jamoo
Forgot to mention - I've tried both straight egg whites, powdered egg whites & a mix of both. Surprisingly, I really liked them - also worked nicely in thickening up real egg whites when I got desperate w a hand mixer that just couldn't cut it w my stiff peaks... still super airy density, believe it or not
Cat
well you asked this great question several years ago. did you ever find a solution? if so can you pass it on. I don't see a response here. I would like to know too.