Looking for delicious low carb side dishes? You've come to the right place! These are the best alternatives for pasta, rice and co!
Instead of the main course, I prefer to eat the side dishes. That's always been the case. Pasta, rice, potatoes, vegetables, salad - yummy! But what's it actually like when you're on a low-carb diet? What low carb side dishes are there and which ones taste good?
Switching from a conventional diet to a low-carbohydrate diet is quite difficult at first.
Potatoes, rice and pasta are now taboo. At the beginning it can happen that you stand in front of the cupboard and don't know what to eat. The classic side dishes are eliminated. They contain far too many carbs.
But don't worry, there are plenty of low carb side dishes that will ensure you don't leave the table hungry.
With a little creativity, you can easily get rid of your cravings for carbs.
Because I can understand that you miss pasta, rice and Co painfully, I have written a post for you. You will find here the delicious low carb side dishes that are guaranteed to fill you up.
Everyone loves pasta. There's no getting around it, and even the best low carb diet won't help. But you can easily replace pasta and co. in the low-carbohydrate kitchen.
With these low carb side dishes you can replace pasta and co.
- Carrots
- Zucchini
- Pumpkin
- Kohlrabi
- Cauliflower
- Salads
- Konjac noodles
- Low carb bread
How to best prepare low carb side dishes
Whether as a substitute for pasta, rice, potatoes or bread. With low carb side dishes, many things are possible. The different spices provide a lot of variety. For example, you can cut cauliflower into very small pieces and sauté it - the perfect rice substitute.
But you can also marinate it and cook it in the oven. Or eat it as a salad. Cooked and tossed in a little herb butter, it makes a great traditional side dish.
Some low carb alternatives can be turned into delicious doughs. Have you ever had zucchini pizza or a cauliflower pizza? If not: you should definitely do so.
All this and more is possible:
- Vegetable noodles
- Vegetable puree
- Vegetable fries
- Vegetable sticks
- Fried vegetables instead of fried potatoes
- Fried vegetables
- Vegetable balls
These and many other preparation methods are possible with pretty much every side dish substitute. You can find preparation tips and options directly with each low carb side dish.
Do you already know these 26 low carb vegetables?
First, let's take another look at how many carbs are in conventional uncooked side dishes stick. Then you will get a better understanding of this topic.
In 100 grams you will find
- Spaghetti from white flour (wheat and spelt) - 71.8 g carbohydrates
- Spaghetti from whole wheat flour - 64 g carbohydrates
- Basmati rice - 78.2 g carbohydrates
- Potatoes - 16 g carbohydrates
So pasta and rice in particular really have a lot of carbohydrates. But there are many ways to replace them that are very tasty.
What vegetables are suitable as a low carb side dish
#1 Carrots as a substitute for pasta and co.
100 grams of carrots contain 9 grams of carbohydrates.
Carrots are very rich in fiber and are full of vitamins. They fit wonderfully into low carb cuisine because you can prepare them in a very varied way. If you suffer from pasta withdrawal, it's best to go straight to the nearest supermarket and put carrots on the shopping list.
Carrots sliced very thinly are a great low carb side dish to replace pasta with.
For this you need to cut the carrots into noodles with a julienne cutter. Put the carrot pasta in boiling salted water for 30 seconds and serve it with a delicious sauce.
Depending on the thickness of the vegetable noodles, you should cook them either longer or shorter. But better is too short than too long. You have to be very quick when you take them out of the water, otherwise they will get mushy.
You can substitute baked potatoes with carrots. To do this, cut them into sticks, drizzle them with olive oil and then it's off to the oven. Depending on the size, they need about 20 to 30 minutes. It's especially delicious if you sprinkle Parmesan on the carrot sticks just before they're done.
If you want, you can also simply prepare a carrot salad. Because salads are very good low carb side dishes that are underestimated by most.
Mmmhh delicious: low carb vegetable casserole with cheese!
#2 Zucchini as a low-carbohydrate side dish
100 grams of zucchini contain 2 grams of carbohydrates.
But my absolute favorite are zoodles. So noodles made from pieces of zucchini. You can either slice the vegetable pasta thinly with a knife or use a spiral cutter for it.
They are then placed in boiling salted water for 10 seconds and served immediately.
If you don't have a spiral cutter and have cut thicker zucchini noodles with a knife, you can also fry them briefly in a pan.
Fancy some zucchini pizza bites?
Zucchini can also be used to prepare pizza bites and baguettes. Simply cut the vegetable lengthwise into slices about 0.5-1 cm thick.
Fry them briefly, then it's off to the baking dish. Top your low carb baguettes with tomatoes, pizza seasoning, cheese and anything else you feel like.
Because I love lasagna, I recently prepared a low carb lasagna. You simply replace the lasagna sheets with very thinly sliced zucchini. Yummy! This is not only lower in calories, but also much healthier and juicier.
Treat yourself to this low carb lasagna with spinach!
#3 To which dishes pumpkin goes well as a side dish
100 grams of pumpkin contains 12 grams of carbohydrates.
In autumn and winter you can not get around pumpkin. And that's a good thing. Because in addition to zucchini, many types of pumpkin are also very well suited as an alternative for a low-carbohydrate diet.
But beware: pumpkin contains much more carbs than zucchini. In 100 grams of Hokkaido there are 12 g of carbs. So not so much less than in potatoes. So it's better not to overdo it!
Chopped small, seasoned with rosemary and oil and baked in the oven, pumpkin makes a wonderful alternative for fried potatoes.
Boiled, mashed and refined with milk, butter and salt you have a delicious puree. You can also make crispy fries from it if you know a few tricks.
The spaghetti squash is a very tasty pasta substitute. You can also fill it with spinach, nuts and cheese and bake it in the oven. Yummy!
How to cook pumpkin in the oven!
#4 Kohlrabi as a low carb side dish
100 grams of kohlrabi contains 3.8 grams of carbohydrates.
Surveys have shown that kohlrabi is a vegetable that still rarely ends up on German plates. And that's a real shame. Because the crunchy cabbage is so versatile.
So you can cook it normally and eat it with herbs and butter as a side dish. You can make it delicious soup, you can fill it with cheese and vegetables and bake it, make a casserole.
And my favorite: cut small, it fits wonderfully in salads and gives them a quite delicious touch.
However, kohlrabi can also be cut into thin strips, sautéed and used as a low carb substitute for pasta.
Cooked, topped with dill and cream, you've got a low carb side dish you're guaranteed to love.
Mmmhh delicious: kohlrabi salad with radishes and nuts!
#5 Salad as a low carb side dish
A crisp salad is part of absolutely every meal for me. Even before sweet dishes I treat myself to a fresh salad.
You can turn any amount of low carb vegetables into salad with green salad mix. So cauliflower, carrots, zucchini, tomato, cucumber and many other vegetables just do really well as a salad. Especially when they are mixed with spinach, lamb's lettuce or green salad.
If you don't have much time to cook, you can just have a piece of fish and a big salad. It can hardly be much faster and fresher.
#6 Cauliflower has low carbohydrates
100 grams of cauliflower contain 2.7 grams of carbohydrates.
Probably the best known low carb vegetable is cauliflower. To be honest, I ate it very rarely for a long time. Somehow it was always too boring for me in terms of taste. When I started to experiment with spices and herbs, but a light has dawned on me :)
Tastes pretty tasty after all.
My favorite: cauliflower cooked briefly with curry powder.
However, you can also prepare cauliflower rice and serve it with very many recipes with which you would normally have eaten conventional rice.
This is the best low carb sushi in the world!
Or have you ever heard of cauliflower pizza? Here you prepare a dough from cauliflower, which you then top like a normal pizza. The dough becomes very crispy and the cauliflower can hardly be tasted.
Treat yourself: Low carb pizza dough with cauliflower!
#7 Konjac roots as a noodle alternative
100 grams of konjac noodles contain 1.5 grams of carbohydrates.
If you don't feel like doing a lot of work and miss noodles more than anything in the world, then you should take a look around Asian stores. Here you can find noodles made from konjac roots.
You can buy them as spaghetti, tagliatelle or penne. They consist of a fine powder of konjac root and water. The root contains a lot of the dietary fiber glucomannan, which makes particularly long full.
These noodles are very often used in diets, because they have just 10 calories per 100 grams.
They feel a little rubbery and have no flavor of their own. With a spicy sauce, they are a very good substitute for regular pasta. So if you have total pasta withdrawal, it's worth reaching for the conjunto root.
#8 Low Carb Bread
You can not do without bread? I understand you! I can't imagine it at all either. Especially after getting up I like to eat a bread with spread and vegetables.
You don't have to do without it on a low-carb diet. There are many delicious low carb bread recipes waiting to be discovered by you.
Very quickly prepared: Low carb rolls!
You can also look around in the supermarket. In some stores there are already low carb alternatives for conventional bread. Unfortunately, these are usually very expensive.
But a low carb bread or roll is very quickly homemade. I like to bake them in larger quantities and then freeze them. They taste like freshly baked after thawing.
These 3 low carb breads are mega delicious!
Our conclusion
Anyone who studies low-carbohydrate nutrition in detail will find it easy to find an alternative to pasta, bread and rice. But all beginnings are difficult. That's why you will hopefully find the perfect low carb side dishes for your start into the new diet!
Bon appétit and have fun making it!
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