4 Strategies for Low-Cook No-Cook Keto

The healthiest food is that which you prepare at home from fresh ingredients. So you start out intending to cook all your keto meals. Or other people tell you that cooking every meal is required. But you may decide you need a low-cook no-cook keto diet for a number of reasons:

1. You hate to cook
2. It takes too much time to cook and clean up the kitchen every meal
3. You are not somewhere you can prepare food for every meal (you are at work, soccer game, traveling, etc.)
4. A lot of your meals are  grab-and-go
5. You prefer to eat meals outside your home – it’s so much easier
6. You live in a place without a stove or oven

For some people, these things are true 100% of the time. But I think most people find themselves in one or another of these situations at least sometimes. So it is good to consider how you can cook less (or not at all) and still eat keto.

Eating Out

One strategy for low-cook no-cook keto is to eat out. Many places you will have to ask for substitutions or plan on making a meal from appetizers. To be successful, plan ahead for where you will eat and what you will eat. Become a regular customer of places you like – the staff are happy to help frequent customers stay on their diet.

Coffee shops such as Starbucks and Pete’s often have light food. Look for packages of cheese and salami, nuts, and salad bowls. Some kind of hot egg bite might be available. No oatmeal, no pastries. Bring your own cream for coffee.

Breakfast restaurants are usually good as long as you avoid the potatoes, grits, and bread. No fruit juice either. Bring your own cream for the coffee.

Delis, sandwich places, and grills (hamburgers, sausages) are a good option because you can usually get sandwiches without the bread. If you can get lettuce wrap, it is more convenient. Or you can have the sandwich (hot or cold) put on a plate or in a carryout dish. You just need a knife and fork to eat it or wait for it to cool and eat from your fingers (many napkins or a place nearby to wash up will be important). Many chain sandwich places such as Subway can put your sandwich filling on a bowl of lettuce. Another choice is to have the sandwich as a wrap, eat the filling out of the wrap, and throw the wrap away. No french fries or onion rings. Look for green salads on the menu for a side.

Salad bars and custom made salad places are another good option because you can pick out just what you want on your salad. Avoid adding starchy carbs such as crisp noodles, tortilla chips, croutons, corn, peas, and beans.

Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indian, Ethiopian, and similar are OK for keto if you do not get rice, noodles, bread, injera, or anything deep fried. Also avoid sweet dishes; look for those that are savory or spicy. There may be some wheat or starch in the sauces, so you will get more carbs this way, but usually an acceptable level.

Diners are a great choice because of the large menu. You can accommodate almost any diet at a diner. More and more are using healthier fats in cooking. Avoid diners that use trans-fats.

Steak houses (American or Japanese) and seafood restaurants are pretty easy to eat keto. Avoid bread, bread crumb toppings, breaded and fried food, potatoes, and rice.

Greek, Italian, French, and Spanish are possible for keto, but you have to avoid potatoes, rice, noodles, and bread. Cold dolmas (stuffed grape leaves) are OK because rice that is cooked then cooled and eaten cold is resistant starch and does not count as a carb.

U.S. Southern, Mexican, South American, Cuban, and similar are heavily carb-based cuisines so it is difficult to get a full meal at those kinds of eating establishments.

Pay Someone to Cook for You

Another strategy for low-cook no-cook keto is to hire a personal chef.

Eating out all the time is expensive and you do not really know what you are getting. It may be healthier and more cost effective to pay someone to cook for you. Typically a personal chef will prepare several days (or a week) worth of meals in your kitchen and leave the food in your refrigerator or freezer. Later, you just heat and eat.

Some chefs charge a set price plus groceries for a particular number of meals, others charge per plate. 5 dinners for a family of 5 might cost $350.00. Eating out 5 dinners for that family is probably closer to $400 (unless it is all fast food) or even more. Even if the cost was the same for the chef and eating out, you get home cooked food based on your dietary needs and made from fresh ingredients.

Get Prepared Foods That Just Need Assembly or Heating

A third strategy for low-cook no-cook keto is to do just a little meal assembly and reheating from prepared foods you buy at the store. For this strategy, you just need a fridge and microwave.

Your local grocery probably has a lot of food items that require almost no work on your part. Some things could even be kept in a drawer at work such as a pop-top can of tuna or olives. Add a fork to that drawer and you have an instant breakfast or lunch with no prep at all. Just wash up the fork afterwards.

Deli counter

The deli counter at your local grocery is a source of a variety of cheeses, meats, and salads. Avoid any salad that looks like it has starchy stuff in it – potato salad, macaroni salad, 3-bean salad, quinoa, polenta, risotto, or any salad with potatoes, pasta, corn, beans, or tortilla strips.

I like to get sliced meat and cheese. Then I pick up a head of some kind of leaf lettuce and some mustard. Peel off a lettuce leaf, top with a slice or 2 of meat, a slice or 2 of cheese, a bit of mustard and mayo, then either top with another lettuce leaf or roll it up and eat. Some kind of salad (also from the deli) makes a meal with almost no work and certainly no cooking.

Some deli’s also have cooked food. Avoid fried chicken (because of the flour in the breading and poor quality fat) and pasta dishes, but rotisserie chicken , oven roasted turkey, and smoked ribs are fine. You can eat them cold or warm them up at home or the work microwave.

Blocks of cheese can be nice for nibbling on.

In some stores I have found hard boiled eggs at the deli, already peeled. If you have no way to cook at all, this is very convenient. Various sliced salamis may be available, keep well, and make a nice snack.

Canned food and snacks

Canned fish (such as tuna, salmon, sardines) is convenient to keep in the cupboard. It is even better if you can get it in a pop-top can for times when you do not have a handy can opener. You can just eat it out of the can. If you have any place to prepare food, then mix in some mayonnaise (maybe a flavored one like aioli or chipotle lime) and you have a simple tuna salad. You can add a bit of mustard or pickle relish to it. You can eat it out of a bowl or put it on top of some lettuce.

Olives are a great keto snack to keep around as well. If you can get pop-top cans it is even more convenient.

Look for nut butters, but not peanut butter. (Peanuts are a legume not a nut and are high in carbs.) You can eat it by the spoonful or spread it on raw veggie sticks (which you can get pre-cut in the produce section).

Nuts, jerky, and sausage sticks are nice for snacks. You best low carb nuts are macadamia, brazil, pecan, and hazelnuts (filberts). No peanuts or trail mix because they have too many carbs.

Produce

Many stores have pre-cut veggies in the produce section. Look for veggie sticks like carrots, celery, and jicama. Often you can find pre-made guacamole and salsa, which make nice dips for the veggies. Or get a healthy fat salad dressing to use for a dip.

Avocados are an easy food. Try cutting one open, remove the pit, put some salad dressing, taco sauce, or salsa in the wells, and eat with a spoon right out of the shell. Or just eat it without any sauce with perhaps a dash of salt on top to bring out the flavor.

Berries in moderation are a nice addition to a keto diet.

Frozen food

Frozen vegetables are higher quality than canned. Bags of frozen vegetables often are packaged in microwaveable bags. You can add butter, cheese, flavored mayo, or sour cream on top to get more fat in your diet and add flavor.

Dairy

Get some heavy cream for your coffee. You can pick up some 4 ounce containers with locking lids, pour some cream in, and take it with you to put in coffee you pick up along the way. Heavy cream is also wonderful poured over fresh berries.

Look for full-fat plain yogurt and sour cream. If you want something in your yogurt, you can mix in some of the berries you bought or some of the nut butter. Sour cream is nice on top of vegetables.

Butter is here as well. Be sure it is butter and not margarine and not mixed with other oils. Grated cheese is a time saver if you do not want to grate your own cheese. Avoid cheese in jars and processed cheese food. Cheese sticks are a convenient snack.

Squeezing in Time to Cook

The final strategy for low-cook no-cook keto is to make strategic use of your time when you do cook.

When you cook dinner, make extra food

On days when you have time to cook, make extra food. One easy way to do this is double the amount of food you make for dinner. You can eat the same dinner 2 nights in a row. You could eat the extra food 2 days from now. Most cooked food is OK in the fridge for 3 days. Or package up the extra and freeze it for another time. I like to freeze food in individual portions. That gives the most flexibility later.

When making a meal that takes your attention, think about things that can cook without you watching at the same time. For example, take an extra pot and make a bunch of hard boiled eggs.  Or put a pan of egg bites into the oven to cook. These can be refrigerated for grab-and-go meals over the next day or two.

Pick a day and cook for the week

This is what a personal chef does. They plan so many meals for so many people, buy all the groceries, then in about 3-4 hours cook all the meals. Then they package the meals for fridge and freezer, add reheat instructions, clean the kitchen, and leave. You can do exactly the same thing.  It does take planning the meals ahead to make it work, but you shop once, cook a lot of different things at the same time, and have no work later in the week. Just reheat and clean the dishes afterward.

Use a slow cooker or pressure cooker

The great thing about a slow cooker is you throw all the ingredients into the pot in the morning, turn it on low, and leave for the day. When you return, dinner is ready. I like to prep ingredients the night before. Cut up the meat and veggies then put in storage dishes in the fridge overnight to go into the pot in the morning. You can even measure out liquids and spices and put them in a covered container overnight, so in the morning all you have to do is dump everything into the pot and turn it on.  Because you are cooking a long time at a low temperature, even cheap cuts of meat come out tender.

A similar device is a pressure cooker. You have the same advantages as the slow cooker, but because your dish is cooked under pressure it cooks much faster. While this does not work if you will be gone all day, it does have the same set and forget advantages as the slow cooker. Think of using a pressure cooker for things like Sunday roast. You can cook it for 1-2 hours instead of 4. Or use it to cook in parallel. Put all the ingredients for one meal in the pressure cooker and start it. Then cook a separate meal on the stove or oven. By the time you have cooked, eaten, and cleaned up the second meal, the first will be nearly done. Then you can package it up for the next day or freeze for a later time.

A current popular brand of kitchen appliance is the Instant Pot. It is a slow cooker, rice steamer, and pressure cooker all in one. There are more and more recipes being posted for Instant Pot meals so you have a lot of ideas for things to use it for.

 

2 disclaimers: I have bought the product myself and am using it to get more ideas for my own home cooking and meal plans. Also, I am an affiliate and will earn a commission if you buy through that link. This helps me pay for maintaining this website.