Is Hot Sauce Keto Friendly?

You’re trying to stick with your diet, but you also love hot sauce. What are you to do?! Fear not fellow chilehead, most hot sauces fit right in with keto.

The ketogenic diet has become wildly popular over the last year or so and consists of low-carb, high fat foods. Many people wonder if the sauces we make fit into those categories and thankfully yes, the Fartley Farms sauces fit the bill. In fact, a majority of hot sauces are keto friendly, especially hot sauces with bases that are primarily vinegar and/or water. Tomato bases like ketchup and barbecue sauce tend to toe the line on sugar density, but most hot sauces are good to go. Below we outline a few things to look for.

Sugar Is A Carb

To most it’s fairly obvious, but sugar is a carbohydrate. We had to double-check with Dr. Ryan, but he confirmed. Sugar is the easiest thing to spot in hot sauces to determine if the hot sauce is keto friendly. If sugar is one of the first things on the ingredients list, you can still probably use it, but be sure to take special care, noting the grams of sugar in each serving. Fartley Farms opts to not add additional sugar and rely only on the sweetness of the ingredients we use. Be sure to avoid any “sweet chili” sauces.

Tomatoes, Fruits and Maple Syrup

Basic hot sauce recipes fit well with keto, but once you start getting into high sugar ingredients like maple syrup, any fruits (pineapple, mango, etc) and even tomatoes, the likelihood of sugar increases. As with all diets, it’s best to check the nutrition label, read through the carbs section and even double-check the ingredients list (which shows ingredients by weight). Honey is another common ingredient that could increase the carb count in hot sauces.

Peppers Are Your Friend Most of the Time

Peppers by themselves are fairly low in carbs, but as with all things, moderation is the way to go. Jalapeño peppers for example have .5g net carbs per pepper, while ghost peppers measure at 3.3g net carbs per pepper. Don’t get too nervous though, in most cases the amount of the full pepper in the sauce serving is going to be small. Red bell peppers are also fairly high in sweetness with 2.3g sugar and 3.6g net carbs per pepper. Peppers are in fact your friend, so as long as you’re not pounding 10 peppers at a time, you’re good to go.

As mentioned above, if you’re concerned, read the label. Each hot sauce sold on a shelf has to go through a rigorous testing process to be able to put a nutrition label on the bottle. The main takeaway is that yes, hot sauce is keto friendly, just don’t drink an entire bottle. In most cases, the carb risk will be in what you are putting the hot sauce on.

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