Low Carb & Keto Apple Cider Recipe - Hot & Spiced! - Convenient Keto (2024)

Hot, spiced apple cider is a warm and soothing holiday drink. For us, it evokes warm memories of lounging fireside during cold-weather months.

Unfortunately, regular apple cider contains a ton of sugar. That’s just not going to work for keto or low carb dieters in any form. To make aketoapple cider drink, we need to subtract the sugar but somehow maintain the apple flavor.

Luckily, a low carb apple cider is possible with the help of the venerable apple cider vinegar.

Let’s start off by looking into some of the benefits of apple cider vinegar, also affectionately known as ACV.

What’s so great about Apple Cider Vinegar?

Where do we start?

While ACV is sometimes touted as a cure-all or panacea, that’s probably a bit of a stretch. However, there are a number of benefits of apple cider vinegar that have been scientifically validated.

• Anti-microbial
• Reduces blood cholesterol levels
• Decreases risk of heart disease by lowering blood pressure and triglyceride levels.

But how does Apple Cider Vinegar benefit a keto diet?

The biggest benefit to a keto diet is with apple cider vinegar’s ability to control blood sugar levels and improve insulin function. For a keto diet, this ability to reduce blood sugar levels and insulin sensitivity after a meal canpromote your ability to maintain a state ketosis.

Another way of looking at it is that having some apple cider vinegar with or directly prior to your meal will increase your tolerance for carbohydrates after those meals. This is because ACV helps to reduce the blood sugar and insulin effects of ingesting carbs.

Basically, you’re giving your keto diet a welcome boost with ACV!

Sugar-free Apple Flavor for our low carb apple cider

Another benefit is, as the name implies, that apple cider vinegar imparts some apple flavor into whatever it is mixed with. It also happens to be sugar-free, carb-free and basically calorie-free (3 calories per tablespoon).

That means ACV is a keto-friendly option for injecting real apple flavor into our low carb apple cider, especially when regular apple cider is so high in carbs and sugar.

The gold standard of apple cider vinegar is the organic Bragg brand, which is the one that essentially started the ACV movement. Bragg ACV is raw, unfiltered and certified USDA organic as well. You really can’t go wrong with it.

The sweetener for our sugar free apple cider

We need to replace the natural apple sugar with some sweetener. We mentioned earlier that apple cider contains a boatload of sugar. That means you simply cannot skimp on the amount of sweetener you add to the keto apple cider drink.

The sweetness balances out the spices as well as the acidity in the apple cider vinegar.

We useBetterStevia Organic Liquid Stevia Drops for our sugar free apple cider, since the drops don’t leave a bitter aftertaste. You can also use other keto-friendly sweeteners, just make sure to use enough!

Spices

Speaking of spices, the best stuff to use for apple cider drinks is what are called mulling spices. Mulling spices generally consist of allspice, cinnamon, cloves and orange or lemon peel. The spices are what add the depth of flavor to the drink.

The Monterey Bay Spice Company Mulling Spices provide the classic blend of whole spices.

Pro-Tip: To steep the spices, we use the Yoassi Tea Strainer. It has really fine holes so that none of the spice gets left in your drink. Also, it comes with a lid so that your drink stays nice and hot while the spices steep.

Wrapping Up

This is a simple and easy drink that has tons of health benefits. This keto apple cider tastes great and will help boost your keto diet efforts!

Additionally, it’s a great caffeine-free beverage to enjoy while intermittently fasting.

Enjoy the keto hot apple cider recipe, below!

Our Keto Apple Cider Recipe