Book Review: The KetoDiet Cookbook

Fact: I’m a pretty boring cook. I generally keep things really simple in the kitchen. Lots of ground beef, baked sausages, steamed or roasted vegetables, meat & vegetable quiches, and lots & lots of canned seafood. This works for me. I’m single and I live alone. No picky kids to feed, no spouse or significant other who turns his nose up at leftovers. I could eat the same things three days in a row and be perfectly content.

It’s pretty funny, then, that I have a sizeable cookbook collection. What can I say? Just because I tend to stick to a relatively small culinary repertoire doesn’t mean I don’t like reading new recipes and, even more, looking at drool-worthy pictures of delicious food. (Yes, I’m a “food-porn” junkie, whether it’s LCHF or not.) I don’t often follow recipes step-by-step. If I’m making something for the first time, then yes, I stick to the recipe as written. But once I’ve made something a time or two, I tend to alter things a bit and make it my own. This is one of the best things about cookbooks, for me: inspiration. Above anything, cookbooks give me ideas for new things to try. New flavor combinations, new cooking techniques, ways to cook vegetables I see at the farmers’ market and have no idea what to do with. (Celery root and sunchokes, anyone?)

BUT: Even though I don’t use cookbooks as my roadmap in the kitchen every day, I know lots of you out there are always on the lookout for trustworthy low-carb, keto, and/or Paleo/Primal recipes. And with the exploding popularity of these dietary strategies, there is a corresponding explosion of cookbooks popping up online and in brick-and-mortar stores. I reviewed Jimmy Moore and Maria Emmerich’s The Ketogenic Cookbook a few months ago, and today, I’d like to share another keto winner with you. It’s The KetoDiet Cookbook, by Martina Slajerova, who is the brilliant woman behind the KetoDiet App, and she also has a great blog with tons of amazing recipes and down-to-earth info about keto diets in general.

I get emails from people interested in LCHF and ketogenic meal plans. This isn’t something I’m keen on creating, but since I know there’s such a high demand out there for good recipes for people who don’t want to just brown some ground beef in a skillet, add some hot sauce, roast some cauliflower, and call it good, I’m happy to have books like this to recommend.

For people with no overt gluten sensitivity, and who are doing LCHF/keto for general health, when someone wants a slice of bread, or a cookie, once in a while, I say, just eat it. Eat the real thing, wheat flour, sugar, and all, and be done with it. But for those who really, truly, cannot do that even once, Martina’s book has some great grain-free recipes for bread, tortillas, crepes, and more. She also has a few for condiments that can be especially helpful for this type of diet, such as mayonnaise, hollandaise, pesto, and a chocolate BBQ sauce—hello! (Remember, sugar-laden BBQ sauce can be the undoing of an otherwise great low-carb diet.)

Another place Martina’s book shines is in recipes that honor (what I think is) her Eastern European heritage: Slovak Sauerkraut Soup (you have to see the picture of this!), smoky fish pâté, and onion & poppy seed crackers. But the book certainly isn’t limited to recipes from that region. It’s chock-full of Greek, Indian, Asian, and Spanish flair, such as Thai-style chicken stir-fry, keto falafel, ropa vieja (Cuban shredded beef), lamb meatballs with feta, lamb vindaloo, slow-cooked beef korma, and creamy cauliflower & chorizo soup. (I feel the same way about chorizo as I do about bacon: it makes everything better.)

Martina’s book has LCHF/keto-friendly ways to recreate all your favorites that require some kind of batter or breading: fish sticks, chicken nuggets, chicken Kiev, and you can even use the recipe for “Ultimate Keto Buns” to make bagels. Again: hello! Smoked salmon & cream cheese on a bagel, on a low-carb diet? My Jewish New Yorker heart is all aflutter! 

From breakfast on through dessert, Martina has you covered. Bacon pancakes, spinach & feta crepes, salmon nori rolls, Italian “meatza,” pork tenderloin with garlic & kale stuffing, keto crème brûlée, raspberry ice cream (no ice cream maker required!), and fudgy grasshopper brownies (major food porn here!) – if you’re tired of zucchini noodles and cauliflower fried rice, and are looking for truly flavorful recipes that will take advantage of all the spices you have sitting around but hardly ever use, The KetoDiet Cookbook will be right at home in your kitchen. And if you're looking to start experimenting more with reinvented grain products using almond flour, flaxseed meal, psyllium husk, and alternative sweeteners, such as erythritol and stevia, you'll find great ways to employ those items using this book.

Plus: if you track your food, or just like to have at least a ballpark idea of the fat/carbs/protein in your meals, Martina provides helpful info for each recipe (per serving): calories; fiber, total carbs and net carbs; plus fat and protein in grams as well as fat, protein, and carbs as percentages of total calories. What more could you want? (Well, to be honest, maybe some more pictures…not all of the recipes are accompanied by a mouthwatering photo, but hey, that’s not what cookbooks are for anyway, despite how I use them. They’re for cooking, not ogling.)

Just one caveat: while Martina does give some very general information about ketogenic diets at the front of the book, this really is a cookbook. For someone who’s new to this kind of nutritional strategy, I would say this is a very nice resource to have for recipes, but for someone who needs to understand the science—the whys and hows of a ketogenic diet—this is more of a companion to something like The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living or Keto Clarity (read my Amazon review here). Learn why and how LCHF/ketogenic diets work, and then use this to cook yourself and your loved ones some delicious and nourishing meals.

P.S. Yes, I realize I have been breaking my own rule throughout this post. I’ve been saying “LCHF/ketogenic diets,” even though low-carb and ketogenic are not synonymous. I’m a stickler for semantics most of the time, but let me write my blog posts in peace, hehheh.  ;-)

Remember: Amy Berger, M.S., NTP, is not a physician and Tuit Nutrition, LLC, is not a medical practice. The information contained on this site is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical condition and is not to be used as a substitute for the care and guidance of a physician. Links in this post and all others may direct you to amazon.com, where I will receive a small amount of the purchase price of any items you buy through my affiliate links.