Low Carb Tortilla Chips you can buy at the grocery store!

Even with all the new keto-friendly products coming out recently, we’ve still found it difficult to find store-bought, low carb tortilla chips.

Why is that?

Well, the tortillas from which chips are made simply contain a lot of carbs.

Of course, there are plenty of low carb tortillas out there that you could fry up yourself. But that’s just not convenient, especially when you’re in the mood for a quick snack, like chips and salsa.

Luckily, we’ve discovered some alternatives to standard corn tortilla chips that we’re excited to share with you.

Susalia Corn Tortilla Chips

Okay, first things first. These are the real-deal corn tortilla chips that are also low carb. We’re talking 2.5g net carbs per 10 normal-sized chips. In other words, you could eat 40 chips before hitting the 10g net carb mark!

How is this possible?

Say thank you to nopal powder. You may know nopal as the prickly pear cactus plant. It has starch-like qualities but with significantly less carbohydrate content than actual starch. It’s perfect to mix with the corn to make a lower carb tortilla. With the help of nopal, these use less corn, which means drastically fewer carbs.

These taste absolutely great. You get that corn taste that you just don’t get with the alternatives. One thing to note is that the chips are baked and basically unsalted. So, you won’t get that greasy, salty tortilla chip taste. Instead, these will taste more like Baked Tostitos.

Now, on to low carb tortilla chips that are not made from corn.

And, speaking of Tostitos, we are using the popular Tostitos brand as a baseline to measure against. Serving sizes are all 28g.

You’ll notice those net carb counts, while lower than Tostitos, aren’t in the single-digit range (with the exception of Susalia).

There’s no trick here. Overall, carbohydrate counts in chips can only be so low, since tortillas are relatively carb-heavy.

However, there IS a difference. The Beanitos chips have almost 40% fewer net carbs than the Tostitos brand.

The difference is in the ingredients

Glycemic Index (GI) is an important measure for diabetics looking to control blood sugar. GI measures the relative ability for a food to turn to glucose in your body.

Since the spikes in blood glucose and the resulting insulin response can have a negative effect on ketosis, GI is pertinent to our discussion here.

Basically, the lower the GI the food, the better. However, the complication is that the GI of food changes, depending on how it is prepared. For example, a boiled sweet potato has a GI of about 46, while a baked sweet potato goes up to 96! That’s more than a 2x increase!

For reference, a medium GI value is around 50 or less, and we want to aim for that or lower.

Let’s look at some of the low carb tortilla chip alternative ingredients we’ve seen in stores. But, keep in mind the caveat from above regarding GI and the method of preparation. We are only using these values as a loose, relative measure.

• Corn has a GI of around 65
• Cassava has a GI of about 55.
• Coconut has a GI of about 45
• Black beans have a GI of about 30

Again, there’s nothing really ultra low here. The main thing to note is the GI of most of the ingredients is lower than that of corn.

Now, let’s dig into some of the products that utilize the above ingredients.

A Protein-Based Alternative

These are Quest’s Tortilla Style Protein Chips. They are more of a Doritos competitor and they even come in the familiar Nacho Cheese and Ranch varieties. Quest does an amazing job at replicating Doritos’ flavor. If you are craving some Doritos, these will absolutely hit the spot.

Lower net carbs

The obvious benefit here is that the net carb count is much lower at only around 3g-4g net carbs per 32g bag. That’s also a nice way to control your portion size, as they only come in little grab bags.

A different kind of texture

The texture is the huge difference and these much of an airier crunch versus the crispiness you get from the other tortilla chips on the list. As such, they are more of something to eat on their own, rather than a replacement for tortilla chips for foods like guacamole and salsa.

Where to buy these low carb chips

You can pick these up online in an 8-pack of grab bags.

Coconut Flour Tortilla Chips by The Real Coconut

Our first reaction when seeing anything labeled with “coconut flour” is to immediately question what else is on the ingredients list.

Well, we were pleasantly surprised to find that coconut flour was listed as the first ingredient on the label of these Coconut Flour Tortilla Chips!

What are the rest of the ingredients?

Organic Coconut Flour, Organic Cassava Starch, Xanthan Gum, Organic Coconut Oil, Kosher Salt.

How keto-friendly are these “low carb tortilla chips”?

The fact of the matter is that these are made primarily of coconut flour, which has a low to moderate glycemic index (GI).

Cassava starch is also in the mix. However, cassava starch is listed as a secondary ingredient. As such, we don’t know the exact ratio of the ingredients but we do know that there is more coconut flour than cassava starch in the product.

The MCT Effect

The huge bonus with these coconut tortilla chips is that they are fried in 100% organic coconut oil. That means you get all the awesome health benefits of coconut oil infused into the chip.

Additionally, you receive a ton of high quality saturated fat in the form of MCTs, which keeps you full longer. As important as MCTs are for optimizing keto, these chips are an easy way to add some MCTs to your diet.

Okay, so how do they taste?

In one word, great. With anything in the chip category, texture is supremely important. These chips are nice and crunchy.

They probably aren’t the thinnest chips you’ve ever had, but they aren’t as thick as pita chips either.

A bonus we’ve noticed is that  The Real Coconut Chips keep fresh for a quite a while when they are properly re-sealed.

Is the taste too coconut-y though?

Nope. And we’re normally sensitive to such things. We really dislike the taste of eggs cooked in coconut oil because the coconut flavor takes over. In these tortilla chips, however, the coconut flavor is not overwhelming.

This holds true even though the main ingredient is coconut flour AND it’s fried in 100% organic coconut oil!  At the end of the day, you can certainly tell they are made of coconut. However, we don’t find that it is strong enough of a flavor to be a deal killer.

What kind of flavors do they come in?

Himalayan Pink Salt | Beach Barbecue | Sea Salt & Vinegar

The Himalayan Pink Salt is your basic tortilla chip replacement. This flavor goes really well with guacamole, dips like queso and, of course, salsa.

The Beach Barbecue flavor is something we enjoy eating on its own. It has a flavor profile like your classic Lays Barbecue potato chips. Needless to say, these are also quite addicting.

[Neither of us is a big Sea Salt & Vinegar person in general. As such, we can’t tell you how this flavor fares.]

Where can I buy them?

Amazon sells these in single bag or 2 bag packs. Due to shipping costs, you may save a little money by buying a 2-pack.

Siete’s Grain Free Tortilla Chips

Siete’s Grain Free Tortilla Chips are another very popular option for low carb tortilla chips.

Here are the ingredients listed on the bag:

Cassava Flour, Avocado Oil, Coconut Flour, Ground Chia Seed, Sea Salt

Siete’s chips have coconut flour listed as the third ingredient after avocado oil. This essentially means their chips are primarily cassava flour.

Based on our list above, cassava has a slightly higher GI level than coconut. This is balanced out slightly because of addition of the coconut flour.

Avocado Oil

There is an additional benefit to talk about here, which is the use of avocado oil. Frying with avocado means there are less inflammatory polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) introduced than standard vegetable oil.

Plus, avocado oil adds a really rich flavor to these chips.

Classic tortilla chip texture

Out of the bunch, Siete has the closest texture to the “stone ground” texture of most normal corn-based tortilla chips.

Where to buy online

Amazon sells these online in 3 different flavors:

• Lime
• Nacho
• Sea Salt

Beanitos Black Bean Tortilla Chips

As the name implies, Beanitos Tortilla Chips are made primarily from beans. And as we saw above, black beans have the lowest GI on our list at 30. Even better, these chips come in as the lowest net carb per serving in our list at 11g net carbs.

Okay, let’s check out 4 simple ingredients:

Black Beans, Sunflower Oil, Long Grain Rice Flour, Sea Salt.

The sunflower oil utilized is high in PUFAs, so it you are watching your omega-6 intake, keep this in mind.

There’s also smidgen of rice flour thrown in there for texture, which provides a similar effect as the cassava starch used in the coconut chips.

Note that not all the Beanitos varieties are made from black beans. Other bean varieties used, like pinto and navy beans have varying GI values, but are still in the moderate GI zone. So they may or may not fit into the low carb tortilla chips category.

Great Texture

We love the texture of these and they match the nice crispy and stone ground texture of regular tortilla chips. They taste great and take foods like guacamole to the next level!

Where can I pick some up?

There are a ton of flavors, but your safest bet is the Classic Black Bean flavor, available on Amazon.

Going back to the DIY alternative

We mentioned at the top that you could fry up your own tortillas. For the best balance between net carbs and taste/texture, this might be a good option to consider.

Low carb tortillas fry up just as well as regular tortillas. And you get to choose your choice of oil, so we highly recommend utilizing avocado oil, which is low in PUFA and adds a really great, rich flavor.

Just pick up any of the products on our low carb tortillas list. Then, simply cut them up into triangles and fry them in a light layer of avocado oil. They come out nice and crispy, restaurant-style.

Even better, try the Susalia low carb corn tortillas for the classic corn tortilla chip taste (they fry up really well!)

Our Picks

The Susalia keto tortilla chips come out as the clear winner here. The classic corn taste and the obscenely low net carb count of 2.5g net carbs per 10 chips is tough to beat.

Grain-Free pick

With its low glycemic ingredients and just 1.2 net carbs per chip, The Real Coconut Chips are our pick for best grain free low carb tortilla chips you’re going to find in stores. Combined with the fact that are made with high-quality, organic coconut means you get quality fats that are critical for the keto diet.

However, the Beanitos are a solid option as well and are generally more widely available.  And also a shameless bonus for us: Beanitos is from our hometown of Austin, TX!

Lastly, we’ll reiterate here that these are the lowest carb tortilla chips out there but they aren’t ultra low carb. Therefore, you’ll definitely need to moderate the amount that you consume.

At the end of the day, however, as long as one of these options gets you through your cravings, that’s what really matters.

Thanks for reading! We hope you find a product you like from our low carb tortilla chips options.