How keto friendly is Starbucks?
Starbucks stores are quite literally everywhere. In fact, they are the third largest food chain in the world! And, with all the sugar-laden Frappuccinos they sling, it’s hard to imagine that they’d care much about low carb or keto options. However, there are actually tons of keto low carb Starbucks drinks and foods!
And the best part is that you can count on product selection being very consistent wherever you go. You just need to know how to order.
Let’s dig in.
General Tips for Your Keto Low Carb Starbucks Drinks Orders
The following milk types at Starbucks are NOT keto-friendly:
Whole Milk, Skim Milk, Half & Half or “Cream”, Almond Milk
All the dairy products contain sugar, and the milk alternatives are all sweetened with sugar.
Yikes! So what does that leave us?
Instead, order your drinks with Heavy Whipping Cream, also referred to as Heavy Cream at Starbucks.
The secret is to ask for the heavy whipping cream to be prepared steamed. It comes out foamy, just how you’re used to with a normal latte!
Note: If you’ve never used heavy whipping cream in coffee before, you can EASILY overdo it. Heavy cream can seriously overpower the flavor of your drink. As a result, we highly recommend starting with less and adding more as needed. You can ask for light heavy whipping cream (sounds weird, we know!).
Sweeteners
Sugar in all its form (yes, even Sugar in the Raw) is not ideal for your keto diet. But, there are a number of sugar alternatives that fill the void.
Sugar Alternatives at Starbucks
- Stevia packets: Starbucks uses the Whole Earth Sweetener Co. Nature Sweet product. It is actually a mix of a few ingredients: Erythritol, fructose, chicory root fiber, stevia leaf extract and monk fruit extract
. We prefer this sweetener because it is mostly natural and has a very low impact on your blood glucose.
- While Equal
, Sweet N’ Low
, and Splenda
work in a bind, they contain fillers which may negatively affect your blood glucose levels. We generally stay away from these choices, if possible.
Syrups
Syrups are a great way to inject serious flavor into your drinks. They are sweetened with liquid sucralose, which should have no impact on your blood glucose levels.
- Sugar-Free Cinnamon Dolce (Pro tip: you can buy some online for home!)
- Sugar-Free Vanilla (also available to buy online)
New “Flavor Reinvention”
Various markets throughout the United States have rolled out a “flavor re-invention.” Austin happens to be one of them and we couldn’t be more excited.
The gist is that they have separated out the simple syrup and flavor essences and that includes a sugar free simple syrup (sucralose-based). You can combine that with any of the below flavor essences:
- Raspberry
- Peppermint
- Toffee Nut
- Hazelnut
- Caramel
- Vanilla
- Cinnamon Dolce
You can even forego the syrup completely if you prefer. Or, add in packets of stevia/monk fruit.
The main point is that increases our sugar free flavor options from 2 to 7!
Our Favorite Keto Low Carb Starbucks Drinks
All DRINKS ARE 1 to 0 NET CARB!
Coffee Drinks
- Cappuccino (or blonde cappuccino) using steamed heavy whipping cream
- Cold Brew
with heavy whipping cream and stevia
- Espresso Macchiato with steamed heavy whipping cream
Our GO-TO Coffee Low Carb Starbucks Drinks:
Keto Americano (or blonde americano) – ICED or HOT
- ORDER as follows “Iced/Hot Americano w/ splash of heavy whipping cream and SF Vanilla OR SF Cinnamon Dolce (add packets of monk fruit sweetener your self or have them do it) TIP: We add extra shot for more coffee flavor in all sizes
- ORDER in App as follows
- EXAMPLE is ICED Americano Grande w/ SF Cinnamon Dolce
INGREDIENTS
- Splash of steamed heavy whipping cream – 0g net carb,
- Sugar-free cinnamon dolce syrup or SF Vanilla – 0g net carb
- Packets stevia/monk fruit to taste – 0g net carb
Keto Skinny Mocha Frappuccino
THIS TASTES JUST LIKE A WENDY’S CHOCOLATE SHAKE!! BE WARNED 😀
- ORDER in Person as follows “Skinny Mocha Frappuccino with Heavy Cream INSTEAD OF sweet cream and milk, no whip with an extra pump of Skinny Mocha Sauce”
- DONT FORGET NO SWEET CREAM! 🙂
- ORDER in App –
- Unfortunately, you can’t customize this one in the App 🙁
INGREDIENTS
- Frappuccino Coffee Roast – 0g net carb
- it’s just water and coffee they mix together and pump in
- Skinny SF Mocha sauce – 0g net carb
- Heavy cream – 0 – 0.5g net carb
- Blended for frap style (You can ask for no caffeine) 😀
Pro Tip: Craving a Keto Hot Chocolate? Just ask for 1/2 Heavy Whipping Cream, 1/2 Water with Skinny Mocha Sauce.
*Bonus*
Wondering about Starbucks Skinny Mocha Sauce nutrition facts?
Putting on our detective hats, we were able to track down the nutrition facts of Starbucks Skinny Mocha Sauce. This is great if you are wondering how many carbs are in the skinny mocha sauce and if it is really sugar free.
Starbucks Skinny Mocha Sauce Nutrition Facts
The big mystery ingredient in a Skinny Frappuccino is the Skinny Mocha Sauce. Based on this blurry cam, incognito image floating around on the internet (Reddit), we are able to see Skinny Mocha Powder’s nutrition facts.
The Skinny Mocha Powder contains 1g of carbs and 2g of dietary fiber. Whenever we see discrepancies like this (where there is more fiber listed than total carbs), we simply assume that this is 0g net carb.
You may see this being pumped in by a barista. That’s because the powder is mixed with 500 mL of water so each pump contains roughly half a serving of the powder. Considering a standard venti size contains 4 pumps of the mix, or the equivalent of about 2 servings of the mix, the net carbs is essentially negligible.
Digging deeper into the ingredients, we see only Cocoa Powder, some thickeners and sucralose. So indeed, Starbucks Skinny Mocha Sauce is sugar free!
All that sweetness comes from sucralose, which is a zero glycemic impact sweetener, so the sauce should not raise your blood glucose levels.
Starbucks Frappuccino Roast Nutrition Facts
The other “mystery” ingredient in a frappuccino is the Frappuccino Roast. The question is “does it have sugar added to it”. And the answer is NO.
It comes from a powder form that is mixed with water, which is why it is pumped in at Starbucks.
Luckily, the ingredients lists 100% coffee as the only ingredient. There is no added mystery sugar!
Since there aren’t any reliable sources of nutritional information around, we are comparing this to the nutrition facts of Starbucks Instant VIA coffee, Dark Italian Roast. The VIA coffee nutrition label lists 0g net carbs. Again, based on the quantity used in a frappuccino, we consider this a negligible amount of net carbs.
Our GO-TO Low Carb Tea Favorite:
Keto Iced Pink Drink
- ORDER as follows “Unsweetened passion tango tea with Heavy Whipping Cream and SF Vanilla Syrup” (Add Monk Fruit Sweetener to taste we usually do 2 packets)
- Order in App
- EXAMPLE is Grande Size
INGREDIENTS
- Unsweetened passion tango tea – 0g net carb
- Heavy whipping cream – 0g net carb
- Sugar free vanilla syrup – 0g net carb
- Monk fruit/stevia sweetener packets, to taste – 0g net carb
Other Keto Starbucks Teas
- Organic Chai Tea
- Make this into a Chai Tea “latte” by adding steamed heavy whipping cream and packets of stevia and pumps of sugar-free vanilla syrup. Can be ordered Iced as well.
- Royal English Breakfast Black Tea
and Earl Grey
- Add heavy cream and stevia for a traditional English tea.
- Emperor’s Cloud and Mist Green Tea
- Organic Jade Citrus Mint Green Tea
- All the herbal tea bags should be safe
- Iced Black Tea with no syrup, Stevia instead.
Food
- Sous Vide Egg Bites – Bacon & Gruyere flavor: 22g fat (14g saturated) and 9g net carbs total for 2 bites. (Also comes in Chicken Chorizo AND Egg White and Red Pepper)
- Avocado Spread. Spruce up your Egg Bites with some avocado. You get an extra 8g of fat with only 1g net carb.
- Creminelli Salami & Cheese Snack Tray: 16g fat (8g saturated) and ZERO net carbs.
- Classic Almonds: kettle-cooked and salted – 42 g of nuts (almost a half cup) with 3g net carbs.
- Moon Cheese (Cheddar flavor)
: 1g net carb
- String Cheese singles: 1g net carb
- Country Archer Turkey
or Beef Jerky
: 5g net carbs
- Justin’s Almond Butter
: 3g net carbs
Low Carb Starbucks Drinks Low Carb Ready to Drink Options
Speaking of grab-and-go, there a couple of ketogenic Starbucks drinks that are portable. We love these for road trips where we aren’t around any coffee shops for extended periods of time.
How about Keto or Butter Coffee?
One thing Starbucks is missing is a bonafide Keto Coffee or Bulletproof Coffee. Luckily, you can easily make your own at home or at work.
Just order one of the keto-friendly hot coffee/espresso drinks with heavy whipping cream and add your own convenient MCT powder.
If you don’t know about MCTs, we have a detailed write-up about all the amazing benefits of MCT oil. However, MCT powder is especially great for work/office situations because you don’t need a blender. It is really easy and convenient to mix into your coffee.
Or, just order food at Starbucks but bring your own grab and go keto coffee drinks from home.
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Any time I try to get a frapp with heavy cream at Starbucks, it comes out chunky and difficult to drink. Is there anything I can ask them to do to counteract this?
Hey Karissa,
Unfortunately, we haven’t found an alternative. The frap base really makes a difference in consistency, but sadly they do not carry a sugar-free version of it. They have a new “sweet cream” base as well, but that also contains a ton of sugar.
We’re still searching for a solution, but haven’t gotten it to where it doesn’t come out icy/chunky without the frap base/sweet cream. We’ll definitely update this post if this ever changes because those fraps are soooo good!
Cheers,
Thanh
I love your skinny mocha frappuccino sub. Every recipe I’ve found is still 17+g of carbs. This one is 0.5. That’s amazing! I ordered it today, no sweet cream or milk, and it was great! A little more like chocolate milk then coffee, but no complaints. Thanks.
Awesome! So glad it worked out! Really nice to go out and get some Starbucks these days 🙂
Easier and cheaper way to pull off your skinny mocha frap (with a better caffeine bang), grande iced americano with HWC and SF mocha – blended in a venti cup. They’ll look at you sideways for sure, you can’t order it in the app. The label will probably say double blended (if they can find the button) and the bar barista will probably question it. If you try to do it with a venti there is a 50/50 shot they’ll dump the excess because Sbux has a rule about putting espresso drinks in trenta cups. but you need to upsize with it because they ice and the HWC expand when blended. If you make nice with your local baristas, they may do it for you, mine did and I didn’t lose my sacred espresso. But the americano is substantially cheaper than any frap. – Former barista.
Thanks for the insider tip– we’ll definitely try it out!
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