The ketogenic diet has taken America by storm in the past few years, proving that whether you view it as a fad diet or not – it’s here to stay. The diet itself is designed to keep the body in ketosis so it burns fat for energy instead of carbs; this comes with benefits like weight loss, disease protection, and reduced blood sugar levels.
Similar to the Atkins diet, keto drastically limits anything high in carbs – think grains and starches, sugary foods, most fruits and some vegetables, and legumes – and instead focuses on high-fat foods like meat, fish, eggs, butter, cream, cheese, nuts, seeds, and healthy oils. While this diet certainly rules a lot out, it also leaves enough leeway to modify your food and drink to be keto-friendly.
The perfect place to do that? Somewhere like Starbucks, where the modifications flow freely. If you’re a Starbucks fan on the keto diet, here’s everything that’s up for grabs on the menu.
Keto-friendly food options on the Starbucks menu
When it comes to keto-approved food at Starbucks, your friends will be ingredients like meat, eggs, cheese, and avocado – so you do have a few things to choose from. But what you obviously need to watch out for is carbs (and hand-in-hand with that, sugars), so that unfortunately means sandwiches, pastry items, and sweet snacks are out.
Determining what constitutes a keto-friendly meal or snack is a bit tricky since there isn’t necessarily a set amount of carbs that should be consumed on the diet, and what keeps someone in ketosis will vary per person since it’s dependent on many factors. But generally, most people need to limit their net carbs to 50 grams per day to stay in ketosis.
With that in mind, we’ve provided a complete list of food items currently on the Starbucks menu that avoid high-carb ingredients, are low in sugar, and as a rule of thumb keep the total carbohydrates to under 18g per serving. Here’s everything you can order at Starbucks on keto, along with any necessary modifications to customize the meal.
| Breakfast + Bakery Items | Necessary Modifications |
| Kale & Mushroom Egg Bites | |
| Bacon & Gruyere Egg Bites | |
| Egg White & Roasted Red Pepper Egg Bites | |
| Avocado Spread | |
| Lunch Items | Necessary Modifications |
| Eggs & Gouda Protein Box | Remove crackers and peanut butter to avoid extra carbs and sugars |
| Cheese Trio Protein Box | Remove crackers and dried cranberries to avoid extra carbs and sugars |
| Cheddar & Uncured Salami Protein Box | Remove crackers and dried fruit and nut mix to avoid extra carbs and sugars |
| Eggs & Cheddar Protein Box | Remove bread and peanut butter to avoid extra carbs and sugars |
| Cheese & Fruit Protein Box | Remove crackers to avoid extra carbs |
| Snack Items | Necessary Modifications |
| String Cheese | |
| Country Archer Hickory Smoked Turkey Jerky | |
| Country Archer Original Beef Jerky |
Keto-friendly drink options at Starbucks
When it comes to ordering from the hefty drink menu at Starbucks, there are plenty of keto-friendly beverages to go around. Most coffee and tea is naturally carb free, and for those beverages that aren’t, Starbucks offers enough customizations to make many of them keto-friendly.
The first thing to consider is the type of milk that’s best for a keto diet. Regular milk – whole milk, 2%, and nonfat – comes with natural carbs and sugar, so it’s not the best keto-friendly choice. Starbucks makes all of their drinks with 2% milk unless otherwise stated; however, they offer several other milk options. If you’re sticking to a keto diet, your best choice would be heavy cream, which has a high-fat, low-carb ratio – but it’s recommended in drinks that contain a splash or a small amount of milk, rather than something like a latte that’s mostly milk. If you want to cut down the carbs as much as possible, a great keto hack is to order half heavy cream, half water in your beverage.
Then there’s sugar – which is always something to look out for at Starbucks. Most of their signature drinks, and even their iced coffees and teas, come sweetened with either flavored syrups or liquid sweetener. So it’s important to be aware of which drinks and ingredients to stay away from. But luckily Starbucks does offer a few sugar-free syrups that you can substitute (in a few select flavors like vanilla, cinnamon dolce, and caramel). These sugar-free syrups are low-carb, but they do use artificial sweeteners like sucralose and maltodextrin – and there’s some debate over whether these ingredients are truly keto-friendly. Each pump of sugar-free syrup is around 1 gram of carbs, so if you do opt for the sugar-free syrup, it’s recommended to get one or two pumps as opposed to the four that typically come in a standard drink. As an alternative, you can leave the sweetener out entirely to avoid any extra sugar.
All of that said, we’ve gathered a full list of all of the drinks you can order at Starbucks, along with possible modifications, that make for keto-friendly beverage choices.
| Hot Drinks | Necessary Modifications |
| Brewed Coffee [Featured Blonde Roast, Featured Dark Roast, Medium-Roast Pike Place, Decaf Pike Place, Veranda Blends, Caffé Verona Blends, Clover® Starbucks Reserve® Blends] | |
| Caffè Americano | |
| Espresso | |
| Espresso Macchiato | Sub heavy cream |
| Caffè Misto | Sub heavy cream + water |
| Cappuccino | Sub heavy cream |
| Flat White | Sub heavy cream + water |
| Caffè Latte | Sub heavy cream + water |
| Cinnamon Dolce Latte | Sub heavy cream + water, sub sugar-free cinnamon dolce syrup, no whipped cream |
| Oleato Caffè Latte with Oatmilk* | Sub splash of heavy cream |
| Starbucks Reserve® Latte | Sub heavy cream + water |
| Blonde Vanilla Latte | Sub heavy cream + water, sub sugar-free vanilla syrup |
| Caramel Macchiato | Sub heavy cream, sub sugar-free vanilla syrup, no caramel sauce |
| Chai Tea | |
| Black Tea [Earl Grey, Royal English Breakfast] | |
| Teavana® London Fog Tea Latte | Sub heavy cream + water, sub sugar-free vanilla syrup |
| Royal English Breakfast Tea Latte | Sub heavy cream + water, sub stevia |
| Green Tea [Emperor’s Clouds & Mist, Jade Citrus Mint] | |
| Herbal Tea [Mint Majesty, Peach Tranquility] | |
| Cold Drinks | |
| Iced Coffee | Order unsweetened or sub stevia |
| Iced Coffee with Milk | Heavy cream |
| Iced Espresso | |
| Cold Brew | |
| Nitro Cold Brew | |
| Cold Brew Coffee with Milk | Heavy cream |
| Iced Caffè Americano | |
| Iced Espresso | |
| Iced Shaken Espresso | Sub heavy cream, sub stevia |
| Iced Flat White | Sub heavy cream + water |
| Iced Caffè Latte | Sub heavy cream + water |
| Iced Cinnamon Dolce Latte | Sub heavy cream + water, sub sugar-free cinnamon dolce syrup, no whipped cream |
| Starbucks Reserve® Iced Latte* | Sub heavy cream + water |
| Iced Blonde Vanilla Latte | Sub heavy cream + water, sub sugar-free vanilla syrup |
| Iced Tea [Black, Green, Peach Green, Passion Tango] | Order unsweetened or sub stevia |
| Iced London Fog Tea Latte | Sub heavy cream + water, sub sugar-free vanilla syrup |
| Iced Royal English Breakfast Tea Latte | Sub heavy cream + water, sub stevia |
While most unsweetened almond milk and coconut milk is generally keto-friendly because both plant-based milks are low in carbs, the almond milk and coconut milk that Starbucks uses is not keto-friendly due to the added sugars in each product.
To customize your Starbucks drink to be keto-friendly, ask for either heavy cream or half heavy cream, half water as a milk substitute. Remove any sweeteners, or replace with a sugar-free syrup, and remove any whipped cream.
Starbucks sugar-free syrups are made with sucralose and a small amount of maltodextrin, which is a carb. While the sugar-free syrups are a better keto choice than any of the other sweeteners at Starbucks, they do come with about 1 gram of carbs per pump.
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