Our low carb restaurant hacks in France make it so easy to stay on-point with your macros while traveling! And best of all, you get to enjoy the local cuisine.
When you go to France, staying low carb can seem like a challenge with delicious temptations like croissants, baguettes, and pastries everywhere you look. However, we want to show you that you can eat out and not feel deprived!
Even if the dish you’re ordering isn’t necessarily low carb, with a few easy tweaks it’s easy to make certain things low carb-friendly. We’ll walk you through it!
Get Ready for Our Best Low Carb Restaurant Hacks in France!
Dinner at a Traditional French Restaurant
Staying low carb at a traditional French brasserie is easy! There are usually a lot of salad choices, as well as meat main courses, such as fish, chicken, and beef.
We opted for a Nicoise Salad (see the photo above), which came with tuna, anchovies, black olives, hard-boiled egg, and a mix of veggies dressed with with vinaigrette. If there are any croutons or carby items, ask for your salad without them, or simply take them off.
Minimize the sauce intake to minimize carbs!
For some protein, we ordered Boeuf Bourguignon, which is slow cooked beef in a red wine sauce served with pearl onions and carrot. Skip the carrot and minimize the sauce intake because it’s likely thickened with a non-keto thickener, such as flour or cornstarch.
Another good choice is to go for a steak served with green salad instead of French fries. Or get a burger and skip the bun!
Pro Tip: Most traditional French meals are served with a basket of bread on the side. Remember to ask your waiter to skip the bread so you’re not even tempted!
Fondue
This classic melted cheese dish is usually served with cubes of bread for dipping. However, look for a fondue restaurant that serves charcuterie or vegetables for dipping so you can nix the bread and still be able to dip into the cheese!
Skip the bread and dip with meat!
Another option is wine fondue where you cook meat, such as chicken or beef, in hot wine-infused brothy liquid.
Nix the crust and dig into the filling!
Quiche
You can find lots of different flavors and shapes of quiche in France! We look for a thick, deep-dish style quiche that has more filling. Scoop out the egg filling and just leave the pastry crust!
Take note that some quiches come with meat inside, some have cheese, and some have vegetables. (And make your own Keto Low Carb Quiche Lorraine at home!)
Doesn’t everyone just eat curry with a spoon? 😉
Indian Food
There are plenty of low carb and keto friendly options at Indian restaurants. Chicken Tikka Masala, Butter Chicken, Tandoori Chicken, and Grilled Lamb are a few of our favorites. Skip the rice and naan, and eat your curry with a spoon!
Skip the rice and go for the fish + seaweed salad + soup!
Japanese Food
Like at any sushi restaurant, you can order sashimi instead of nigiri or sushi rolls. Seaweed salad and miso soup are also good choices. And sometimes a restaurant will have fermented vegetable salads. We found a sushi restaurant in Paris that had tuna tartar wrapped in nori, and we just didn’t eat the rice bottom. Note that when you order a combo meal, it might come with rice. Just skip the rice to keep it low carb!
Next time you’re traveling to France, we hope you’ll keep these tips in mind! Share your best low carb restaurant hacks in France (or anywhere!) with us in the comments below.
If you found this post and you’re ready to start a keto diet, check out our 5 Day Budget Keto Meal Plan. You’ll get 5 days worth of recipes and eat for under $5 per day!
For something a little longer term, you might be interested in our 4 week keto meal prep course. It comes with 4 weeks of keto meal plans (1200, 1500 and 1800 calorie levels), weekly keto grocery lists, 40 keto recipe ebook, how to meal prep ebook, videos and more!
Or if you’ve been doing keto for a while and just need a little help meal planning, we’ve got you covered! Get 1 week of keto meal plans for free!
If you loved this post or any of our recipes, please leave a comment below. We love hearing from you! You can also tag #theketoqueens on social media. To stay up-to-date, FOLLOW US on Instagram @theketoqueens, Twitter, and Facebook.
Jennifer Nicol Colwell says
Thanks for this helpful info. I’m making a plan to go tour to your city as I feeled so much bore in this lock down.
However, I am a foodie and love to taste french foods and recipes. But I was confused on which restaurant I should go when I visit France.
Thankfully, now I have a handfull of options. Thanks for sharing this indepth info.
One question- is there any restriction to visit your country due to Covid-19? Are the restaurants open?
Waiting for your response…
Michaela Maynard says
We are based in the US, not France unfortunately, so I am unable to give more specifics on the current protocols. We are so very happy to give you ideas for your travels!