How to Make Sugar Free Pickled Ginger for your Keto Sushi Rolls!
Lately I have been making a lot of low carb sushi not only because I love it, but also because the holiday party season is here and a platter of keto low carb sushi makes for an impressive plate to bring along!
The perfect complement to sushi of course is sugar free pickled ginger!
Check out my Keto California rolls here and my Spicy Tuna rolls here.
Why do they serve pickled ginger with sushi?
Traditionally pickled ginger (gari) is used as a way to cleanse the palate during a meal.
I don’t know about you but when my family goes for sushi, we order several courses and so there are many flavors and tastes to deal with.
The problem is that pickled ginger is typically made with thinly sliced young ginger root marinated in a mixture of rice vinegar and sugar.
Rice vinegar itself normally has sugar so if you are eating lots of those very pink ginger slices in a sushi restaurant, you are getting sugar and carbs.
How can we make keto friendly sugar free pickled ginger?
Simple! We can use natural rice vinegar (zero carbs and sugar) and sweetener. I’ve done this a few times and tried different things. Here are my tips:
- Try to find the youngest ginger root possible. Young ginger has a much thinner skin and is more tender. (You can see the difference in the image I have posted here)
- You can use a mandoline slicer if the pieces are big enough, but I often just use a vegetable peeler.
- Older ginger also works, I would just boil it a little longer.
- I typically make just enough to last a week or so in the fridge because I don’t want to worry about following proper canning protocols. If you like home canning, you can certainly pickle enough ginger to last a year!
Ingredients you need to make sugar free pickled ginger
- Young ginger root
- Kosher salt or sea salt
- 1/2 cup Natural Rice Vinegar
- 2-3 tbsp granular sweetener of choice. NOTE: If you can get Allulose it is the best sweetener for this recipe because it’s the ONLY sweetener that I have tried that doesn’t crystallize once it cools down.
How to make sugar free pickled ginger step by step
- Peel or scrape off the skin of fresh young ginger. If the ginger is not young, you will definitely need to use a vegetable peeler.
- Slice thinly using either a mandolin slicer or a vegetable peeler
- Lay the ginger slices on a plate and sprinkle with a bit of kosher salt. Let that sit for a few minutes
- While the ginger is sitting, boil 1/2 cup rice vinegar for 5 minutes
- Stir in the sweetener, remove from heat and allow to cool
- Take the salted ginger and cover with water and microwave or boil that for 2 minutes. Allow that to cool
- Drain the ginger well, squeezing out any extra water with your hands.
- Put the ginger in a jar and pour over the vinegar and sweetener
- Keep in the fridge for up to a week.
Your ginger will be white and not bright pink like you normally see in restaurants. You might get a pinkish tinge depending on your ginger, but you can assume that bright pink ginger has had food dye added.
Another good reason to make your own!
Use your Sugar Free Pickled Ginger for some of these Keto Recipes!
Save these instructions for making your own keto version of pickled ginger to Pinterest!
Hi , can I use liquid extract sweetener.? How many day I can eat after put in the jar? Thank you
I’m not familiar with the sweetener you are talking about so I would just make a small amount and see how it turns out! I don’t know how many you can eat because for one thing I don’t know what else you might eat in a day. This pickled ginger is meant to be a condiment that you can use on something like sushi or sashimi. SO personally for myself if I use a a couple slices I’m not even worried about it, it’s more important to me to track the other things I am eating that day. 1 tbsp of raw ginger has about 1 net carb so you can use that as a guide. I hope that helps!
hello,
can you use honey or coconut sugar, instead of allulose?
thanks
I’m sure you probably could but it would no longer be sugar free and would not be keto friendly. But if you are not concerned about that you could certainly give that a try!
Thank you for the recipe! I love pickled ginger, but had given it up when I started eating LCHF.
To make it pink, I added a bit ( 1/2 tsp?) of beet powder. Because I made about twice as much, I don’t think it added much to the carb count. We’ll see what color it is when it’s through sitting for awhile….
Oh! I would love to hear how that turns out! Thanks for your comment!
Can stevia be used in this recipe
I have never made this with stevia, mostly because I just don’t like the taste. The biggest reason I use allulose in this recipe is because you can cook it and it won’t crystalize afterwards in the fridge. I just don’t know how stevia will turn out but if you do try it I would love to hear back on the results. Good luck!