Is Arrowroot Keto-Friendly? The Low Carb Cornstarch Substitute

One of the biggest challenges of eating keto is figuring out which foods fit into your diet, which can make cooking and baking especially challenging. Unless you’re following a keto recipe, you’ll have to get creative with the ingredients.

Cornstarch is a conventional thickener for soups, gravies, and baked goods. The problem is cornstarch isn’t keto-friendly — it’s high in carbs and provides little nutritional value.

Here’s where arrowroot powder comes in handy.

You’ve likely seen arrowroot powder in the organic aisle of your local grocery store — it’s a vegan, gluten-free and paleo diet staple, but is it keto-friendly? 

There’s a lot of confusion about whether or not arrowroot is keto  — and the answer depends on how you plan on using it. To put it in perspective, arrowroot powder contains more carbs than all-purpose white flour. 

It's counterintuitive to substitute regular flour with a flour made from a root vegetable that's high in starch and carbs. Still, there is a keto-friendly way to add arrowroot to your low carb, keto recipes and maintain ketosis. 

Read on to learn more about arrowroot powder — it’s nutrient profile, how it compares to cornstarch, and how you can add it into your keto diet. 

What is Arrowroot?

Arrowroot (Maranta arundinacea) is a tuber vegetable that originates from the rainforests of Indonesia. It’s related to other root vegetables, including yams, cassava, and jicama.

Arrowroot powder comes from drying the root and grinding it into a fine powder. The result is a highly absorbent powder — an ideal thickener for vegan recipes and an excellent cornstarch alternative. You'll find arrowroot powder in many gluten-free recipes because it's grain-free and tasteless — but is it also keto-friendly? 

The short answer is yes. You can include arrowroot in your recipes if you’re following a keto diet. However, there are a few caveats that we’ll discuss in the following sections.

Macronutrients Breakdown of Arrowroot

Arrowroot powder contains a similar number of carbs, calories, and fiber as potato flour. Generally speaking, keto dieters often avoid starchy root veggies because of its high carb count — but you don't need to avoid them altogether. You just need to consume in moderation. 

Here’s the nutritional information for 100 grams of arrowroot flour.

What Makes Arrowroot Keto-Friendly?

You may be wondering how a tuber vegetable that’s high in starch and carbs can be keto-friendly. 

The key is portion size.

Ideally, you’re eating between 20 - 50 grams of carbs per day to stay in ketosis. 

Yes, it does seem unreasonable to eat a powder that comes from a starchy root vegetable when your goal is to lose weight. 

However, you're only adding small amounts of arrowroot powder to your cooking to improve the consistency of certain foods. One or two tablespoons of arrowroot powder won't take up a significant amount of your carb allowance.

For example, if you add a tablespoon of arrowroot flour to a pot of soup for eight servings, you’ll be adding less than a gram of carbs to each meal. Cornstarch contains a similar number of carbs per serving, but arrowroot contains almost three times more fiber. 

Is Arrowroot Powder Low-Carb?

Arrowroot flour is not a low-carb food. More than 80% of the calories in arrowroot come from carbs. 

When it comes to thickeners, arrowroot powder isn't the best low carb option either. Coconut flour and almond flour can also be used in place of cornstarch, but it may change the taste of the recipe while arrowroot powder is tasteless.

Gluten-free and paleo recipes often recommend arrowroot powder in place of regular flour — but paleo doesn't mean it's also low-carb. Luckily there are a number of regular flour substitutes out there that are more appropriate for keto recipes including flax meal, coconut flour, and almond flour, which are excellent low carb options. 

Here's a baking tip for your low carb flour alternatives. 

If you need your low carb flour to rise and stretch as regular flour does, you can add xanthan gum to the recipe — all you need is about 1/4 teaspoon per cup of almond flour. 

How Can You Use Arrowroot in a Keto Diet?

Arrowroot flour has been gaining popularity as a grain-free and gluten-free thickening agent. It's also used in vegan dessert recipes in place of egg whites. 

Whenever you see cornstarch in a non-keto recipe, you can usually replace it with arrowroot. You can also use it in recipes such as soups, smoothies, and sauces to get the thick consistency you desire.

Arrowroot is also a popular flour alternative when baking because it fits gluten-free, paleo, and keto recipes. It’s also very easy for most people to digest.

Many baking recipes that use arrowroot flour are actually paleo recipes and not keto recipes. 

Although the two diets share many similarities, the paleo diet doesn’t restrict carbs from starchy root vegetables. For example, sweet potato is a staple food for many people following a paleo diet. However, 100 grams of sweet potato contains about 19.5 grams of carbs and fits in with your ketogenic diet. 

When following recipes that use a large amount of arrowroot flour, it may be a good idea to substitute some of it for lower carb alternatives. Here’s a rough guideline of much of each type of flour equates to one serving of regular baking flour. Keep in mind that these are estimations, and exact conversations may be different for specific recipes.

Arrowroot is an excellent keto-friendly cornstarch substitute — It's highly absorbent, which means you don’t have to use much of it.

However, it's not the best wheat flour substitute as it's still high in carbs in comparison to the alternatives listed on the table. When using arrowroot powder, try using about half as much as you would with cornstarch, but you may need to experiment with the recipe. 

Here’s how the macronutrients of these two foods stack up. 

The macronutrient makeup of arrowroot may look similar to cornstarch at a glance. However, when cornstarch is processed, the outer layer of the kernel and most of the nutrition is removed. Arrowroot flour provides you with iron, folate, phosphorous, and other essential nutrients that deliver health benefits.

Arrowroot is also rather plain, so you can use it without alternating the taste of your recipes.

Benefits of Arrowroot

Here are a few reasons why you should consider using arrowroot in your keto recipes.

Arrowroot is Nutrient-Dense

Arrowroot flour is a much better source of several essential nutrients than cornstarch. 100g of arrowroot contains 12.5% your Daily Value (DV) of iron, 85% your DV of folate, 14.2% your DV of phosphorus, and 9.2% your DV of potassium. 

Arrowroot is Gluten-Free 

If you have celiac disease, you can include arrowroot in your diet without worry. Unlike wheat flour, arrowroot is gluten-free and paleo-friendly. 

Arrowroot Has a Low-Glycemic Index

Boiled arrowroot may have a glycemic index as low as 14. Low glycemic carbs help you keep your blood sugar consistent throughout the day and avoid sugar crashes. 

Arrowroot May Be Prebiotic

Research has found that the fiber in arrowroot may act as a prebiotic. Prebiotic fiber helps feed the healthy probiotic bacteria in your gut. It’s thought that increasing your prebiotic fiber intake may improve your immune system.

Drawbacks of Arrowroot

As we mentioned earlier, there are a few caveats to using arrowroot powder. Here are some points to consider when adding arrowroot to your recipes. 

Arrowroot Is Carb-Dense

Most of the calories in arrowroot come from carbohydrates. If you plan on using it for baking, you might want to split it with either coconut or almond flour.

Too Much May Take You Out of Ketosis  

A ketogenic diet generally contains less than 50 grams of carbs per day. If you overeat arrowroot, you may go over this amount. 

Arrowroot Keto-Friendly Recipes

As long as you keep your serving size relatively small, the net carbs you consume from arrowroot powder should stay relatively low.  

One of the biggest reasons why people have trouble sticking with the keto diet is because they aren’t sure how to cook or bake without using sugar. However, if you learn how to bake with arrowroot and keto-friendly sugar alternatives, there’s no reason you can’t still enjoy all your favorite desserts from time to time.

Here are three recipes you can bake at home that use arrowroot and other low-carb flours.

Keto Brownie Recipe

Just because you’re following a ketogenic diet doesn’t mean that you can’t still enjoy dessert. Try these keto brownies for a delicious low-carb option.

You only need seven ingredients to make these brownies, including coconut oil, baking chocolate, an artificial sweetener of your choice, eggs, arrowroot powder, cocoa powder, and unsweetened chocolate chips.

You have several options for keto-friendly artificial sweeteners, including Stevia, monk fruit extract, and erythritol. To make this recipe even more delicious, you can use chocolate chips sweetened with one of these sugar replacements.

Keto Bread Recipe

Wheat bread is definitely not keto. However, this keto-friendly bread made from arrowroot, coconut flour, and almond flour is a delicious alternative. 

The recipe calls for a tablespoon of honey, which adds about 17 grams of carbs to the entire loaf or about 2 grams per slice. You can omit the honey to reduce its carb count.

You can make this recipe whenever you’re feeling like a low-carb bread substitute. Remember, jam won’t fit with your keto diet, but there are plenty of other spreads you can use, including avocado, butter, nut butters, or melted coconut oil.

Low-Carb and Gluten-Free Keto Blueberry Muffins

Grocery store muffins are often loaded with sugar. Whenever a craving strikes, it's best you make muffins in your own kitchen, so you know exactly what's in it. This is the perfect keto-friendly blueberry muffin recipe.

You can easily pack these muffins in a container when you’re on the go or eat them for breakfast. Blueberries are relatively low-carb compared to many other types of fruit. However, they still contain some sugar. The recipe calls for two-thirds of a cup of blueberries, which provides you with roughly 14 grams of carbs.

The Verdict: Arrowroot is Keto-Friendly in Moderation

If you use arrowroot in moderation, it can make a great keto replacement for cornstarch. It isn’t as low carb as some other thickeners such as coconut flour, chia seeds, or almond flour. However, arrowroot is very absorbent, so you don’t need to use much of it.

If you learn how to use this powder in your baking, you’ll have no trouble making keto-friendly versions of all your favorite desserts.

It isn't easy restricting your carbs, but now that you know arrowroot is a keto-friendly replacement for cornstarch and works well in keto recipes in small amounts, you can look for it next time you're at the grocery store.