We took our famous low carb tortillas and whipped up the ultimate keto tortilla chips! Expect deliciously crisp results in every bite.
Keto Tortilla Chips
Super Crisp & Puffed!
If you’ve tried our grain free keto tortillas, you already know they’ll taste great. If you haven’t, what are you waiting for?!
So whether you fry them up or opt for a quick bake, you’ve got a crispy (and totally addictive!) delight in your foreseeable future. You really cannot eat just one.
And at 2g net carbs per 30g serving (i.e. one tortilla = 8 chips), you really don’t have to.
So whether you’re missing on something to munch on during game night or want something else for your guacamole other than pork rinds, these are a safe bet.
The Toppings
You can either do a simple sea salt topping or go for a sorta ‘Dorito’ dust.
Just note that, just like in our keto ‘cheetos’, the key ingredient to get that addictive cheese flavor and texture from commercial chips is nutritional yeast. With absolutely no artificial flavorings and colorings!
Fun fact: nutritional yeast is a powerful source of vitamins, particularly rich in vitamin B12, as well as being a complete protein.
The Cooking
Given that coconut flour browns ridiculously fast, you want to start with raw dough rather than a cooked tortilla for these keto chips. Particularly if you want them to puff up.
My preferred method of cooking these guys is some good old frying in lard. You see, the most magical thing happens a couple seconds after they hit the oil: they puff up completely!!
I cannot say I anticipated this. In fact, you might even call it a wonderful surprise! But it’s not really that surprising given that the tortillas puff up themselves, and the chips also puff up somewhat when baked. But the effect when fried is truly wonderful!
Just one caveat: the coconut and almond flours do not crisp up when fried…! So you need to fry them up quickly until lightly golden, and then do a quick bake to dry them up.
Or you can always just bake them directly. They will puff up somewhat, and still taste incredibly good (particularly plain with guacamole). See picture below of what they look like baked, rather than fried and baked.
But if you’re into chips, I cannot recommend enough that you do fry them up, dry them out and lather them up with a topping (particularly the spicy one). They’re really quite something.
The Flours
I like a mixture of super fine almond flour and coconut flour best. Add a touch of xanthan gum and baking powder, and we’re golden.
In terms of brands, for the almond either Anthony’s or WellBees work great. Both are super fine grinds. And for the coconut, I always favor Anthony’s (most natural taste and less gritty texture by a mile!).
No substituting flours here and the xanthan gum is absolutely necessary. And, if possible, weigh your ingredients for consistent results.
Borrowed from molecular cooking, xanthan gum is the binding agent which makes your toothpaste jelly-like and it’s also what gives cream cheese it’s distinctive texture. It’s also the most common gluten-replacer in gluten free baking, and it’s derived through a fermentation process using the strain of bacteria Xanthomonas campestris. So now you know where it’s name comes from.
Oh and ahem, they make the ultimate keto nachos!!
Low Carb & Keto Tortilla Chips
Ingredients
For the tortilla dough
- 96 g almond flour
- 24 g coconut flour
- 2 teaspoons xanthan gum
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/8-1/4 teaspoon kosher salt depending on whether sweet or savory
- 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 egg lightly beaten
- 3 teaspoons water
For cooking
- lard or frying oil of choice
- extra virgin olive oil for brushing (if baked)
For the 'Dorito' dust (optional)
- 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 1 tablespoon paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/4-1/2 teaspoon chipotle powder to taste
- 1/4-1/2 teaspoon kosher salt to taste
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper freshly ground
- 1/8 teaspoon ground cumin
Instructions
For the tortilla dough
- Add almond flour, coconut flour, xanthan gum, baking powder and salt to food processor. Pulse until thoroughly combined.
- Pour in apple cider vinegar with the food processor running. Once it has distributed evenly, pour in the egg. Followed by the water. Stop the food processor once the dough forms into a ball. The dough will be sticky to touch.
- Wrap dough in cling film and knead it through the plastic for a minute or two. Think of it a bit like a stress ball. Allow dough to rest for 10 minutes (and up to two days in the fridge).
- Break the dough into eight 1” to 1 1/2” balls. Roll out between two sheets of parchment or waxed paper using a tortilla press (suggested) or with a rolling pin. For your reference, each tortilla should weigh 26g uncooked.
- UPDATE: Based on a reader's feedback, we now know that your chips won't puff up unless the tortillas are THIN enough! So you absolutely must get 8 5-inch tortillas out of one batch (26g/tortilla). If using a tortilla press, keep pressing down and rotating the tortilla around to get even thickness. They are a bit harder than regular tortillas, so they might take anywhere from 3-6 tries (depending on how much muscle you've got!).
- Cut tortillas into 8 triangles and set aside.
If frying
- Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C.
- Heat up a pot or frying pan over medium/high heat and add lard or frying oil of choice (a couple centimeters or so will do). Once hot, drop the triangles in batches of 3 to 5 at a time. Cook for just 3 to 5 seconds until just puffed, and flip them over immediately. Cook for just 3 to 5 more seconds and transfer to a paper towel lined plate. You want to keep your puffed chips as white as possible, as they'll continue to brown when baked.
- Transfer puffed tortilla chips to a baking tray (with a fitted rack or lined with parchment paper), and bake for 12 to 15 minutes until golden (flipping them over half way through). The tortilla chips will continue to crisp up while cooling.
If baking
- Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C.
- Place uncooked tortilla dough triangles in a parchment lined baking tray. Bake for 13-15 minutes, flipping half way through, until golden brown and hardened. The tortilla chips will continue to crisp up while cooling.
- If adding a topping, you'll need to brush them with olive oil (or oil of choice), in order for it to stick.
For the 'Dorito' dust (optional)
- Mix all ingredients in a ziplock bag, or run them through a high speed blender to fully mix and finely grind. Once your tortilla chips are done cooking, add them into the ziplock bag with the spices and mix until thoroughly coated. Allow them to cool completely, so they crisp up fully.
Notes
Nutrition
What’s Trending! 🏆
and some food (for thought) 👁️
a newsletter about functional food to nourish, create and evolve.
(p.s. we don’t talk about fight club 🪄 )
xo! Paola
I love these chips!!! I do have to say that most didn’t puff 🙁 but they taste pretty great! I might add a bit more salt next time but other than that pretty great.
Freezing the entire wrapped Brie would impact the baking time, no? Can you elaborate on temperature and time adjustments to account for a frozen block?
Instead of frying can they be baked?
there’s a sectioned titled ‘If Baking’ in the recipe card 😉
I’m on the GAPS diet and found your treasure trove of recipes yesterday! However, with GAPS, you can’t have xanthan gum. Is there a substitute I could use? I know you say in the recipes that the gum is necessary.
I made the basic chips today & my daughter who despises almonds inhaled them!
I would love to make salt & vinegar ones but not sure how to go about it. Any ideas welcome please!
I wouldn’t even try to do that. Salt and vinegar in chips is nothing but a combination of chemicals, and designed to hook you in and eat more of them. It’s a cunning science, not a practice to be emulated.
Bah humbug! ALL chips are designed to make you inhale them! Enjoy what you like!
I’ve made them Salt & Vinegar and they were great!! I use the Salt & Vinegar seasoning from Buffalo Wild Wings, which we use on wings at home too. I have experimented in great length with flavors of chips with this recipe with a great deal of success!!!!! It is a fantastic recipe and I’ll be making nachos this weekend!
I’m sure you’re a responsible adult and can decide for yourself if you’d like to make S&V Chips!! Good luck!
How about looking for the popcorn powdered toppings they must have a S&V one.
So I made the tortillas tonight… the taste was out of this world! But I cooked one too long and it made a great soft chip, the other two I cooked for less than 30 seconds and they were great, except they broke as soon as I folded them over my carnitas. Any suggestions?
I love the regular tortilla recipe. Made the chips to pair with Keto chili and they were perfect! I used my tortilla press and they puffed up perfectly! It is so nice to have my favorite comfort foods in a low carb way. One a side note, the tortilla press is a must ($25 on Amazon for a cast iron press) and you can use it to make your fathead pizza crusts as well. I made eight fat head crusts in a lot less than time it takes to press them out by hand. Think two seconds on the press as opposed to five minutes by hand. I make big batches so I can freeze them for quick meals on nights I don’t have time to cook. I have got to try your pizza crust recipe soon, Paola. It looks like heaven on a pizza pan!
Which is the
Best press to use
So good and not difficult to make at all.
This has been my go-to for tortillas since I first tried it a couple weeks ago. Tried the chips last night. I put them into the hot oil in my pan (about 1/4-1/2 inch). They bubbled and sizzled. Some puffed up, some didn’t, and the ones that puffed up seemed to deflate when I put them onto the tray afterward. I put them into the oven for the allotted time, and – as they tasted delicious – I only had about 2 that were still puffed up. Something I could be doing different? Thanks 🙂
Hi Erin! Try using a little less water next time, the dough will be stiffer but I’ve noticed it tends to puff up more (same with the tortillas). xo!
Thank you. I tried using half the amount of water yesterday, as I always use the amount of water called for in your recipe, but my tortillas themselves haven’t puffed up like they should when I’ve made them. I think too wet of a dough may be the culprit, as you suspected. Doughs tend to be a bit more “wet” where I live (Pacific Northwest) and usually have to cut out some water. So maybe I will try cutting the water out completely next time and see how it works out! It’s all cooking science and I love it 🙂
I’ve noticed that coconut flour varies A LOT in absorbency (and obviously eggs too). SO yes, maybe just cut out the water completely 😉
Paola, you are amazing, and sooooooo wonderful to share your Oh So creative and delicious recipes with the world! I thank you so much as I enter my second month of a keto lifestyle. My sister shared two recipes with me since she discovered you a few months ago ( has converted her entire family to a keto lifestyle now much in thanks to you). My husband, who has been quite skeptical of it, is also reallt enjoying many of your recipes and this could not be more exciting for me. You’re making this so much fun and the creative outlet I get from making your recipes and having new meals is just delightful. Huge thanks to you and all the long hours and work you put into your site, your beautifully detailed recipes and emails. A huge new fan, Amanda
P.s. These tortilla chips are such fun and I plan to try the cinnamon buns for our 20th as a surprise to my husband Saturday…..cinnamon buns are his favorites yet hardly eats them. Can’t wait…
Chilaquiles are in my future! Thank you so very much for putting these recipes out! I can make my favorite breakfasts again, with only a slight modification to the flavor profile, so I’m happy. Now, I just need to make a low-carb mole sauce…
What was the slight modification to the flavor profile?
I CANNOT even begin to express my gratitude to you for these! I missed tortilla chips so much since our family began keto. Not anymore!!!!! Thank you! FYI for anyone else wanting to make these…I made a quadruple batch plain in my stand mixer, for taco shells(same recipe), then just put the leftover shells on 2 cookie sheets, used a pizza cutter to make them triangles, baked for 15 mins. and we got to eat the rest of the guacamole with these!!! I’ll do the same thing again and keep them on hand for dipping with all sorts of dips!
Thank you for responding so quickly. I am going to make as the original serving states, for 8, I am sure it will all get eaten. What was I thinking…..LOL Thank you again.
I want to make these tonight, but I don’t have a weighing thing weigh out the ingredients. Any suggestions? Thank you so much!
Click on US Cups below the ingredients 😉 xo!
I am only making enough for 2 people. So the measurements are a bit unsure.
Unfortunately because there is one whole egg it probably won’t turn out great unless you do the whole batch- but you can make a lot of other things with the dough (stove top pizza, ravioli, tortillas…)
Hi Paola, I was just wondering if you’ve ever experimented this recipe using sweet corn extract? It’s rather spendy, but a little goes a long way. I used it (1/4 tsp)
in a faux corn bread skillet and it gave it that corn-bready taste. I was just wondering if a little in here would give them the true corn chip taste. What do you think? I’m really excited to try these.
Jenny I actually didn’t even know corn extract was a thing! I would definitely love to try it out in the tortillas. If you do would you mind reporting back?!
Not to be weird…but I think I love you!😂😂 I usually never leave a comment after I’ve tried anyone’s recipes but I just had to Thank you so much for your tortilla and chips recipes! Mine never puffed up but I did I nly baked them. They were still amazing though!!😍 Can’t wait to try more of your stuff!
Literally cracking up Shannon! So happy to hear these worked out so well, enjoy! 😉 and yup, if you want them puffy you’ll want to try them fried first (a bit longer, but seriously worth the effort!) xo!
Hi Paola!
Quick question, how do you account for the cooking oil calories being added to the fried chips? I know you calculated the chips with the oil but where do you get the number? The tortillas are 80 cals each, then you add 1g of fat per tortilla? Is there any way to actually tell how much fat the frying oil adds? Thanks a bunch!
I Devyn! I don’t believe I accounted for the oil (honestly impossible to calculate accurately without special equipment). At the very least it’s only fats, so you won’t be adding any carbs :-S!!xo!
It’s really important to get these thin. You will probably be able to see through them at the edges if you handroll them like I did. These were phenomenal though!! Another perfect recipe!
So happy you loved them Devyn! And thanks for reporting back and emphasizing on the thinness- it really is important! xo!
I was just wondering how many are in a serving. I keep seeing all these good recipes on line, with the nutritional info per serving, but no one says how much a serving is… It’s really frustrating to me…
Hi Rick! Right above the nutrition label it reads: Please note that we estimated nutrition facts for a 30g fried serving (i.e. one tortilla = 8 chips). Uncooked, the dough should weigh 26g. And one batch will yield 8 tortillas = 64 chips (number of servings is always in the upper part of the recipe card).
These have become a staple for us! They puff up so nicely and end up nice and crisp. We’ve used a bunch of oils here, and lard is very nice but since we cannot get hold of it always we’ve been using refined coconut oil as of late and it also works great. Particularly yummy also with your spicy topping 🙂
I suppose finding lard depends on your area of the country. I find it in my local HEB grocery store. We have a Walmart, but I haven’t looked there.
I haven’t tried the recipe yet, but I will as soon as I have the rest of the ingredients. I’m new to the low carb culture.
So I made the tortilla’s for the first time Saturday night and was very pleased!! I kept 3 of my dough balls wrapped up in the fridge to make chips another night… that night was tonight and I’m so happy. I made a version on your chili on Saturday… it was mostly your recipe but I had to change up a few spices based on what I had and keeping the heat at the right temp for my husbands tastebuds. I give you the accolades because the chili is awesome!!
Anywho… I digress… I used the chili inside lettuce tacos! Gnoms!! Since I had 4 perfectly ripe avocados on the counters I made a batch of guacamole and decided to roll out the 3 balls of dough I had left! They were great! I didn’t use the spice recipes you have listed (YET) but used some pink salt and garlic powder. They were tasty and I’ll be making them again in the near future!!
Thanks again… another successful recipe!
Rolled thin, 8 tortillas per batch, followed exactly, baked and didn’t even puff in the slightest. Taste is off too. :(. Not sure what went wrong.
Hi Heather! For them to puff up completely you must fry them first! The picture below the cooking section is what they look like baked (uneven puffing).
Now, I’m not in the kitchen with you so I cannot tell you what went wrong but here are a few pointers:
– the flours vary A LOT brand by brand, also taste wise. Also how you store them can have an effect as well as almond and coconut can soak up moisture.
– the surface on your tray. Metallic with parchment works best as it conducts heat (baking mats would prevent puffing here)
– too much liquid? if your dough is too soft you are probably adding too much liquid (now this can come from very large eggs or even cup measuring…).
– for consistent results I always suggest the scale.
Hope this helps! xo Paola
Since you mentioned “how you store them” In your reply to Heather, exactly how do you store all of the different flours and other odd ingredients for all of these Keto recipes? I read somewhere that they can sometimes have an odd taste if they are old.
So I’m in love with these tortilla chips! We have made them twice this week alone! Ours never puffed up but they still tasted amazing and were really crunchy. But as I was making them the last time, I couldn’t help but notice how sturdy and wonton wrapper like the dough is once flattened. Do you think I could use them as a wonton wrapper to make some homemade keto wonton soup? Or even pan fried/steamed wontons? I think either way I’m going to try it tonight – I just didn’t know if you had any suggestions. Thank you!
Cant get then to puff up. Rolled out different thicknesses even paper thin and they didnt puff either. Any chance you could do a video making them. Any other suggestions.
Hi Angella! Well that’s definitely not good! Can I ask what brand of xanthan gum you’re using? What oil are you using for and is it VERY hot? I cannot think of what else would be causing them not to puff…
I’m working on a video and have already shot the part where they’re put in the oil and puff up. Ff you shoot me an email to info@gnom-gnom.com I can gladly send you that part so you see more or less how it goes.
Otherwise the full video won’t be ready for a few more weeks (we’re doing a composite with another recipe). xo! Paola
Are these good the next day or do they need to be eaten the same day?
Hi Tami! We found that this depends a bit on your climate and how well you store them? In an airtight container and a normal climate you’ll be good!
But we whipped them up by the seaside just last week and had to pop them back in the oven the next day for a quick dry out.
Such awesome recipes thank you! Any chance you’ve a bread that doesn’t smell of rotten eggs?!
Definitely working on it 😉 thanks for getting back to us Stan! xo
Your tortillas are already a staple in our home! I had also already been making chips for guac with them, but cooking them first and then cutting them up and lightly toasting them. It was hard to keep them from over browning, as you mentioned… but still tasty so tbh no one cared!
I decided to give them a go raw in the oven yesterday and WOW! I went ahead and brushed them with some olive oil at the start and sprinkled some pink salt. Almost all of them puffed up, though maybe not as even as yours which were fried! But they were AWESOME! Took about 15 minutes to get them all nice and golden and the whole family loved them!
I forgot to ask: I want to give frying them a go but I don’t want to use lard as I cannot find it organic… do you think something like coconut oil would work? Thank you! Mary Anne
Hi Mary Anne! So glad you’re enjoying the tortillas!
If you’re good with the taste of coconut oil then go for it! They really only need a small amount of oil to puff up, so any vegetable oil will do (expect olive oil, which you really should never use for frying).
xo! Paola
Use refined coconut oil if you want the oil to be flavorless!! That’s what I use so everything doesn’t taste like coconut! Works perfectly!
I’m really looking forward to making these… hopefully tomorrow…
Can we use this recipe to make soft tortillas?
Hi Yvette! You can, as it’s the same recipe we use for our pliable keto tortillas. I would advise you to check out the post on how to whip those up here:
http://www.gnom-gnom.com/grain-free-keto-tortillas/
xo! Paola
what happens if i just fry them? they stay soft but cooked?
any idea on air frying?
Hi Soraya! They do indeed cook, but never crisp up… it seems that the coconut and almond flour simply soak it up rather than crunch up. So you need to subsequently dry them out in the oven for a few.
I’m unsure about the air frying. I am certain they would cook, but I cannot tell you if they will puff.
In my experience, it’s the immediate high heat of the oil which makes them puff almost instantaneously…. which is why in the oven they puff up somewhat (but more unevenly).
Hope this helps! xo Paola
NO WAY???!!! I LOVE your tortillas!
Thank you Jenny! 😉