Is Zucchini Keto? Squashing Carbs with Zucchini

While vegetables are often seen as “diet foods” and inherently healthy, certain vegetables are not allowed on the ketogenic diet. Starchy vegetables are high in carbohydrates and are therefore avoided on a low-carbohydrate diet. Other vegetables, however, are not only acceptable to eat on a ketogenic diet, but encouraged. That brings into question squashes. Is zucchini keto? Let’s go over it!

What Is Zucchini? Is It The Same As Squash?

All zucchini are squash, but not all squash are zucchini. In fact, zucchini is actually a summer squash.

What might surprise you is that zucchini is actually not a vegetable. Similar to tomatoes, peppers, peas, and eggplant, most people incorrectly classify zucchini as a veggie. However, zucchini is actually a fruit since it grows from the flowering part of its plant and has seeds.

Zucchini Nutrition Information

A 100g serving of zucchini (about half a medium zucchini) has 21 calories, 2.7g of protein, 0.4g of fat, 3.11g of carbohydrates, 1.1g of fiber, and 2.1g net carbs. ^[1]

Zucchini is also a great source of vitamin A, vitamin B6, vitamin C, and manganese.

Is Zucchini Keto?

One whole zucchini (around 200g) has 6g of total carbs, 2g of fiber, and 4g of net carbs. Because of the low net carb count, zucchini is considered a low-carb, keto-friendly vegetable. In fact, zucchini is actually used as a common low-carb alternative to pasta and other wheat-based products.

Keto Zucchini Recipes

So now that you know that zucchini is keto-friendly, you might want to try out a new zucchini-based recipe! Here are a few tasty, low-carb recipes featuring zucchini!

• Zucchini Pizza Bites
• Stuffed Zucchini Boats
• Avocado Zoodles (zucchini noodles)
• Zucchini Patties
• Zucchini Lasagna
• Walnut Bread with Maple Butter