Sugar-free and keto candied pecans make a quick and easy snack, crunchy topping for salads, or even served as part of your holiday dessert table.

You won't believe you can whip up a batch of low carb candied pecans in only 5 minutes! While you can actually make candied nuts either on the stovetop or in the oven, our favorite way to cook a quick small batch to use as a recipe garnish or as an easy snack is on the stovetop. It's a WHOLE LOTTA YUM!

It's possible instead of candied pecans you've heard these called keto pralines. You can use the terms interchangeably and they're both quickly cooked pecans in a caramel sauce made from butter, sweetener, and salt. Pralines are a common way to refer to caramelized pecans in the south, so maybe in Atlanta, these are keto pralines but where I'm at in the Pacific Northwest, people would be more likely to call them keto candied pecans or even keto glazed pecans. 

Low Carb Candied Pecans

This has been my husband's late-night quick snack since not many snacks can beat a tasty low carb sweet treat like warm, sweet, and salty nuts. While he usually prefers pecans, you can make keto candied pecans with almost any low carb nut variety.

For me personally, I just love adding them to salads like a roasted chicken, with low carb berries and avocado salad. These also taste fantastic sprinkled on beet salad with feta. 

What we especially appreciate about keto candied pecans is that they work for almost everyone, especially around the holidays. They're low carb, gluten free, vegetarian, and could even be vegan and dairy-free with a butter substitute.

Why You'll Love These Candied Nuts

• The sugar-free candied pecans only take 5 minutes to cook on the stovetop
• Numerous types of low carb sweeteners work in this recipe including Swerve erythritol or Lakanto monkfruit
• They not only make a great snack but they're a perfect addition to a healthy salad, on a hot veggie dish, or a charcuterie board.
• The whole recipe needs just 4 basic ingredients!

Some of our recipes that would be great with this keto candied nuts recipe include adding them to a healthy charcuterie board, swapping the sunflower seeds in keto broccoli salad for keto pecans or adding them to our low carb beet and feta salad.

And if you're always on the lookout for more low carb sweet snacks then you'll want to try our 3 ingredient keto peanut butter cookies, chocolate peanut butter fat bombs, or our 5-minute keto chocolate mousse. 

Are Candied Pecans Keto?

When you first think of the sweet treat candied pecans it's instantly easy to wonder if they're even keto-friendly or possible to adapt to keto. Sugar-laden treats definitely aren't approved on a low carb diet.

Thankfully with numerous keto-approved sweeteners are the market than can easily be swapped 1:1 in recipes for granulated sugar, one serving of keto candied pecans with butter only have 2 net carbs per serving.

Carbs in Pecans

Pecans are considered one of the lowest carb nuts, being that they only have 1 net carb per 1 ounce serving. A one-ounce serving is about 20 pecans, with 4 total carbs and 3 grams of fiber, 1 oz of pecans makes for a fantastic low carb nut.

Other low carb nuts you could use in this recipe for keto glazed nuts could be almonds, macadamia nuts, or hazelnuts. 

Ingredients

There are actually two different keto-friendly sweeteners we use in cooking, which one I use often depends on the price at the time. My personal favorite is the Lakanta Monfruit, but Swerve Erythritol seems to be more popular (maybe it costs a little less or is easier to find?)

Swerve Erythritol Brown

Lakanta Monkfruit Golden

Your friends and family will never know the sugar-free candied pecans don't have refined sugar! The brown sugar keto-friendly substitute we use tastes just like the real deal. 

• Pecan halves
• keto-friendly "brown sugar" sweetener ( we used this brand)
• butter
• sea salt

Supplies You'll Need

You don't need much to make sugar free glazed nuts, but this is what we used:

• Metal Spatula
• Medium Aluminum Skillet

You can also use a non-stick pan for this recipe if you prefer, just this particular batch I made was in an aluminum fry pan. Both types of pans work great!

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How to Make

Preheat a small to medium-sized skillet over medium-low heat. 

Add the butter until it's melted.

Add the pecans, monk fruit sweetener (or erythritol), and pinch of salt to the pan.

Stir the keto glazed pecans until the monk fruit is melted and the nuts are toasted, this will take about 4-5 minutes to cook.

Make sure to constantly stir the keto candied pecans so that the butter mixture doesn't burn.

The caramelized butter and"sugar" sauce will be runny at first, but as you let it sit it hardens very quickly. 

Serve warm or at room temperature. Enjoy!

Recipe Tips

• Either a non-stick skillet or stainless steel will work
• Don't leave the nuts unattended on the stovetop, butter and nuts burn quickly and your snack will go from delicious to ewww quickly 😉
• Feel free to use a variety of nuts to make a tasty keto nut snack mix
• We used golden keto sweetener, a granulated low carb sweetener should work also.
• Mix in melted chocolate or a splash of bourbon or even bacon. Add cayenne pepper to make keto spiced pecans.

Common Questions

What Kind of Pecans to Use?

For this exact batch of keto candied pecans, we used roasted and salted pecan halves. We were using the nuts as a salad topper so we didn't mind if some of the nuts were halves or small little bits. 

If you're planning to cook these as a snack or to put on a holiday dessert table, using whole pecans would look more uniform in size.

While our pecans were also salted and roasted, you can definitely use unsalted or raw nuts too! Just make sure to check the seasoning and you might need to add a little more salt to the finished batch.

What Other Types of Nuts Work?

You can also use walnuts, macadamia nuts, almonds, or hazelnuts

More Keto Snacks

•  Parmesan Crisps
• 30 No Carb Snacks + Free Printable!
• The 14 Best Keto Candies to Buy

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