Keto Sugar Cookies – Low Carb Recipe (with frosting!)
I had someone email recently asking me why I didn’t have more cookie recipes on the site. I’d say low carb cookies are the hardest to get right. They take a lot of testing and trials, and I usually get frustrated long before I ever get to the point I want. But I love cookies. I would say I would take a cookie over a piece of cheesecake any day, so long as the cookie was GOOD. So are these frosted keto sugar cookies good? Yes, yes, they are!
These keto cookies are soft and cake-like and melt in your mouth. They are not overly dry, but they are not moist, chewy cookies either, they land somewhere in between, just like traditional sugar cookies! The sprinkles on the top are also low carb and keto-friendly, and if you want the recipe, you can hop on over to this post.
The frosting is a half-sweet cream cheese whipped topping that I feel compliments them very well.
These are pretty big cookies too, they are thick, and 3 inches in diameter and still only clock in at five net carbs. If you made them smaller, you could cut the carbs even more, but you know sometimes you just want a big cookie, and in that case, this recipe works very well.
This recipe is:
- Keto-Friendly
- Low Carb
- Gluten-Free
Keto Sugar Cookies with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting
The great thing about sugar cookies is their versatility. You can change up the flavors with different flavor oils, or the frosting, or anything you want.
The sugar cookies are great without the frosting dipped or drizzled in chocolate because let’s get real; anything dipped in chocolate is goooooood!
If you don’t like the thickness of the cookies, you can make them thinner, just watch the baking time. And yes, you can even roll the dough and do cut-out sugar cookies, just make sure your dough is very cold when you roll it out. The easiest way to do this is between two pieces of parchment paper. Use cookie cutters to cut out your shapes before the dough warms up too much.
Thinner cookies also make great sandwich cookies! You can get quite creative with this recipe.
Related: Do you love cream-cheese in your desserts as much as I do? Check out my cheesecake-stuffed pumpkin bread!
What Sweeteners Work Best for this recipe?
~This post may contain affiliate links. If you click one and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. I only ever recommend the ingredients or tools I use for my recipes. You can read more about our disclosure policy here ~
I tested this keto sugar cookie recipe with powdered erythritol. The powdered sweeteners like monk fruit and erythritol have a better texture, and tend to have the least amount of aftertaste, so I recommend them. The powdered sweetener creates a softer cookie without a lot of grain. I like So Nourished Monk Fruit Blend and Surkin Icing.
Powdered erythritol, monk fruit, or blends of both work great in the frosting recipe.
Swerve would work here as well, or any of your favorite granular blends like xylitol or erythritol.
Liquid sweeteners like stevia will throw off the dry-to-wet ingredient ratio, and I don’t recommend them for this recipe, unless you want to do some testing on your own.
Answers about Sweeteners, Low Carb Baking Tips, and General FAQ
For more detailed information about must-have baking tools and answers about sugar replacements, you can check out these FAQ pages.
We also have a handy sweetener replacement chart you can download for free!
Our FAQ Pages have answers to your biggest low carb baking questions including:
Tips for Baking With Almond Flour
Tips for Baking with Coconut Flour
Guides for Allulose, Monk Fruit, and Erythritol.
Substitutes for Xanthan Gum.
Tips for the sugar cookie dough
- Make sure your eggs, butter, and cream cheese are at room temperature before blending.
- Don’t skip the protein powder. It’s the ingredient that binds everything together in this recipe and holds the cookies together.
- Be sure to wrap your dough in plastic wrap and store it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before forming into cookies.
- A large ice cream scoop or 1/4 cup measuring cup will create the perfect size cookies. Scoop and roll dough into even balls.
- Once the cookies are formed into balls, push down with your fingers to flatten. I tried using a cup, and it only made a mess. Fingers worked best!
Baking tips To make the perfect keto sugar cookie
- Use a heavy-duty cookie sheet. If you do not have a heavy-duty cookie sheet, doubling up the pan with another cookie sheet will do the trick. No second pan? Use a layer of tin foil to protect the bottom of your sheet. Almond flour and coconut flour over-brown, and protecting the bottom of the cookie sheet ensures an even golden brown bake.
- Keep an eye out on the cookies around the 12-14 minute mark. We want the sugar cookies to be just starting to brown a bit around the edges.
- Line your baking sheets with a piece of parchment paper. This will prevent the cookies form sticking, and make it easy to transfer them to a cooling rack.
- Let the cookies cool on the pan for 10 minutes before removing them. They will be soft (just like a regular cookie) when first out of the oven, and we need to give them time to set.
Storage & Serving suggestions
I used my go-to frosting recipe because I find it’s not super sweet, and it doesn’t have that weird aftertaste when you use too much sweetener. But you can use any of your favorite low carb frostings or toppings, or even eat them plain. The frosting recipe below is very soft at room temperature, and it is better if the keto sugar cookies get stored in the refrigerator. With that said, I personally like the cookies themselves at room temperature. They are softer and more melt in your mouth, so it’s a bit of a catch-22 here. You could store your frosting in the fridge, and your cookies on the counter, and frost them as you need them.
The cookies themselves, unfrosted, store brilliantly in the freezer.
No matter where you store these low carb keto sugar cookies, I recommend using an airtight container.
Also, to up the melt in your mouth feeling, a hot beverage is highly recommended.
Looking for more Keto Cookie Recipes?
Are you looking for more cookie recipes that won’t ruin your keto diet? Try these ones out for a sweet treat:
- Low Carb Halloween Cookies – With Monster Fur and Googly Eyes
- Keto Gingerbread Cookies – Gluten and Sugar Free!
- Keto Lemon Cookie Recipe With Lemon Chocolate Glaze
- Low Carb Keto Pumpkin Cookies – Soft & Chewy!
- Easy Keto Chocolate Chip Cookies – Soft, Chewy, and Amazing!
- Almond Flour Thumbprint Cookies (Low Carb & Keto Friendly)
Editorial Note: This recipe was originally published on April 8, 2020, and was updated on March 1, 2022.
Melt In Your Mouth Frosted Keto Sugar Cookies
These keto frosted sugar cookies are melt in your mouth soft with a cream cheese frosting that doesn't taste overly sweet. The vanilla really shines in these little treats.
Ingredients
Sugar Cookies
- 2 ounces cream cheese
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup powdered erythritol
- 1 large egg
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/3 cup almond flour
- 1/3 cup coconut flour
- 2 Tbsp protein powder
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
Frosting
- 1/2 cup whipping cream
- 1/3 cup powdered erythritol
- 1 cup (8 ounces) full-fat cream cheese
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 drops pink food coloring
Instructions
Sugar Cookies
- Cream butter and cream cheese in a large bowl until the mixture is soft and spreadable.
- Add sweetener, vanilla, and egg to the butter and cream cheese mixture and mix on high until well blended.
- Add remaining dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and blend on low until ingredients are well incorporated.
- Wrap cookie dough in plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to cool.
- Preheat oven to 325F and line a heavy-duty cookie sheet with parchment. * See notes below about baking sheet.
- Once the cookie dough is cooled, drop 1/4 cup round balls of dough onto your prepared cookie sheet. Press each dough ball flat with your fingers. The dough does not spread a lot, so the shape you create is the shape you will end up with, so try to flatten the dough evenly.
- Bake in a 325F oven for 14-16 minutes until the outside edges of the cookies just start to brown. Do not over bake.
- Frost with your favorite keto or low carb frosting
Low Carb Frosting
- Cube one cup of cold full-fat cream cheese and mix with a stand mixer or hand mixer for 1 minute, until the cream cheese has no lumps. Scrape down the sides of the bowl if necessary.
- Add vanilla, food colouring, and powdered erythritol.
- Add 1/2 cup of full-fat whipping cream to the bowl and mix on low for 30 seconds, until blended with cream cheese. Turn up to medium and then high until the whipped cream and cream cheese fluff up and resemble buttercream frosting.
- Do not overbeat. Over beating will cause the mixture to liquefy.
Notes
1. If you do not have a heavy-duty commercial cookie sheet my recommendation is to either double up your pans by sliding an extra pan under the one you are using, or wrap the bottom of your cookie sheet with tin foil. Almond flour and coconut flour tend to over-brown and we need to protect the bottom of the cookies while they bake.
2. Do not skip the protein powder. The protein powder replaces gluten and helps the cookie to stabilize and give it structure. Without the protein powder, the cookies will fall apart. You can use any flavor of protein powder you want.
3. Do not skip cooling your dough in the refrigerator, if you skip this step the cookies will not hold their shape and will spread and flatten when baked.
Recommended Products
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 9 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 313Total Fat: 28gSaturated Fat: 13gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 14gCholesterol: 73mgSodium: 170mgCarbohydrates: 8gNet Carbohydrates: 5gFiber: 3gSugar: 2gProtein: 9g
Nutritional information for the recipe is provided as a courtesy and is approximate only. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the nutritional information given for any recipe on this site. Erythritol carbs (and sugar alcohols) are not included in carb counts as it has been shown not to impact blood sugar. Net carbs are the total carbs minus fibre.
These look amazing! Any chance you could substitute psyllium husk for protein powder to bind them? Thanks!
Hi Jenna, I didn’t test psyllium husk powder so I can’t say for sure. I have used it in other recipes with success for binding, so in theory, it should work … ah, but I can’t say for sure without testing. I am also not sure what it will do to the texture since psyllium tends to add a bit of toughness. You can sub the protein powder with 1/4 tsp xantham gum but you will need to increase the almond flour by 1 1/2 tbsp. I did test xantham gum and it was good, but it didn’t create a soft texture as the protein powder did, so I went with the better of the two recipes for the site. With that said, the xanthan gum cookies are good too, just a tiny bit different in the texture. I hope that helps!
I don’t have protein powder! Can I use xanthan gum?
Hey Karen, it’s funny, I usually always use Xanthan gum but for this recipe, I had better results with the protein powder. You can sub 1/4 tsp of xanthum gum for the protein powder. Add an additional 1 1/2 tbsp of almond flour to the recipe to make up for the missing dry ingredients. Cheers!
What kind of protein powder did you use?
Hi Ali, I use Genepro because that’s what I had access to (stole it from my husband’s stash!), but any low carb protein powder will work. If you don’t have protein powder you can replace it with flax 1:1 (will change the flavour a bit), or Xanthan gum ( 1/4 tsp) but add in 2 TBS of additional almond flour to make up the missing dry ingredients. Hope that helps!
My cookies spread when cooking. What did I do wrong? 🤔😪
Hi Ismay. Sorry, your cookies spread! If the butter was melted, or very warm, the dough may not have had enough time to cool in the fridge. The dough needs to be cool to the touch before shaping and placing in the oven.
Can I replace erthyritol with xilytol?
Thanks for sharing the recipe . It looks yummy.
Hi Reem, you can, no problem. You can swap them out at a 1:1 ratio. Cheers!
Just made these tonight for my husband who’s been craving sugar cookies, they are amazing! Thanks for sharing!
So glad you and your husband enjoyed these Morgan! And thanks so much for leaving a comment, it’s always appreciated.
These look like the Sodalicious/Swig cookies that I have been making for a few years now. They are soooooo good, but so much regular sugar!
I wanted to make these, so based on the first recipe I made from your blog, (Blueberry Jam) Can I use allulose in the cookie and powdered allulose in the frosting? And of course based on their ratio of conversion to yours. Thanks for your help!
Hey Gino, you sure can. Actually Allulose will be better in these cookies, no cooling sensation whatsoever and it will add a bit of extra chewiness. I have had people email to say they though the sugar cookies were not sweet enough. I tend to lean toward less sweetener in these because I am so used it to, but if you like sweet sweet cookies you may want to add a bit more allulose to the recipe. Cheers!
Thank you! Making them on Monday. Will let you know. I tend to not like too sweet either. So, I’ll let you know how they come out. Wish you could post pics here. Thank you again Laura.
The cookies were the perfect sweetness. I decided that I can always make the frosting sweeter, if I felt the cookie wasn’t sweet enough. 🙂 But everything was the perfect sweetness. I think I may even add a pinch of sea salt to the frosting the next time I make it. Thanks so much for such a great site.
Hi Laura,
I attempted to make your recipe today. I had partial success. The frosting came out great! However, my cookies came out very soft. It almost had an underdone feel. I have a very accurate new oven. And even have an oven thermometer inside just in case. I baked them with the convection setting, and baked them for the full 6 minutes. The ends of the cookies started to turn brown. So, I figured they were done. I didn’t want to overbake them. Once they cooled in the pan, I put them on a cooling rack and they really didn’t set up, it didn’t spread, and kept its shape. I could take one and literally it would bend in half. The cookie was really tasty though. 🙂 I double checked my ingredients and the only thing that I could think of was the protein powder. I used whey isolate protein powder and not regular protein powder. Could that have been the mistake? I’ll have to go out and get some actually and hopefully you’ll have an answer for me before I go. I want to make this again the right way. Thanks for your help! There are so many recipes that I want to try on here I can’t wait for my next pick.
Hi Gino, a few things. The first one is if the cookies were only baked for 6 minutes, that’s likely the problem. Not sure if you meant to type 16, or if there was an error in the baking time or not, but if that 6 minute baking time is correct on your end, that would be why. Convection ovens tend to brown quicker than conventional ovens, so you do have to watch that, especially with almond or coconut flour recipes. But as for the isolate protein powder, I don’t see that having a major impact on the cookies, in the end, it should act it’s part the same way as simple protein powder.
Hi Laura,
My apologies, that was 16 minutes and not 6 minutes. At 325 F convection, so that would be more like 300 F. Once again, the shape looked great, but it was soft and really bendy. It tasted more like cake, rather than a cookie. So, I don’t know exactly where I went wrong. It was also a little on the greasy side. Can you over process your dough? I don’t think that I did, I mixed it in my stand mixer until just well incorporated. I will try this again tomorrow as your example looks amazing. Will chime back in with my results.
Also, think I am going to make your cream cheese chocolate bundt cake. I can’t remember the name. Thank you again for your recipes!
I think the temperature was your issue. At 300 degrees, it didn’t cook high enough to actually cook the cookies, but because it was convection it quickly browned the cookies. You can overwork the dough, I’d mix it until it is just blended and holds together. I make these cookies often, but I don’t find them greasy, that could be an indication that there was an error with the butter measurement. Greasy, like sweet, is sometimes a personal preference too – just because I don’t find them greasy doesn’t mean someone else would. These cookies are also cakey and soft and should melt in your mouth. They are not crisp.
Hi Laura!
So made these cookies again and they were perfect. After going through everything that I did in the first batch, I think I figured out where I went wrong.
I was multitasking and baking a low carb bread at the same time. The mistake a believe was that I added Psyllium Husk to the cookies rather than the protein powder. UGH! THe cookies were a hit and also the cream cheese frosting. I think that I will use powdered allulose instead of Swerve. It had that aftertaste that I don’t like.
Have you tried to make your own powdered sugars using a coffee grinder? And is it the same as the powdered allulose or erythritol that you normally buy?
Thanks again for the great recipes and trying to do something once a week from your site.
Hey Gino, I absolutely love the feedback, good bad or even indifferent, but I am super glad the cookies turned out for you. I’m also not a fan of the cooling sensation from erythritol and when a recipe calls for a lot of sweeteners I usually turn to or recommend allulose (I’m kinda in love with it right now!). In a pinch, if I am out of powdered sweetener I will use my Vitamix to make a powdered version. It works quite well! It still has a tiny wee bit of graininess to it, but you barely notice in baked goods. Thanks so much for the support Gino too, I really appreciate you visiting the site and trying the recipes AND leaving your wonderful feedback. Cheers!
Made these cookies yesterday. I followed recipe exactly. I have thick cookie sheets, I thought. However, still the cookies browned too quickly on the bottom. Placed foil on the bottom of the cookie sheet, as suggested, worked great. Cookies “set up” nicely after refrigerated overnight. I’ve been searching for a thicker sugar cookie (keto recipe), that is soft and chewy. This recipe delivered! Instead of vanilla I used 2 tsp cake batter extract. Frosted with a buttercream frosting. Finally sugar cookie heaven. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe, Laura!
Isn’t it crazy how much a difference a little bit of tinfoil makes? I tried everything and could not get those cookies baked properly until I doubled the pan. SO happy that you enjoyed them Dawn, and the cake batter extract sounds SO good, I am definitely going to try that the next time I make them. Thank you so much for leaving your feedback and comments, they are always super appreciated!
Hi
These cookies sound so good! Are these cookies to soft to use for a fruit pizza base? If so, what could you recommend to get them a little harder to hold up the fruit?
Key Christa,you could roll them thinner and cook the for the same amount of time and I think they would work great for a fruit pizza base!
Followed the recipe except used xanthum gum because I didn’t have protein powder. I used 1 tbsp instead of the 2 tbsps that the recipe stated. They taste great! Thank you!
What is the best way to store them? Do you store them in the refrigerator or have your tried freezing them? I made a double batch for Christmas so just wondering the best way to have them hold up for the next few days.
Hey Lacey, SUPER appreciate the feedback. I know readers are always curious about what works with replacements. So glad you liked them too! You can freeze them unfrosted for up to a month. When you defrost them they turn a tiny bit soft, but not enough to ruin the texture (at least I don’t find it does). Since you used a full tablespoon of xanthan gum, I think you are ok to freeze and defrost and not worry at all about them falling apart. I store them in the fridge for 3-4 days before I feel they start to lose their best texture. Cheers!
Do you happen to know how much 2 tbs of protein powder weighs in grams? I’ve gotten pretty detailed with weighing my ingredients for keto recipes and my protein power only tells me how many grams are in a scoop. Thanks – I can’t wait to try these.
Hey Jenny, I just measured mine (I used Genpro) and it’s 25 grams per tablespoon. Hope that helps!
Thanks for letting me know. I just weighted my isopure and it is between 5 and 6 grams per tablespoon, so quite a difference. I will play around with it and see what works.
Hey Jenny, just to check I went and tried a different protein powder we have kicking around and it was 18 grams. I also checked around and most say that a scoop has 3 tablespoons and the grams can range from 15-25. 6 grams seems really low and I just want to make sure you’re using a tablespoon and not a teaspoon. It’s such a wild variance on the measurement that I want to verify so I can put the notes into the recipe for other users. Thanks so much!
Does the nutrition facts include the frosting?.. Or is just each sugar cookie 5nc..??
I steph the nutritional information includes all ingredients used in the recipe including the icing, cheers!
Are you using unflavored protein powder?
Hi Nicole, yes I am using unflavored, but vanilla works just fine too. Cheers
Do you have to add the protein powder? My son is allergic and can’t have it.
Hi Emily, the protein powder is to help give the cookies stability. You can replace it with 1/4 tsp of xanthan gum or 2 tsps of flax meal. The flax meal will change the taste a bit, but it will work to help keep the cookies together. Cheers!