You can’t deny the deliciousness of maple syrup, especially on pancakes for breakfast. But is maple syrup keto? Unfortunately, no. Even if you made keto pancakes, topping them with maple syrup will kick you right out of ketosis. 

Luckily, there are sugar-free maple syrup brands and recipes for making your own at home. This blog will explore all of these different options for enjoying maple syrup on the keto diet.

How Many Carbs in Maple Syrup?

According to the USDA, maple syrup has 13 grams of net carbs per tablespoon. I don’t know about you, but I’d eat way more than one tablespoon of maple syrup on my pancakes!

A serving size of maple syrup is a quarter cup. If you ate the quarter cup of syrup, this would be a whopping 55 grams of net carbs and would completely kick you out of ketosis. 

Is Pure Maple Syrup Keto?

Pure maple syrup is a sugar-containing product that is derived from sugar maple trees. During the early springtime, maple trees are tapped in order to produce sap for eventual boiling down to produce syrup rich with manganese, calcium, zinc, potassium and magnesium.

Although this may be a natural product, pure maple syrup still contains too many carbohydrates for you to eat on keto because it has about 55 net grams of carbs per serving.

Is Lakanto Maple Syrup Keto Friendly?

Lakanto maple flavored syrup is a popular choice for keto. It has 1 gram of net carbs per serve (serving size is 2 tablespoons). This makes Lakanto maple syrup keto friendly when used in small amounts.

Is Organic Maple Syrup Keto?

Organic maple syrup unfortunately isn’t suitable for the ketogenic diet. Whilst it may still be a natural food, and harvested without the use of pesticides to make it organic, it still contains the same sugar content.

Is Sugar Free Maple Syrup Keto Friendly?

 Not all sugar free maple syrups are created equally. This is where you will need to read the ingredients list and check for ingredients like sorbitol, sucralose and other sugar alcohols and artificial sweeteners that are not great for keto.

Better choices are natural occurring sweeteners such as monk fruit, erythritol or allulose. 

These brands of sugar free maple syrups contain sucralose and/or sorbitol:

  • Maple Grove
  • Walden Farms
  • Steeves 
  • Queen
  • Cary’s
  • Log Cabin
  • Joseph’s (contains maltitol)
  • Smucker’s

Note: Mrs Butter-worth’s sugar free syrups don’t contain sucralose, but do have corn syrup and molasses on the ingredients list. Both corn syrup and molasses are not keto friendly.

What is the Best  Keto Maple Syrup?

My top choices for store bought keto friendly maple syrups are:

Is Yacon Syrup Keto?

Yacon syrup has 3 grams of net carbs per teaspoon. Whilst it is plant based and low GI, 3 grams of net carbs per teaspoon is quite high overall for a syrup, and I wouldn’t consider this keto friendly.

If you want to eat this on keto, you will need to adjust your macros accordingly and eat sparingly.

Can You Make Your Own Keto Pancake Syrup?

Absolutely! It is easy to make maple flavored syrup at home using maple extract, a natural sweetener like monk fruit sweetener and a xantham gum to thicken. 

Here are the links to my favorite keto maple syrup recipe online:

The Big Mans World – Arman adds butter extract as well as maple extract and it’s a good choice!

Wholesome Yum – If you don’t want to buy Maya’s sugar-free syrup above, make her recipe instead.

Low Carb Yum – Lisa adds vanilla extract to her sugar-free maple syrup for a twist.

Conclusion – Is Maple Syrup Keto?

Despite the naturally occurring vitamins and minerals in traditional maple syrup, the high sugar content does not make it suitable to eat on the keto diet.

When buying commercially prepared sugar-free pancake syrup or maple syrup substitutes, read the ingredients label carefully to check for added artificial sugars that could spike blood sugar levels and kick you out of ketosis. These, sometimes labeled as sugar-free or keto-friendly syrup, are really not the best choices for the keto diet.

Making your own keto-friendly syrup at home is easy, with links above to three great keto syrup recipes. Don’t forget to check out my keto condiments category for more information. I’ve also made a delicious low carb honey mustard chicken recipe using sugar free maple syrup.