As I was munching on some fatty rillettes, I thought about it being a perfect food for folks on low carb and/or no plant diets such as keto, carnivore and Zero Carb. For this article, I came up with eight good reasons to eat rillettes on a low carb lifestyle.

8 reasons to eat rillettes when following a keto, carnivore or Zero Carb way of eating:

1. They’re low carb by design – no substitutions required!
2. Most recipes require few to zero vegetables.
3. They’re easy to make and can be made from many types of meat.
4. They last a long time in the fridge and freezer.
5. They travel easily.
6. The fat percentage (by calories) is ideal.
7. They’re a perfect meat-based side dish for a meat-based dinner.
8. They taste delicious.

Now let’s look further into each of these reasons that make rillettes awesome for people who follow low-carb and/or meat-based diets. I’ll start this article with some definitions so we’re all on the same page about these terms, then expand on each of these reasons and finish up by linking you to a few easy recipes that could make you fall in love with rillettes.

What do we mean by keto, carnivore and Zero Carb diets?

There’s a growing trend of people saying no to the standard food and nutrition advice found on national food guides and moving towards a low carb lifestyle, also referred to as diet and way of eating (WOE). Many people are taking a low carb approach to lose weight and/or gain health.

What is keto?

Keto is short for ketogenic.

According to Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt, MD, in the Diet Doctor article, A ketogenic diet for beginners, a keto diet is “a low-carb, moderate protein, higher-fat diet that can help you burn fat more effectively. It has many benefits for weight loss, health, and performance, as shown in over 50 studies.”

Low carb can mean anything from 5 grams to 100 grams of carbohydrates per day. The keto zone is generally under 50 grams of carbohydrates per day, with many people attempting to stay under 20 grams of carbs per day. This carb restriction allows your body to shift from running on glucose to running on ketones, meaning you burn fat for fuel instead of glucose.

People following a ketogenic way of eating don’t eat grains or sweets (except fake sweets, often in the form of fat bombs). A ketogenic diet generally includes meat and other low-carb animal products, non-starchy vegetables and can be filled with keto-ized recipes for breads, desserts, pastas etc. Some people follow vegetarian and vegan keto diets.

In my experience on the keto diet, there was a lot of counting macros, weighing food, craving and eating fat bombs made with zero calorie sweeteners and always trying to be in ketosis. [The upside was I discovered my abs, but on the downside, I was always fretting about how much food weighed and probably undereating.]

What is carnivore?

This one is a little trickier to answer because many people use this one word to describe varied ways of eating.

Carnivore eating can mean:

• You only eat meat.
• You only eat meat and animal products.
• You eat mostly meat and some other plant and/or grain foods.
• You like meat a lot, like Jess Pryles, author of Hardcore Carnivore: Cook meat like you mean it.

When I talk about carnivore as a way of eating, I’m thinking of the people who eat meat, other animal products and some spices while avoiding everything else.

What is Zero Carb (ZC)?

Zero Carb (with the capital letters) is the name given to the eat-animal-products-only movement by Owsley “The Bear” Stanley, who ate this way for 50 years. It’s not a great name because it’s not a zero-carb diet because eggs, dairy and even meat contain carbs. But it’s pretty low carb and though ketosis isn’t the goal (robustness is the goal), people on a Zero Carb diet are often in ketosis.

Within the Zero Carb community, there are varying degrees of strictness:

• Some people only eat beef and drink water.
• Some people eat only meat.
• Some people eat meat, eggs and dairy products only.
• Some people eat one of these ways, plus include spices, hot sauce, mustard and/or lemon juice for flavouring and drink tea and/or coffee.

The overarching rule is no plants except for seasonings, which are considered non-optimal but okay. If you want to get an idea of why it’s okay to include these non-optimal foods in a Zero Carb diet, have a look at this quick article by Dana Spencer Shute who’s been ZC for more than a decade (and has helped many people find success on a meat-based diet): Non Optimal Zero Carb Carnivore Foods are OK!

A note about spices on Zero Carb or carnivore

You might be wondering why some people don’t eat spices. Some people come to Zero Carb or Carnivore because they’re really sick and many foods don’t agree with them. These people can have negative reactions to spices, which is why some people choose not to eat them. Other people lose the taste for spices the longer they eat this way. That’s why I talk about spices later.

My connection to Zero Carb

Full confession: I’ve been following the Zero Carb way of eating since January 2018; I eat animal foods, spices, decaf coffee and rooibos tea (though I’m giving that up for Lent as I write this). I appreciate the simplicity and the clear head that come with this way of eating and this way of eating led me to the discovery of forcemeats, which is why I’m here today writing about this super-fun and interesting topic!

You might be thinking carnivore and Zero Carb is crazy and you can certainly find lots of people who say it is. But if you’re sick and have tried every diet under the sun, you might want to read up more because the carnivore and Zero Carb folks have the most amazing transformation stories you’ll hear! [I’m including some leads for you in the resources section at the end of this article.]

Okay, so now that we’ve defined keto, carnivore and Zero Carb, let’s dig into why rillettes are an amazing addition for folks who follow these ways of eating.

Eat the rillettes on keto, carnivore & Zero Carb, reason #1: They’re low carb by design – no substitutions require

The world of low-carb eating is chock full of substitutions. Some people love this, but I do not. [Perhaps I spent too many years pre-keto substituting whole spelt flour for white flour and ruining perfectly unhealthy recipes.] And some of these substitutions call for dubious ingredients like xanthan gum and erythritol. Then there’s all the recipes turning zucchini into pasta and cauliflower into countless things.

But for low-carbers, rillettes require no strange substitutions because standard rillettes ingredients are low carb.

Rillettes are typically made with these ingredients:

• Pork and other meat including duck, rabbit, chicken, etc. or seafood including salmon, whitefish, etc.
• Fat including pork fat (fatback, pork belly and/or lard) and duck fat.
• Salt and spices.
• Aromatics including garlic, leeks, onions, orange and lemon zest, etc.
• Stock, wine and/or water.

For keto people: The only ingredient that might give you pause is the wine and that’s not required.

One substitution exception: Zero Carb people will likely replace the leeks, garlic and onions with onion and garlic powder or put these veggies in a bouquet garni (which is removed after cooking).

Eat the rillettes on keto, carnivore & Zero Carb, reason #2: Most recipes require few to zero vegetables

Like I mentioned above, rillettes are not a flush with vegetables. The vegetables in rillettes are used as flavourings, not as a structural part of the dish.

For carnivores and Zero Carb people who don’t eat plants, but want to eat rillettes, you have four choices:

1. Replace the veggies with their spice equivalents.
2. Use a bouquet garni for the aromatics and remove it before the mixing stage of the recipe.
3. Omit the vegetables entirely and do not replace them with their spice equivalents.
4. Find a recipe that doesn’t call for spices and/or vegetables.

I’ve replaced the onions, garlic and leeks with dried spices when making rillettes and they turned out fine, though I’m not convinced I did the right replacement ratio so next time, I’ll do a better job at that to create a more robust flavour. But still, they were yummy.

In their book, Pâté, Confit, Rillette: Recipes from the Craft of Charcuterie, Brian Polycyn and Michael Ruhlman have a couple basic rillette recipes that contain only four ingredients: duck confit, fat, salt and pepper. While that seems like no vegetables, their confit recipes typically contain spices. So, if spices are okay for you, you’ll have no problem. If spices don’t agree with you, you’ll have to omit them (except salt, which is required for preservation). Fortunately, meat and fat make a tasty dish, even when the only accompaniment is salt.

Eat the rillettes on keto, carnivore & Zero Carb, reason #3: They’re easy to make and can be made of many types of meat

The more I’ve gotten into my animal-products-only way of eating, the less interested in cooking I’ve become. Complexity has become my archenemy. I’m exasperated if dinner takes longer than 15 minutes to prepare. [Dinner in 15 minutes at my house: Pre-heat frying pan for five minutes, cook burger patties for four to five minutes per side. While that’s happening, stuff mini peppers with cream cheese for my husband and add some kimchi to his plate. Add mustard to my plate. Wipe brow from all that cooking.]

This appreciation of simplicity is why rillettes were the gateway dish to other forcemeat dishes for me. And why I’m sticking to the simple recipes for now.

Let’s look at how easy rillettes are to make!

Option 1: Make rillettes with a duck leg confit

Here’s how easy it is to make rillettes with a duck leg confit:  

• Remove the duck leg from the confit jar.
• Remove the meat from the confit duck leg and chop up the skin.
• Mix the meat with warmed fat until you have a consistency you like. You can do this with a spoon, in a stand-up mixer with the paddle, in a food processor and even with a hand blender (though go easy with those last two as the texture of rillettes is generally chunky, not too smooth).
• Put the mixture in a jar, press out any air bubbles and cover with melted fat.

Option 2: Make rillettes using practically any recipe

Here’s how easy it is to make rillettes with most recipes:

• Put all the ingredients in a pot and bring to a simmer (and in some recipes, you don’t need this step).
• Put the pot in the over and cook for a few hours.
• Remove the bones and bouquet garni from the cooked meat and fat mixture.
• Mix the remaining ingredients together with a spoon, in a stand-up mixer with the paddle, in a food processor and even with a hand blender (gently).
• Put the mixture in a jar, press out any air bubbles and cover with melted fat.

Option 3: Make rillettes with fish the easy way and the super easy way

Here’s the easy way to make fish rillettes:

• Cook the fish.
• Mix the fish together with all the other ingredients.
• Press into the serving dish.

But if all that sautéing or poaching the fish is too much for you, try an even easier way!

Here’s the super easy way to make fish rillettes:

• Choose an already cooked fish like smoked salmon or smoked mackerel.
• Mix the smoked fish together with all the other ingredients.
• Press into the serving dish.

See how easy rillettes are? Amazing!

Plus, you can make rillettes out of many types of meat (and even find some vegetarian and vegan recipes).

Types of rillettes include:

• Duck rillettes.
• Pork rillettes.
• Game rillettes.
• Rabbit rillettes.
• Salmon rillettes.
• Tuna rillettes.
• Whitefish rillettes.
• Mackerel rillettes.
• Goose rillettes.
• Chicken rillettes.
• Vegetable rillettes.

Eat the rillettes on keto, carnivore & Zero Carb, reason #4: They last a long time in the fridge and freezer

If you’re keto or meat-based carnivore, you may spend a lot of time in the kitchen figuring out your macros, weighing your food and figuring out how to “keto-ize” your old SAD recipes (no judgment here, I’m remembering my own experiences). This means you might want to save time by doubling your recipes and stocking up your fridge and freezer. With rillettes, that’s easy to do.

I wrote in detail about how long rillettes last (and why they last so long) in my article, How Long Do Rillettes Last? A Long Time So Eat Up! But the short answer is they last for weeks in the fridge and months in the freezer. The conservative estimate is two weeks in the fridge and two months in the freezer, but I think you could push both timelines further, especially if the top layer of fat in the rillettes jar is unbroken.

All this means that you can make large batches of rillettes and keep them on hand for a quick and easy addition to breakfast, lunch and dinner. This ease and convenience mean a lot to me anyway.

Eat the rillettes on keto, carnivore & Zero Carb, reason #5: They travel easily

Eating on keto, carnivore and Zero Carb can make eating on the road a bit tricky but good preparation can make eating away from home a breeze. Rillettes are an easy dish to bring with you—just bring a spoon too!

Rillettes travel easily for a couple of reasons.

They’re made with meat, fat and salt and the fat and salt are natural preservatives. This means that while food safety guidelines suggest you keep fridge rillettes (as opposed to canned rillettes) refrigerated, you’ll probably be fine eating rillettes that have been out of the fridge a few days (so long as it’s not sweltering). Of course, if that seems to weird or risky, but you won’t have a fridge for a few days, bring a cooler and store your rillettes in there. Or do a road trip around Michigan in January—no extra chilling required, ha ha.

You can easily store them in jars with lids, including mason jars or even plastic (gasp!) containers. Rillettes are solid at room temperature, so they won’t slip around the container or leak all over the place if the container gets tipped over. However, I’d lean more towards taking them on the go in a mason jar that for sure won’t leak rather than in a plastic jar that might leak. However, the leakiness depends on how hot it is. If it’s hot enough that lard or duck fat would liquify at room temperature, you may experience some grease trying to escape an overturned rillettes container. [Duck fat is typically liquid at room temperature while lard is not.]

You can eat them straight out of the jar with a spoon or fork. While on the go, you won’t always have the luxury of creating a keto, carnivore or Zero Carb foundation for the rillettes to be spread upon but that’s okay. They’re tasty on their own so go ahead and shovel them into your face with a fork or spoon. (A knife would also work but, if you go this route, don’t let anyone see this terrible lapse in table manners.)

Eat the rillettes on keto, carnivore & Zero Carb, reason #6: The fat percentage (by calories) is ideal

Keto, carnivore and Zero Carb are all high-fat, moderate protein diets, though carnivore and Zero Carb folks often eat more meat than keto folks. You’d think they’d all be classified as high protein, but that’s not the case because we’re talking about macro percentages by calories, not by the grams you eat.

For example, my President’s Choice Thick & Juicy ™ Beef Burgers contain 26 grams of protein and 37 grams of fat per six-ounce burger. That’s 104 calories from protein and 333 calories from fat, which is about 76% fat by calories.

On keto, people tend to aim for anywhere from 60% to 90% fat by calories, but more commonly between 60% to 75%. People with epilepsy who use a keto diet to control epilepsy eat a diet made of 90% fat by calories. [Learn more about controlling seizures with a high-fat keto diet here.]

On Zero Carb, people tend to eat in the range of 60% to 85% fat by calories, but they figure this out naturally instead of incessant weighing like on keto.

Rillettes are made mostly of meat (lean or fatty) and fat so they’re friendly for people enjoying a high-fat lifestyle.

Let’s take a quick look at a rabbit rillettes recipe that I chose randomly from the book I mentioned earlier, Pâté, Confit, Rillette: Recipes from the Craft of Charcuterie. The main ingredients are 453 grams of rabbit and 135 grams of lard.

Rillettes ingredient	Fat	Protein
453 grams of rabbit	25.2 grams*	90.9 grams*
135 grams of lard	135 grams*	0 grams*
Total fats	160 grams	90.9 grams
Total calories by macro	1440 fat calories	363 protein calories
Percentage by macro	79.9%	20.1%

*These figures are from the FoodData Central database from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Boom! Right there in the high-fat zone, without even trying! If you’re on a high-fat way of eating, rillettes fit in easily.

Eat the rillettes on keto, carnivore & Zero Carb, reason #7: They’re a perfect meat-based side dish for a meat-based dinner

When you mostly eat meat like I do, you sometimes want a little something different beside the meat. (At this point, anyway.) A boiled egg, some sour cream and a few cubes of cheese might be nice but so would a scoop or slice of rillettes. They add some texture and flavour and they have a satisfying mouthfeel. Or if you like your food to intermingle, you can just mix them into whatever’s on your plate.

For my low-carb husband, I put dollops of rillettes on cucumber slices or use it as filling for those mini peppers.

Every once in a while, I’ll make a rillettes sandwich with chaffles—mini waffles made of cheese. Sure, it’s more work but sometimes I feel like splurging on myself and a fun side dish—that’s also meat-based—hits the spot.

Eat the rillettes on keto, carnivore & Zero Carb, reason #8: They taste delicious

Rillettes are delicious, no matter what your eating style is. But they’re especially great on keto, carnivore and Zero Carb because they fit in so well, without needing any special treatment.

And even if they’re not the best rillettes ever, they’re still pretty good.

Did you see that episode of The Good Place where Eleanor gets a shrimp dispenser in her living room? The ranch-flavour (?) shrimp tastes bad, but she keeps eating them because even bad shrimp is good. That’s kind of like rillettes. Even if your recipe doesn’t turn out, there’s a limit to how bad it can get because the basic ingredients are already delicious.

Eat rillettes today—a few recipes to get you started!

Now that we know rillettes are possibly the perfect addition to a keto, carnivore or Zero Carb lifestyle, the question is, why aren’t you eating them right now? And why aren’t I eating them right now too?

To solve this, I’ve put together a quick list of rillettes recipes to get you started.

Classic French Pork Rillettes

Article name and link:

Classic French Pork Rillettes

Why I’m including this:

If my recipe binder is correct, this is the first rillette recipe I ever tried, and it turned out very well. I found it a bit salty, but my husband didn’t, so I don’t know what the final verdict is! But it was so easy to make, which was what I was looking for. Plus, it turned out fine after freezing. 

From the kitchen of David Lebovitz

Article name and link:

Pork Rillettes

Why I’m including this:

This recipe seems interesting as it includes whiskey and wine! Plus, I enjoy reading David Lebovitz’s site so I want to put this recipe on my radar for you and me both.

Creamy-not-chunky rillettes

Article name and link:

Easy Pork Rillettes (Slow-Cooked Pork Spread) Recipe

Why I’m including this:

This one shows you how the rillettes turn out when you use your stand-up mixer with the paddle attachment and, again, it’s a straightforward recipe. The only thing I’d ignore in the recipe is where it says you can use vegetable oil, lard or duck fat. Don’t use vegetable oil as it’s poison.

Conclusion

Okey-dokey, that’s all for now. Now that you know there are at least eight good reasons for including rillettes on a keto, carnivore or Zero Carb diet, I hope you will. May your fridge always have a supply of rillettes!

—

Resources to accompany this article

These resources are not about rillettes but about keto, carnivore and Zero Carb eating. There’s a lot of BS about nutrition around in general and that includes about low carb eating so I want to direct you to a few good resources to save you some time.

Diet Doctor: Low carb and keto made simple

The world’s largest keto and low-carb site that shows no ads, takes no industry money and sells no products.

https://www.dietdoctor.com/

Zero Carb Health

A website run by ZC veteran, Dana Spencer Shute, who’s only eaten animal products for over a decade and hasn’t even died of scurvy yet!

http://www.zerocarbhealth.com/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ZeroCarbHealth/ (private group)

Zeroing In On Health

The public Facebook group run by Charles Washington, another ZC veteran who’s been eating meat only for more than a decade. It’s fun to read about how people have really transformed their mental, physical and emotional lives by going against the grain.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/zioh2/

Meat Heals section of the Meat Rx site

This is a site maintained by Dr. Shawn Baker, who brought an all-meat diet into the general consciousness a few years ago. There are some great testimonials here.

https://meatrx.com/category/success-stories/

Diagnosis: Diet

This site is run by Dr. Georgia Ede who is a Harvard-trained, board-certified psychiatrist who specializes in nutritional and metabolic psychiatry. If you’re interested in how food affects mental health, you’ll want to read her articles and watch her videos.

https://www.diagnosisdiet.com/about

Book: The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet

By Nina Teicholz