Menudo is probably one of the most controversial dishes of Mexican cuisine. Also known as mole de panza (stomach sauce), its main ingredient is cow stomach (tripe), which puts a frown on most people’s faces. It is, however, a very tasty, hearty dish, and has a lot of cultural significance, often being served at weddings. So, is Menudo keto? Let’s find out.
What is Menudo?
Menudo is a traditional Mexican soup, made by simmering cow tripe in beef broth for hours. In the end, you get very tender meat and rich, fatty, flavorful broth.
Typically hominy, cilantro, onions, and red chili peppers are added for additional flavors, and the soup is seasoned with salt, oregano, and lime juice.
Menudo is rarely eaten as an independent dish, often being served with a variety of side dishes like salsa.
A Keto-Cap (aka A Keto Recap!)
If you’re new to keto and want a bit more information, check out our keto beginners guide.
As a quick summary, if you need it, the keto (also known as the ketogenic diet) is a low-carb, high-fat diet.
The whole concept of the keto diet is that your body transitions from burning glucose, in simple terms, sugars or carbohydrates, to burning fat as its primary fuel source.
For a keto diet, people will restrict their macros to eating;
- 70% of their calories from fat
- 25% from protein
- 5% from carbohydrates
Sticking to these macros for a period of time will put your body into a state of ketosis. Ketosis is when your body has transitioned from burning carbohydrates as its primary fuel source to burning fat for fuel. It is at this point that you will start to see and feel the benefits of the keto diet.
There are a lot of new terms and abbreviations that you may come across, sometimes it can feel like a new language that you need to learn. In order to help you out and keep you on the right track, we have created a keto terms and keto abbreviations guide, bookmark these to make your keto journey easier.
Some people can be put off the keto diet because of the side effects, however, these are only short-lived and the health benefits of keto far outweigh the side effects.
One of the main benefits which attract people to the keto diet is that it can cause significant reductions in insulin levels (by up to 75%) and blood sugar levels, which can be attractive to those that struggle with diabetes, amongst other health complaints.
What is the Nutritional Value of Menudo?
Counting macros for Menudo can be tricky as it’s a soup, and the amount of each ingredient you get in a bowl of soup can vary widely. You may take less tripe and more hominy, skip hominy entirely, take more broth, etc.
However, to calculate approximate macros, let’s assume that per 1 cup, you take around 35-40g of tripe, 60g of hominy, 10g of chilies, and 5g of onions, along with assorted spices.
In this case, the nutritional value of Menudo per 1 cup would be:
- Carbs: 16 grams
- Protein: 6.7 grams
- Fat: 3.5 grams
- Fiber: 5.2 grams
- Sugar: 2.1 grams
- Calories: 112
How Many Net Carbs are there in Menudo?
Using the standard formula of deducting fiber from the total carb amount to calculate net carbs, we can see that 1 cup of Menudo nets 10.2g of carbs.
Is Menudo Keto Friendly?
No, classic Menudo isn’t keto-friendly. Even 1 cup contains more than half of your daily net carbs.
Considering that 1 cup is considered to be just ½ of standard serving, it’s clear that eating just 1 bowl of Menudo would put you right above your allowed limit of net carbs (1 bowl = 2 cups = 20.2g of net carbs).
Moreover, hominy is not keto friendly. Check out this article for more on that. However, if you skip the hominy in the Menudo, this soup can be perfectly keto friendly, being low in carbs and high in fat.
What are the Best Keto Alternatives to Menudo?
As it happens with many traditional dishes, Menudo has many varieties – both of regional kind, and homemade kind (with most families having their own recipes passed down from their ancestors).
All these variations, however, contain at least a few ingredients that invariably bring its net carb content into uncomfortable territory for a keto dieter. It doesn’t matter if the recipe uses garbanzo beans or if red pepper is exchanged for jalapeno to keep the broth white (as with Menudo Blanco).
Thus there’s really no keto variation of Menudo. But there are a few things you can do:
- Cook Menudo at home, skipping the non-keto ingredients (beef broth, tripe, and most spices used to flavor Menudo are luckily keto-friendly);
- If served somewhere, make sure to only put tripe and broth on your plate and keep the serving size small, skip the beans.
Staying hydrated on the keto diet is really important, for more on how much water you should be drinking, check out our guide to staying hydrated on the keto diet.
If you’re planning on dehydrating yourself(!) and drinking alcohol on the keto diet, check out our ultimate guide to drinking alcohol on a keto diet. Also, you may be interested in, how to recover from a cheat day.
Summary: Is Menudo Keto?
Unfortunately, no, traditional menudo is not keto friendly, it contains hominy, which is not keto friendly. However, if you making this delicious soup at home, you can soon skip the non-keto friendly ingredients and make it as keto friendly as you would like.