Name: Vegan Keto Sandwich Bread Loaf
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 2 h 20 min
Yield: 16
Cuisine: Canadian
Ingredients: 7g instant or traditional dry active yeast (2 1/4 tsp); 7g maple syrup or sugar (1 tsp); 350ml warm water @ 110°F (1 ½ cup); 125g Ground Golden flax meal (1 cup + 2 tbsp); 175g Vital Wheat Gluten (1 cup + 3 tbsp + 1 ½ tsp); 100g Oat Fiber (8 tbsp + 1 ½ tsp PACKED); 7g salt (1 tsp)

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This Vegan Keto Sandwich Bread Loaf recipe is made a lot like traditional sandwich bread and tastes like it too! You’ll love the wonderful toasty aroma, soft and fluffy interior with a thin chewy crust. Unlike other keto bread recipes, there are NO eggs, NO almond flour or cauliflower. While being plant-based, it’s also high in protein, fiber, with less than 2 net carbs per slice.

This amazing fluffy bread recipe also comes in a Pizza Version and individual Bread Rolls.
PREFER GLUTEN-FREE? Click here for my VEGAN KETO GLUTEN-FREE SANDWICH ROLLS.

Video tutorial for Vegan Keto Sandwich Bread Loaf

But WHY vegan keto sandwich bread at all?

Personally, I have to stay keto in order to keep my chronic tendonitis symptoms away completely. Having a diet rich in vegetables and high-quality plant-based protein is best but sometimes, you just gotta have a sandwich! And the keto bread from my local grocery store is so expensive. Which is why this recipe is so useful!

What People Are Saying about THIS Vegan Keto Bread Recipe

Since posting this recipe, the great reviews have been rolling in! Thanks to everyone who’s tried the recipe and extra thanks to everyone who’s shared their experience.

Ingredients for Vegan Keto Sandwich Bread Loaf

This low carb bread dough, which is the same one I use to make individual keto rolls, handles and bakes up very similar to traditional bread because the dry ingredients work together to replace the qualities of whole wheat flour. The dough should be elastic; able to stretch, rise, and have a yeasty aroma. It should bake up with a beautiful spring, soft crumb and nice crust. These ingredients allow this keto bread to be all those things.

Oat Fiber

With zero net carbs, this Oat Fiber replaces the starch that would be in traditional flour. It adds volume to the dough as well as a wonderful toasty aroma during baking. However, be careful not to confuse it with Oat Flour which is made with whole oats and is very high in carbs. Oat Fiber is made from the indigestible husks of oats. Another thing to watch out for is the nutrition label. While the Anthony’s brand of Organic Oat Fiber I use is completely made of fiber, some that I’ve seen online are not so please check the label before purchasing.

When measuring the oat fiber, be careful because this ingredient is extremely light. It’s easy to kick up a cloud of dusty oat fiber so please be gentle. Also, for accurate measuring, a scale is best. However, if you are just out of options and you absolutely must measure by volume, use PACKED tablespoons instead of the usual sift, scoop, and level method. It’s the most consistent method that I’ve found (though still not perfect).

Golden Flax Seeds

Flax seeds help this dough retain moisture and adds bulk to the dough without weighing it down and preventing rising (something too much oat fiber can do). I choose Golden Flax Seeds over regular brown flax seeds because they seem to have a milder flavour and give a lighter, nicer appearance to the rolls.

You may find ground golden flax for sale. I haven’t tried that type myself but it should still work for this recipe. Make sure to smell the opened bag before using it in the recipe. The oil in flax is delicate so you should smell it before using it in a recipe. Rancid flax oil smells fishy so throw it out if you detect that.

I avoid this possibility by buying whole flax seeds. They are less delicate when kept intact and can be stored in the pantry. Before using, I always give them a sniff to double-check they haven’t gone off. Then grind them as needed. Always be careful not to let them overheat, and store leftovers in the fridge. This way, the oil inside stays fresh.

Also, these days I sift the ground flax seeds in a wire mesh sieve before adding them to the recipe. I find the crumb comes out nicer that way.

Can I substitute with chia seeds?

I have tested this recipe using chia seeds as a substitution for the flax seeds. Unfortunately, chia seeds don’t have the same moisture-retaining effect in this recipe after being baked. The loaf comes out looking good but tasting much drier and “choky.”

However, if you absolutely cannot source golden flax seeds, you may find it acceptable to use chia. Test it out and see if it’s acceptable to you. You might just feel it’s fine as long as you add a nice spread to your sandwich and include crunchy, water-rich vegetables to offset the dryness.

Vital Wheat Gluten

The gluten in wheat flour is what creates structure in bread and allows it to rise and keep its shape. But instead of using the whole wheat that includes so much starch, we can use only the protein part: Vital Wheat Gluten. However, too much of it will make your dough too tough and chewy plus have an unpleasant doughy flavour. So it’s important to mix in the flax and oat fiber. Also, I like to use Anthony’s brand of Vital Wheat Gluten especially because it has less of that distinct “gluten-y” flavour.

Warm Water

It’s really important that the water is not too hot to start. I usually start with some cold tap water and then slowly add just-boiled hot water while keeping track of the temperature with a thermometer; stirring as I go. It should be 110°F which is about 43°C. Don’t make it too hot or it will kill the yeast. If it is on the cooler side, the yeast will just take longer to do its job.

Yeast

You can use any kind of baker’s yeast in this recipe: instant yeast, bread machine yeast, or traditional dry active yeast. They’ll all work. But I typically use instant yeast as I can get it in a large package and keep it in my fridge so it will stay fresh for a long time.

Sugar

Yes, this KETO recipe contains sugar. But the trick is, you will not be eating the sugar at the end. The yeast will get to it first. Yeast is actually a type of fungi which will consume the sugar and then produce carbon dioxide and ethanol. The carbon dioxide is what causes the bread to rise; filling up tiny pockets within the dough and expanding as it warms during the proofing stage and even more so during baking. The ethanol is a by-product that will evaporate in your hot oven.

In this recipe, you’ll notice I use maple syrup. I only use it because it’s the only sugar I keep at home. But you can use any kind of real sugar, such as white sugar, brown sugar, coconut sugar, and molasses. Don’t use low or no calorie sweeteners because they would not be good food for the yeast. In the same vein, some people claim that inulin can be used to activate yeast. However, I have tried it and it doesn’t work the same in my experience.

Salt

Without very much fermentation, just enough to make it rise once, this bread is fairly bland. Salt is really important for bringing out what little flavor is available. But feel free to skip it if you need to avoid salt for your own reasons. On the other hand, feel free to add spices, herbs and other seasonings to make this sandwich loaf your very own! Just add it last, on top of the dry ingredients so that it doesn’t burn the yeast directly.

Cost of Ingredients

A few people have inquired about the cost of these buns since at first glance, going out to buy a 24 Canadian Dollar bag of Vital Wheat Gluten seems really high! But when I broke down the cost with the amount of ingredients, each loaf of this keto sandwich bread costs me only $5.66. If you slice the loaf into 16 pieces (which would be a fair size), it would cost 71 cents per sandwich (using two slices). See the following table for the breakdown. Note that cost may vary depending on where you live.

Nutrition Info for Vegan Keto Sandwich Loaf

According to Cronometer, for two slices (1/8th of the total recipe) has:

162.7 calories
7.6g fat
20.2g protein
3.7g net carbs (17.7g total carbohydrates, of which 14g is from fiber, 0.7g from sugar)
1% DV Calcium
12% DV Iron

Troubleshooting Vegan Keto Bread Dough

Since posting this my original keto rolls recipe, many people have reported fantastic results including this video from Random Keto. But I’ve also received a couple comments from people whose shaped loaves did not rise very well. This led me to two reasons why this might be happening. If you’ve ruled out the most common bread-making issues, it’s probably due to the following:

Problem 1: Too much oat fiber. It’s such a fine and light powder that oat fiber can be hard to measure. The best way to get accurate results is to use a kitchen scale. But if you must measure by volume, use the “sift, spoon, and level method” for all the ingredients EXCEPT for the oat fiber. I found it impossible to get consistent volume measurements with this standard dry ingredient method. Instead, use packed spoons to measure (similar to how you would measure brown sugar).

Problem 2: Mistakenly letting the dough proof BEFORE shaping. As there is only a small amount of sugar for the yeast to use in this recipe, there is no wiggle room for proofing at the wrong stage. This recipe goes straight from kneading the dough to shaping into buns. If you let the dough rest and rise before that, the yeast will eat up all the sugar and it won’t have any left to do its work after you shape the buns.

More Keto Bread Things

Vegan Keto Pizza Crust

Gluten-Free Vegan Keto Sandwich Rolls

Printable Recipe for Vegan Keto Sandwich Bread Loaf

Yield: 16 slices (8 servings)