Tourtiere is a traditional French Canadian meat pie, especially popular around the holidays. This Keto Tourtiere passes for the real thing, at a fraction of the carbs!
Recently, I was touching up my Gluten Free Tourtiere - my go-to recipe for French Canadian tourtiere, for the past decade or so.
It’s a savoury meat pie, usually served on special occasions in the province of Quebec.
For many French Canadians, this French-Canadian meat pie is a big part of Christmas tradition, typically being served after midnight mass on Christmas eve.
The problem? That sucker weighs in at just over 50 grams of carbs, when split into 8 pieces. (A meal sized portion).
Clearly, it was time to develop a keto friendly version of tourtière - so I did!
The pie crust wasn’t *exactly* like the source material, but definitely tasty. My husband isn’t in any way low carbbing, and happily dove through that pie with me!
For 10 grams of net carbs per big serving, I’ll take it as a big win!
Ingredients
The ingredients list may look extensive for this meat pie recipe, but for the most part they’re simple ingredients that can be found at any grocery store.
A few notes for you:
Meat(s)
Traditionally, the original tourtières were made with wild game meat. Over the years, a mix of pork and beef has become more common, and that’s how I make my base recipe.
Feel free to use all pork, all beef, or add in some ground game meats in place of either - or both!
Can’t eat pork or beef? I’ve got a chicken variation - more on that in a bit!
Fresh Produce
Traditionally, potatoes are among the vegetables included in a tourtiere.
Those are generally avoided on a low carb diet, though, so I swapped them out for turnips - and you’d never know, from tasting it!
Along with turnips, this recipe includes carrots, an onion, some celery, and fresh parsley.
Dairy, Eggs, etc
This recipe uses both butter and cream cheese in the dough - I haven’t tried it with lard, but I bet it would work well. (And be even lower in carbs!)
In addition to that, I use unsweetened almond milk in the filling - feel free to use real milk or heavy whipping cream, if you prefer. There’s also some beef broth in with the milk!
Finally, there’s a couple of eggs in this recipe - one in the dough, and one as an egg wash over the assembled pie.
Herbs & Spices
I went with a very traditional set of herbs and spices for flavouring this low carb tourtiere recipe:
Bay Leaves
Summer Savory
Ground Cloves
Ground Black Pepper
Salt
No summer savoury on hand? Feel free to use rosemary, sage, and/or thyme.
Keto “Flour” Mix
Finally, we have the ingredients used for the pie crust dry mix:
Unflavoured Whey Protein Isolate
Super Fine Almond Flour
Coconut Flour
Xanthan Gum
Nothing really to add, aside from : Make sure you’re using unflavored, unsweetened, whey protein isolate. This is important!
Chicken Variation
A few years ago, beef and pork started disagreeing with my husband in a BIG way, so I had to adapt my tourtiere recipe.
Simply swapping out the ground beef and ground pork for ground chicken - and/or ground turkey - was OK, but it was definitely a different pie altogether.
So, I added 1 ½ lbs of finely chopped crimini mushrooms to the vegetable mix.
This added umami flavour to the mix, and made it look and taste much more like the real thing.
If you’re not into mushrooms, you can skip it - just swap out the beef broth for chicken broth, as well. (It really doesn’t taste like mushrooms, though!)
Note: I made the mushroom/chicken version in the photos used throughout this post.
If you’re doing the non-mushroom chicken version - or the original beef and pork version - there will be slightly less bulk to your filling.
How to Make Keto Tourtiere
The full recipe follows in the recipe card at the end of this post, here is a pictorial walk through.
Make the Filling
After your carrots, turnips, and onion are peeled and all of the veggies are chopped into small pieces, add them to a large skillet (a cast iron skillet works, I use nonstick), along with the meats and seasoning.
Stir everything together until well mixed.
Bring this meat mixture to a boil over medium-high heat.
Once boiling, turn the heat down to medium heat and simmer – stirring often – until the liquid has cooked off, and the meat has broken down almost to a paste. This should take about an hour, give or take.
Once it’s ready, remove from heat and let the filling cool to room temperature.
Make the Dough
Measure flours, xanthan gum, and salt into the bowl of your food processor, blitz to combine.
Add cream cheese, blitz a few times until mixture resembles gravel.
Remove dough from processor, knead lightly to bring it together as a ball.
Wrap in plastic wrap, chill for 1 hour before use.
Assemble & Bake the Meat Pie
Preheat oven to 425 F
Divide pie dough into 2 parts – one slightly bigger than the other.
Spray a large piece of parchment paper with pan spray.
Invert the pie crust - parchment and all - over a deep-dish pie plate / deep baking dish.
Carefully peel the parchment away, and press the pie crust into the bottom of the pit pan, carefully working it into the corners.
Fill the lined pie pan with cooled filling, spreading it into the corners and mounding it in the center. Press down slightly to compress.
Invert the second pie crust over the meat pie filling. Once centered, carefully peel back the parchment, leaving the pie crust in place.
Trim the excess dough and crimp the edges as desired, cut a couple of slits in it for steam vents.
In a small bowl or mug, whisk the egg together with a little water. Use a pastry brush to coat the entire top of the tourtière with a thin coating of this egg wash.
Bake in the preheated oven for 30-40 minutes until crust is golden brown.
Serve warm or cold.
Leftovers
Once cooled to almost room temperature, remaining meat pie can be covered with plastic wrap and stored in the fridge for up to 3 days.
More Keto Holiday Recipes
Looking for more easy keto recipes to serve over the holidays? Here are some tasty ideas:
Brussels Sprouts with Bacon (Keto)
Charcuterie Tree
Charcuterie Wreath
Hasselback Turnips
Turkey Meatballs with Keto Cranberry Glaze
Keto Cream Cheese Mints
Pumpkin Fat Bombs
Keto Mushroom Turnovers
Low Carb Funeral Potatoes
Keto Sauerkraut Buns
Low Carb Stuffing
Keto Candy Cane Cookies
Scalloped Turnips (Keto Scalloped Potatoes)
Keto Turkey Gravy
Low Carb Holiday Desserts Roundup
Keto Holiday Main Dishes Roundup
Low Carb Holiday Side Dishes Roundup
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Keto Tourtiere [French Canadian Meat Pie]
Equipment
- Deep dish pie plate
- Parchment paper
Ingredients
Filling:
- 2 Carrots peeled and grated
- 3 Turnips peeled and cut into ~ ⅓″ cubes
- 1 Small Onion finely chopped
- 4 Celery Ribs finely chopped
- 1 lb Ground Pork
- 1 lb Lean Ground Beef
- ½ cup Fresh Parsley chopped
- 1-2 tablespoon Dried Summer Savoury
- 2-3 teaspoon Ground Pepper
- 2 Bay Leaves
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- ¼ teaspoon Ground Cloves
- 1 cup Unsweetened Almond Milk
- 1 ½ cups Beef or Chicken Broth
Dough:
- 1 ¼ cup Unflavoured Whey Protein Isolate
- 1 cup Superfine Almond Flour
- ⅓ cup Coconut flour
- 2 teaspoon Xanthan Gum
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- 8 oz Cream Cheese chopped
- ½ cup Unsalted butter cold and chopped
- ⅓ cup Cold Water
- 1 Large egg
Assembly:
- Pan spray
- 1 Large Egg
- 1 tablespoon Cold Water
Instructions
Filling:
- After your carrots, turnips, and onion are peeled and all of the veggies are chopped into small pieces, add them to a large skillet (a cast iron skillet works, I use nonstick), along with the meats and seasoning.
- Stir everything together until well mixed.
- Add the almond milk and the broth, stirring once again to fully combine.
- Bring this meat mixture to a boil over medium-high heat.
- Once boiling, turn the heat down to medium heat and simmer – stirring often – until the liquid has cooked off, and the meat has broken down almost to a paste. This should take about an hour, give or take.
- Once it’s ready, remove from heat and let the filling cool to room temperature.
Dough:
- Measure flours, xanthan gum, and salt into the bowl of your food processor, blitz to combine.
- Add cream cheese, blitz a few times until mixture resembles gravel.
- Add butter, ¼ cup water, and egg. Blitz a few more times - just long enough to start to bring it together as a dough – you may need to use a little more water. Do NOT over-process it!
- Remove dough from processor, knead lightly to bring it together as a ball.
- Wrap in plastic wrap, chill for 1 hour before use.
Assembly:
- Preheat oven to 425 F
- Divide pie dough into 2 parts – one slightly bigger than the other.
- Spray a large piece of parchment paper with pan spray.
- Roll the larger section out on the sprayed parchment using additional protein powder to prevent the rolling pin from sticking.
- Invert the pie crust - parchment and all - over a deep-dish pie plate / deep baking dish.
- Carefully peel the parchment away, and press the pie crust into the bottom of the pit pan, carefully working it into the corners.
- Fill the lined pie pan with cooled filling, spreading it into the corners and mounding it in the center. Press down slightly to compress.
- Spray another piece of parchment paper with nonstick spray, roll out the remaining piece of dough.
- Invert the second pie crust over the meat pie filling. Once centered, carefully peel back the parchment, leaving the pie crust in place.
- Trim the excess dough and crimp the edges as desired, cut a couple of slits in it for steam vents.
- If desired, roll any extra dough very thin, cut into shapes, and apply to the crust for decoration.
- In a small bowl or mug, whisk the egg together with a little water. Use a pastry brush to coat the entire top of the tourtière with a thin coating of this egg wash.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 30-40 minutes until crust is golden brown.
- Serve warm or cold.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
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