Low-Carb Keto-Friendly Banana Cheesecake Recipe

Learn how to make a delicious
low-carb keto-friendly banana cheesecake

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Do you know what the number one fruit that people doing Weight Watchers SmartPoints search for on the Weight Watchers app?

It's a banana!

However, a medium-sized banana has a whopping 27-net carbs, which is too many carbohydrates for those following a ketogenic lifestyle. Even so, there is a work around if you would like to still enjoy banana-flavored goodies like this luscious low-carb banana cheesecake.

The idea was simply an impulse buy that suddenly went sideways.

A couple of weeks ago, hubby and I stood in front of the available instant sugar-free pudding mixes at our local grocery store, looking for a sugar-free lemon pudding mix.

Instant Sugar-Free Lemon Pudding

(Available at Amazon)

I love lemon pudding topped with raspberries and whipped cream. Unfortunately, the lemon pudding wasn't available at Walmart. In fact, Walmart had very few sugar-free instant pudding mixes at all.

My idea was to make a lemon-cream pie, using an old low-carb recipe that I had tucked away, but without a sugar-free lemon pudding mix available, that wasn't going to happen.

Since our options for the instant variety were only vanilla, butterscotch, and banana, we decided to go with the sugar-free banana pudding mix instead of the lemon.

Instant Sugar-Free Banana Cream Pudding Mix

(Available at Amazon)

But when the time came to make the banana-cream pie, I couldn't find my notebook filled with gluten-free recipes, so I decided to make a banana cheesecake instead of the pie.

The cheesecake came out super good!

I made it exactly like I make our traditional low-carb sugar-free cheesecakes, but I mixed it with banana pudding and used banana sugar-free Torani syrup instead of the water. If Torani brand syrup isn't available in your area, you can also use DaVinci syrup, as well.

Sugar-Free Banana Syrup

(Available at Amazon)

The banana syrup and pudding mix really make this low-carb recipe special and unique.

Are Sugar-Free Pudding Mixes Keto-Friendly?

Before I share the recipe, I want to caution you about using sugar-free pudding mixes on low carb.

These instant mixes are not super low in carbs because they contain a modified corn starch that allows the pudding to gel and thicken up when the mixture is chilled.

For this reason, almond milk will not work! They require an acid environment and if you use almond milk, the pudding won't thicken properly. It will stay runny.

Dry instant pudding mix contains about 24 carbs, depending on the type of pudding mix you get. Chocolate will be a little more. So, for 4 servings, the dry pudding mix is 6 carbs each.

That carb count is without adding any milk or cream to the mix.

Make sure that when you're calculating your own carbohydrate content for this recipe that you use only the count for the brand of mix you're using. Don't use the count for how it's prepared because that will add in the carbs for the milk that you are not going to use in this recipe.

The good news is that you don't have to use milk to make the pudding mix. You can use heavy cream mixed with water for a very nice mousse-type dessert instead.

That's what I did for this recipe.

I mixed 1 cup of heavy cream with 1 cup of water to replace the 2 cups of milk called for on the box. I then doubled up on the unflavored gelatin to make sure that the cheesecake came out thick enough to slice.

The banana flavor is very rich and delightfully sinful because you don't cook the cheesecake. This is a non-bake sugar-free cheesecake recipe, so the aspartame in the pudding mix won't break down. The cheesecake retains all of its sweet banana flavor.

You can't cook aspartame-sweetened products because aspartame won't retain its sweetness when heated, but the instant variety of pudding mix coupled with a non-bake cheesecake recipe eliminates that problem.

In addition to not cooking the following cheesecake, I also used a banana-flavored sugar-free coffee syrup instead of the water called for in my old vanilla cheesecake recipe.

This additional banana flavoring makes the cheesecake a one-of-a-kind treat that you'll want to make for the holidays.

It's just that good!

But please, if you don't have any sugar-free banana syrup do NOT use salted caramel instead. I did that the first time, and it came out tasting very, very funny. You probably won't like it made that way!

It's well worth it to wait until you get the banana instead.

Sugar Substitutes I Used

Up until very recently, I've been using the Splenda Zero that's available in many local grocery stores.

Splenda Zero

(Available at Amazon)

It's much weaker than other options you can order online, such as Sucra Drops, so I'm putting the sugar equivalent in the list of ingredients. That way, you can easily convert the recipe to the sugar alternative that you prefer to use.

Sucra Drops

(Available at Amazon)

I also am able to handle a little bit of erythritol now, so I included that sugar alcohol, as well.

Erythritol

(Available at Amazon)

I've made this cheesecake recipe with all Splenda before, and without the pudding mix, cream, and erthritol, but without sugar alcohol, it comes out very flat. There's no bulk or volume to the cheesecake filling without using real sugar.

To solve the problem, you could use just Splenda and double the filling without using the pudding and cream, if you want to skip the carbs in the pudding mix, but that is going to change the carb count quite a bit.

You Don't Have to Make the Crust

If you don't have access to almond flour, or if you can't afford it, you can simply make the filling and let it chill in a nice glass bowl or square pan. You don't have to make the crust at all because the filling makes a very nice banana-flavored pudding.

If doing it that way, I would just use one package of unflavored gelatin and lower the amount of water used to soften it down to just 1/4 cup water.

Low-Carb Banana Cheesecake Recipe

Makes 9 servings: 7-net carbs each

Almond Pie Crust Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups blanched almond flour
1/2 teaspoon Splenda Zero (equal to 1/3 cup sugar)
2 tablespoons erythritol or other sweetener
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spices
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 egg white

Press into an 9-inch square pan and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Cool.

Filling Ingredients:

2 (8oz) packages of cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup erythritol
1 teaspoon Splenda Zero
3/4 cups of banana-flavored sugar-free syrup
1 cup heavy cream
4-serving package of sugar-free banana pudding mix
1-1/2 cup cold water (divided)
2 pkg unflavored gelatin

In a blender, place cream cheese, vanilla, erythritol, Splenda, banana syrup, and heavy cream. Blend until nice and smooth. Add banana pudding mix, and blend until it begins to thicken.

In a small saucepan over the stove, add water. Sprinkle the gelatin over the top of the water and stir to mix well. Heat and continue stirring until the gelatin dissolves. Pour into the blender and continue to blend until thick and creamy.

Pile into the cooled crust and chill for several hours before serving.

Want a Coconut-Pecan Cheesecake Topping?

I made the cheesecake without a topping.

But as I was slicing it, I thought that some crushed pecans mixed with sugar-free coconut and sprinkled across the top would have made a nice topping. You could also layer a few pecan halves and then sprinkle with the coconut, as well.

Just make sure that you toast the coconut a little in a non-stick frying pan before sprinkling it across the top of the cheesecake for a pretty presentation. I would do it right after I put the filling into the pie shell, bowl, or pan, before chilling, so the topping sticks to the wet filling easily.

This would only add about a carb per slice, or less, since both pecans and sugar-free coconut are very low in carbs due to the amount of fiber they have.