Celebrating Spring Holidays on the Medical Ketogenic Diet: Easter and Passover

Zahava Turner, RD CSP LDN

Zahava Turner, RD CSP LDN

In today’s blog post, ketogenic dietitian Zahava Turner provides some tips and recipe ideas for celebrating the spring holidays, Easter and Passover, while on a medical ketogenic diet for epilepsy management.


It is the first week of Spring and with the excitement of warmer weather and melting snow on the east coast, we are also excited for the upcoming holidays of Easter and Passover. Like all holidays, it can be hard to find foods that fit into a medical ketogenic diet meal plan. I like to tell families to focus on one food or recipe that is special or traditional to the family or their child and try and build a special ketogenic meal around it. It can be a family recipe for ham or lamb on Easter or brisket on Passover. For example, if the recipe calls for a glaze, try and find replacements for the high carbohydrate aspect of the recipe, like using stevia to sweeten or a low carbohydrate jelly, or try a savory spice rub instead. The point is to make the meal feel special for everyone, so use your holiday dishes & present it in a beautiful way and it can become the new family tradition.

One of the common foods for both holidays are eggs. Eggs symbolize life in many different cultures and are used on the Seder plate on Passover and used in Easter baskets and Easter egg hunts. Eggs are also one of the most versatile ketogenic foods due to its protein and fat content and the ways it can be manipulated in many ways for so many different recipes. Eggs are a great way to “hide” fats and can be used for recipes as simple as scrambled eggs with cheese and butter, a soufflé, frittata with vegetables, and cheesecake.

One of the staples and treats in my house on Passover are crepes. Since we can’t use any wheat flour on Passover, the recipe for crepes is very similar to ones that are used on a medical ketogenic diet. We make both sweet crepes for dessert filled with cream and fruits and savory crepes filled with meat and vegetables. Below is an example of a crepe recipe at a 4:1 ketogenic ratio.

400 Calorie 4:1 Crepe Recipe

Ingredients

  • 35 g Cream, 36%
  • 15 g 10%Fruit
  • 50 g Egg (raw, mixed well)
  • 11 g Butter
  • 14 g Oil, Canola

Crepe Filling: You can fill your crepe with fruits, meats, cheese, or vegetables (just be sure to calculate them into the recipe to meet your specific ketogenic ratio. Ask your dietitian if you need help).

Cooking Instructions

  1. To make the crepe batter, mix egg with 15 g of cream and 5 g of oil until frothy. If making a sweet crepe, add liquid stevia and vanilla extract to the batter. If making a savory crepe, you’ll want to leave out the sweetener and vanilla.
  2. Melt 5 grams of butter in a pan.
  3. Pour a small amount of your crepe batter and swirl in pan, then let it cook for 1 minute until set.
  4. Flip over your crepe and cook the other side briefly.
  5. In a bowl, mix the remaining cream, butter and oil, then add your desired filling (fruits, meat, cheese, vegetables) and beat the mixture together.
  6. Pour the mixture into your crepe and roll it up.

For more tips and recipes for celebrating Easter or Passover on the medical ketogenic diet, see some of these previous blog posts:

-Zahava

I was paid by Nutricia North America for my time to write this blog post, however, my opinions are my own. 

The medical ketogenic diet for epilepsy should be used under medical supervision. 

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