Low carb thickeners and vegetable gums are the best for consumption in comparison to traditional starch that is used as thickener
. Flour, arrowroot and cornstarch are the three basic thickeners used in traditional cooking. These have been replaced by the low carbohydrate thickeners such as egg yolk, nuts, cream, pureed vegetables.
Various Low Carb Thickeners and Vegetable Gums
The best method to thicken anything is to reduce its content by heating as this will neither change the taste nor the carbohydrate content in it. In addition to this you can also use different low carb agents for thickening purposes. These are:
Vegetable Gums
Vegetable gum when used as thickener, it makes the gel like substance after absorbing water. These are extensively used in varied commercial applications and the most common ones are guar gum and xanthan gum. Very small amount of vegetable gum is used to make the soup, curries or sauces thick. If not the vegetable gum, then you can use the products containing them. But think of taste in this case.
Egg Yolk
Egg yolk is used in many food items to thicken the later. Mayonnaise, hollandaise sauce and other such food items contain these. Do not put the egg yolk directly into sauce as the yolk will then scramble. In order to avoid this first of all you will have to temper the yolk. Tempering is done by adding small amount of sauce in egg yolk and then brining it to the desired temperature. After this whole of this mixer is added to the sauce.
Peanut Butter and Chickpea Flour
Peanut butter is an excellent thickeners when used. But use it as per the recipe as it has strong taste. Same goes with chickpea flour (besan). Hence not suitable for every recipe.
Dehydrated Vegetables
Take dehydrated vegetable like carrot and grin it to powder in spice grinder. You can then use this powder as a thickener and vegetable gum in order to thicken the gravy. This will be rehydrated to thicken the sauce of gravy.
Apart from these there are pureed vegetables, flax seed meal and cream cheese that are used as low carbohydrate thickeners and vegetable gums.