Keto Low-Carb Gluten-Free Bacon and Gruyere Sous Vide Egg Bites

Starbucks Made a Low-Carb Menu Item But
CarbSmart Made It Healthier and Even Lower Carb

Anybody who knows and loves Dana Carpender knows she rarely goes to Starbucks, partly because she only occasionally drinks coffee and partly because they don’t have many menu choices for a low carber. But that may be changing.

Few people go to Starbucks looking for low-carb foods. Low-carbers know how to order low-carb versions of many of their drinks, and we even make our own versions at home—see Dana’s “Better Than Coffee Shop” Mocha. But now there are a couple of lower-carb items on their menu: Sous Vide Egg Bites, in both Bacon & Gruyere and Egg White & Red Pepper.

Sous Vide Egg Bites are lower carb than Starbucks’ other offerings, but they’re still higher carb than what many of us want. Let us present a healthier version we call Dana’s Low-Carb Gluten-Free Bacon and Gruyere Sous Vide Egg Bites—or as Dana calls them, “Eggums.” And ours won’t cost you $4.45 plus tax!

Why Did Starbucks Create Sous Vide Egg Bites: Bacon & Gruyere?

Egg Bites are a response to customers ordering breakfast sandwiches and discarding the bread—including their most popular croissants, English muffins, wraps, buttery buns, croissant buns, and artisan rolls. Research showed that customers wanted healthier items with better ingredients, no gluten, and higher protein. Starbucks hit the test kitchen.

Two years of testing gave them Bacon & Gruyere Sous Vide Egg Bites and Egg White & Red Pepper Sous Vide Egg Bites. Both are wheat-free and are excellent sources of protein.

How Good Are Starbucks’ Sous Vide Egg Bites?

Although Starbucks doesn’t seem to have set out to make a specifically low-carb menu item, their Sous Vide Egg Bites are not super-carby, and they certainly are tasty. Each Starbucks Bacon and Gruyere Egg Bite (2 Egg Bites per serving) has strips of bacon on the bottom (or top depending on how you hold them). They come pre-formed and are then warmed in a Convection Microwave oven.

The problem with Starbucks Egg Bites is the unnecessary additives and fillers found in the ingredients. For instance, according to Starbucks’ ingredients list, their cottage cheese contains maltodextrin, while their Monterey jack and Gruyere cheese both contain potato starch and powdered cellulose, usually used to keep packaged shredded cheese from clumping. They’ve also included rice starch, probably as a thickener. This explains why the Bacon-Gruyere Sous Vide Egg Bites have 9 grams of carbohydrate per serving – and the serving is modest. Also, their uncured bacon contains cane sugar and rice starch.

So they’re an improvement, especially compared to the rest of the menu, but I knew we could make them better, So I asked Dana to cut the carbs and improve the flavor. And boy, did she. Dana’s “Eggums” have a velvety-smooth texture and a flavor very similar to Starbucks, but with far fewer carbs.

What is Sous Vide Cooking?

According to Wikipedia:

Sous-vide is a method of cooking in which food is sealed in a vacuum-sealed plastic pouch then placed in a water bath or in a temperature-controlled steam environment for longer than normal cooking times (usually 1 to 6 hours, up to 48 or more in some select cases) at an accurately regulated temperature much lower than normally used for cooking, typically around 55 to 60 °C (131 to 140 °F) for meat and higher for vegetables. The intent is to cook the item evenly, ensuring that the inside is properly cooked without overcooking the outside, and retain moisture.

Sous Vide cooking was developed in the late 18th century, then rediscovered and expanded in the mid-1960s in France. In conventional stove or oven cooking, food is exposed to heat much higher than the desired final temperature. If the food it is removed from the heat too early, it is undercooked, and if it is removed too late, overcooked. By placing food in a sealed bag in a water bath set at the desired final temperature, it is assured that the food cannot get hotter than the water bath and therefore cannot overcook. The use of precise temperature control for the water bath allows the food to cook to an exact temperature without overcooking no matter what the shape or thickness of the food.

In restaurants around the world, sous vide cooking (technically “cooking sous vide”) is considered cutting edge. But duplicating the technique at home has been difficult. Recently, over a dozen manufacturers have created sous vide cooking appliances. There are two varieties: The water bath and the immersion circulator. We’ll explain:

First is the Sous Vide Supreme Water Oven developed by low-carb experts Drs. Michael R. Eades and Mary Dan Eades, authors of Protein Power. Theirs was the world’s first home water oven. Cooking vacuum-sealed food in the self-contained water bath locks in the juices and flavor and preserves the nutritional quality of the food for amazing taste and texture.
Immersion circulators are cheaper and take up far less space than the water oven, and are therefore more popular. An immersion circulator attaches to the inside of a stockpot or 12-quart or larger plastic food bin (the low temperatures don’t melt plastic), turning the container into a sous vide water bath. Immersion circulators like the top selling Anova Culinary Precision Cooker are easy-to-use, lightweight, and can even connect to your smartphone by bluetooth or wi-fi to allow you to cook the perfect meal with the touch of a button.
Dana found yet another way to cook sous vide: She owns and uses a Nu Wave Induction Burner. Using magnetic currents to vibrate the molecules in iron or steel cookware, an induction burner allows very precise heat control—indeed, that’s why one has a permanent place of honor on Dana’s counter. She uses her induction-burner-friendly stockpot, sets the burner for 170° F, adds the Eggums, and covers the pot for perfect results every time.

How Do You Make Sous Vide Egg Bites?

Technically, the term “sous vide” means “under vacuum,” and refers to the fact that food to be cooked this way is sealed in a cooking-grade plastic bag with a vacuum sealer. Dana puzzled about this; putting a bag of raw egg mixture into a vacuum sealer seemed guaranteed to make a huge mess. A quick Google search showed that the Starbucks Egg Bites are originally cooked in little disposable molds custom made for the process. We don’t have those but we have a great solution.

A little more Googling turned up the blog Adventures of a Nurse. The blogger, Carla, who has some amazing Instant Pot and Sous Vide recipes, had come up with her own version of Sous Vide Egg Bites, cooking them in 4-ounce canning jars. Genius! Although lower in carbs, her recipe didn’t line up with the ingredient list of the Starbucks Sous Vide Egg Bites. Dana borrowed the canning jar idea, but developed her own recipes, taking cues from the Starbucks list of ingredients – minus carby additives, of course.

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Comparing Starbucks Nutrition Facts vs CarbSmart’s Nutrition Facts

Nutrition Facts	Starbucks	CarbSmart
Serving Size	130g	120g
Calories	310	238
Calories from Fat	200	178
Total Fat	22g	20g
Saturated Fat	14g	10g
Trans fat	0g	0g
Cholesterol	185mg	229mg
Sodium	600mg	485mg
Total Carbohydrate	9g	2g
Dietary Fiber	0g	trace
Sugar	2g	0g
Protein	19g	13g

Comparing Starbucks Ingredients vs CarbSmart’s Ingredients

Based on these two ingredient lists, what version of Bacon & Gruyere Sous Vide Egg Bites would you rather have?

Starbucks Ingredients:

CarbSmart Ingredients:

Cottage cheese (cultured skim milk, skim milk, milk, cream, contains 2 % or less of: whey, lactose, salt, maltodextrin, guar gum, citric acid, carrageenan, mono- and diglycerides, locust bean gum, xanthan gum, carob bean gum, potassium sorbate, carbon dioxide [to maintain freshness], natural flavor, vitamin a palmitate, enzymes), eggs (eggs, citric acid), monterey jack cheese (pasteurized milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes, potato starch, powdered cellulose, natamycin [a natural mold inhibitor]), unsalted butter (pasteurized cream, natural flavors), gruyere cheese (pasteurized part-skim milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes, potato starch, powdered cellulose, natamycin [a natural mold inhibitor]), uncured bacon – no nitrites or nitrates added except as naturally occurring in sea salt and celery juice powder (pork belly, water, sea salt, cane sugar, natural flavors), rice starch, hot sauce (distilled vinegar, red pepper, salt), salt. contains: egg, milk. (Source)

Gruyere cheese (rennet, salt, milk, culture), bacon, eggs, cottage cheese (cultured skim milk, cream, salt), heavy cream (cream, milk, carrageenan, mono and diglycerides, cellulose gum, polysorbate 80), salt, pepper, paprika, xanthan gum, hot sauce, butter, bacon grease.

Are Bacon & Gruyere Sous Vide Egg Bites Convenience Food?

Of course, the biggest difference between Starbucks Egg Bites and Dana’s Egg Bites is that you make them yourself, rather than grabbing them with a cup of coffee on the way to work. How are these convenience food? Dana explains:

These Bacon & Gruyere Sous Vide Egg Bites had a learning curve—the first time I tried them, it took me two to three times as long as on subsequent trials. I had to do everything right then: shred the cheese, cook the bacon, work out the recipe, all that stuff. It was sort of a production, I’ll admit. But both That Nice Boy I Married and I were so enamored of the results—super-tasty, velvety egg-bacon-cheese food that could be grabbed from the fridge and warmed up in less than a minute—that I stuck with it.

Here’s the trick: Buy at least 8 ounces of Gruyere, maybe even a pound, shred it, and stash it in a snap-top container in your fridge. Cook and crumble your bacon, too, and stick that in another snap-top container. Or use packaged genuine bacon bits.

Once you’ve done this, you can get an assembly line going. You can even eyeball the quantities—unless you’re keeping strict count of calories along with carbs—a pinch of bacon, a bigger pinch of cheese, pour in the egg mixture, another pinch of cheese, cap ‘em, and get ‘em in the water. Set your timer and go do something else for an hour and a half.

Come the next morning, you can grab a jar or two out of the fridge—we’ve found that one is quite satisfying, but perhaps you’re hungrier than we are—and head for the door. The Bacon & Gruyere Sous Vide Egg Bites jars fit nicely in a good-sized purse or briefcase. Since they were cooked with the lid on, so long as it hasn’t been loosened, my husband and I are unworried about these sitting at room temperature for an hour or two. They’re not canned, but they’ve been heated through, and the lid is on tight.

For this reason, too, we’re unworried about Eggums sitting in the fridge for 4-5 days. We’d try it for longer than that, but we always eat them up first.

I will admit, these are more convenient if you own a dishwasher. You do have those jars to wash. They can go on the top or bottom rack; the lids and bands can go in the silverware basket. Since we’re not counting on the air-tight seal needed for canning, I don’t feel it’s necessary to use new lids every time, which would get pricey. I don’t have a degree in food safety, but so long as they’re clean and undamaged, I’m assuming they’re fine.

Oh, and my Ball jars came in a flat of 12. So why a recipe for 8? Because that’s what would fit in my stockpot. Feel free to scale the recipe up if you can fit more.

Another convenience: If you also make your own coffee, you can skip the stop on the way to work. And the savings may mean you don’t have to work quite so many hours.

One final grace of making your own: Those jars aren’t going into the waste stream, making our homemade Egg Bites (Eggums!) not only lower carb than Starbucks, but easier on the environment.

We hope you enjoy these. Please rate the recipe and leave any comments below.