My cottage cheese bread has a fluffy crumb and tastes just like wholemeal bread! You'd never guess this is a high protein keto bread recipe. One slice is 2g net carbs and contains almost 7 grams of protein.
This recipe is what you need when you crave a healthy AND hearty slice of bread!
As the name suggests, cottage cheese is the key ingredient in this loaf. Not only is it high in protein, but it also gives the bread a fluffy yet moist texture.
My low carb cottage cheese bread convinced even my picky eaters - because it tastes like "real" bread! Which is the highest praise 😉.
It's delicious for toasted breakfast, as a lunchtime sandwich or enjoy a buttered slice with a bowl of soup or salad.
Also try my cottage cheese cloud bread, an adaptation of the famous 2 ingredient cottage cheese bread.
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Why This Bread Is Special
Because it is a keto cottage cheese loaf that tastes like rustic wholewheat bread! It...
- is filling and satisfying
- gluten free
- contains no wheat or grains
- high in protein without protein powders
- does not taste eggy
- seriously easy to make in a blender
It also tastes 100% better than all those cottage cheese bread recipes with protein powders (which all taste like cardboard - sorry!).
This recipe is an adaptation of the everyday low carb bread from my website.
Ingredients
Let's talk ingredients. You'll find exact quantities in the recipe card at the bottom of the post, but I wanted to give you a bit of extra info right here:
- Cottage Cheese - I used a fat free cottage cheese. A 2-4% cottage cheese will work just as well. The most important thing is that the cottage cheese is not watery. Drain all liquid before you measure it! Also, take it our of the fridge 20 minutes before so it is at room temperature.
- Eggs - Large, room temperature eggs.
- Almond flour - I used ground almonds. This is the same as regular almond flour in the US. Use 1 tablespoon less if your almond flour is super-fine.
- Coconut flour
- Psyllium husk - I've given you amounts for either psyllium husk and for psyllium husk powder in the recipe card. The whole husks look like little sticks up-close, while the powder is a "proper" powder.
- Chia seeds - Both black and white chia seeds work.
- Baking powder - must be fresh
- Sea salt
- Seeds - I used a mixture of sunflower, pumpkin, sesame and flax. The seeds are optional.
Instructions
It is simple to make a cottage cheese bread. Here are the basic steps.
Scroll down to the recipe card for the detailed method with ingredient amounts, timings and nutrition information.
STEP 1
First, blend the cottage cheese until smooth. Then add the eggs and blend for several minutes until the mixture is light, fluffy and creamy.
STEP 2
Add the almond flour, coconut flour and baking powder. Blend until well-combined.
STEP 3
Now add the chia seeds, psyllium husk and half of the seed mix. A thick dough will form.
STEP 4
Fill the dough into a parchment paper lined loaf pan and smooth the top. Now, let it rest so the psyllium and chia can expand.
STEP 5
Sprinkle the rest of the seeds over the bread and bake it in the preheated oven until golden on top and it has a nicely domed shape.
Always check that the centre of the bread is fully baked by inserting a skewer. It should come out clean without any crumbs sticking.
Katrin's Top Tips
#1 Use a food processor. It is important that the cottage cheese is smooth and creamy and that works best with a food processor. We don't want any curd pieces in the bread! (I made a test with a regular electric mixer. You'll get there in the end, but be prepared to mix a few minutes longer.)
#2 Small loaf pan. You need a rectangular loaf tin with a capacity of 450ml. This is half the size of a standard bread pan. It is the perfect size for low carb bread, which is nutritionally dense and filling.
#3 Patience! Let the bread cool fully before slicing it. Like all keto bread, it is fragile while hot and firms up as it cools.
Variations
No psyllium husk: Replace it with ground flaxseed.
Extra fluffy bread: For an even lighter bread, separate the eggs. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then fold them into the dough at the end, taking care to keep all the air bubbles intact.
Cottage cheese bread rolls: Wet your hands and make 6 bread rolls. Bake for 35 minutes.
Serving Suggestion
The bread tastes great toasted as well as untoasted.
Sweet: Top with butter, peanut butter or blended cottage cheese and a sugar free jam of your choice. I went for keto raspberry jam, see image above.
Savoury: Ham and cheese, avocado spread, cream cheese an smoked salmon or keto tuna salad - so many possibilities.
Recipe FAQs
Yes, but then I recommend that you double the recipe.
Yes. If you want to double the recipe and make a regular sized bread, increase the baking time to 60 minutes. Test with a skewer and only remove the bread from the oven once it comes out without any crumbs sticking. Cover the top of the bread with aluminium paper once the top has browned sufficiently. This prevents it from getting too dark.
I don't own a bread machine, but I am certain that you can. Many readers have told me over the years that my bread recipes work in their bread machines. They always prepare the dough outside the machine. Then, they use the quick bake setting.
Storage
Store cottage cheese bread in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the fridge for up to 5 days.
It is also great for freezing. I pre-slice the entire loaf and layer parchment paper between the slices. This way, they don't stick together. Then, I can take it out one slice at a time and pop it straight into the toaster.
More Cottage Cheese Recipes
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Recipe
Cottage Cheese Bread
Equipment
- 1 small loaf tin (18x9cm / 7x3.5 inch, 450ml volume). This is half the size of a standard bread pan.
Ingredients
- 1 cup Cottage Cheese 250g, room temperature, all liquid drained **see notes
- 3 eggs large, room temperature
- 1 cup almond flour 100g, or ground almonds
- 2 tablespoon coconut flour 12g
- 3 tablespoon psyllium husks 14g, (1.5 tablespoon if using psyllium husk powder)
- 3 tablespoon chia seeds 26g
- ½ tablespoon baking powder 6g
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt a large pinch
- 2 tablespoon mixed seeds 15g, OPTIONAL. (I used a blend of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds and flaxseed)
Instructions
- Line a small loaf tin with parchment paper.
- In a food processor, mix the cottage cheese until smooth. Scrape down the sides in between. 2 minutes. Add the eggs and continue blending for a further 3 minutes or until the mixture is smooth, creamy and there are plenty of air bubbles. Check that there are no cottage cheese bits in the mixture!
- Add the almond flour, coconut flour, baking powder and salt. Mix until fully combined.
- Last, add the chia seeds, psyllium husks and half of the optional seed mix. Blend until fully incorporated and a thick dough forms.
- Fill the dough into the prepared loaf tin and smooth the top. Let it rest for 5-10 minutes so the psyllium and the chia can absorb the liquid. Sprinkle sunflower seeds on the top.
- Preheat the oven to 170 Celsius / 340 Fahrenheit (electric).
- Bake for around 45 minutes or until the top is golden brown and feels springy to the touch and a skewer inserted comes out without any crumbs sticking. Let cool fully before slicing.
kim
Do you know of a good substitute for coconut flour?
Katrin Nürnberger
A rule of thumb converesion is to replace coconut flour with 3x the amount in almond flour.
Sandy
I don’t have psyllium. Is there something I can sub?
Katrin Nürnberger
The closest alternative to psyllium is ground flaxseed. I expect this would make the bread more rustic in taste and perhaps a little less fluffy, too.
Margarida
Why is there a need for chia seeds or flax?
Recipe is great without it.
Katrin Nürnberger
Have you made the recipe without it? I added it for extra fibre and stability.
Kathe
Two questions:
Would this work in a standard 8."x4.5" baking pan or would it come out too flat?
If I rolled the dough into balls in then into a chopped seed mix, think this dough could turn out rolls -- or would they flatten out too much without a pan to support them?
Katrin Nürnberger
It would be much flatter and probably also bake a little quicker in a larger pan.
The dough may be a little soft for rolls, unless you perhaps rolled them in a bowl with seeds to stabilise them. Or, bake in a muffin pan.
Reka Mathe
Dear Karin,
I did this bread several times - substituting the greek yoghurt with coconut yoghurt, as we do not eat any diary. And we just love it. It is fluffy and very tasty.
Now I tried to exchange the almond and coconut flour with bamboo flour (which is very tasty and great to work with). The idea behind this is not to eat too much almond flour all the time.
The taste of the bread is still very nice, but even with longer baking time the inside stays wet and sticky.
Do you have any advise how to deal with that? I really would like to substitute almond flour - it sometimes is hard on digestion.
Katrin Nürnberger
You may need more flour. Coconut flour is 3x more absorbent than other flours. Perhaps work on replacing only the almond flour and keeping the coconut flour.
Reka
Thank you ! With coconutflour it is much better. Still it does not get fluffy, but tastes good as is not sticky anymore.
Micheline Canty
Hello. American here. Your recipe intrigued me so I wanted to give it a go. One of the first things you say to do is to use a blender. I did and what a pain! I’ve gone back and looked at your videos and pictures and finally figured out that you probably are using a food processor. There’s a big difference in how each works. The blender (as we call it) has a tall, narrow conical container with a little blade unit at the bottom - great for “blending” liquids while the food processor is a lower, wide bowl with a large blade that is conducive to chopping, grinding, mixing everything from cake batter to thicker doughs, etc. If you’d include a full-on side picture of the appliance you are using, it would be clear! While a blender worked great for smoothing the cottage cheese and blending the eggs, it was not good at handling the dough once the dry ingredients were added, so I had to put it in a bowl and mix it by hand. Had I used the food processor it would have worked perfectly. Lesson learned but others may run into the same confusion. Bread is currently baking (doubled recipe, used a 9” X 5” loaf pan, misted the top with water and placed another loaf pan on top to make a type of Dutch oven which helped it “dome”. This is said with all due respect. Thanks for the recipe and I’ll let you know how it turned out.
Katrin Nürnberger
Hi Micheline, thank you for your comment. Being German, I sometimes mess up on my terms. I have amended it in the post. Please come back here and let me know how the bread turned out!
Annmarie
Hi Katrin,
I made this today, doubled the quantities and used a regular loaf tin. It is really lovely, but I did have a little problem, it rose like a volcano in the middle and then popped at the top of that and the sides did not reach the size of the smaller tin. Any idea why this would have happened, I thought that maybe I should have cut a slice in the middle on top but I don't think it would have stayed as it was quite wet even though a thick dough. How can I make it expand evenly please, any ideas.
Katrin Nürnberger
Perhaps cutting it at the top would have prevented that explosion! It also sounds like you needed to bake it for longer, while covering the top so the bread does not overbrown. I also recommend reading the comments on my everyday low cab bread as it is essentially the same recipe, only with quark (and many people use yogurt instead). Many readers make this one in a large loaf pan.
Carol
I can't do chia seeds, so what can I sub?
Katrin Nürnberger
Ground flaxseed would be the closest alternative, but I haven’t tried that yet.
Nic
This is actually nicer than carby bread. A little more dense but still light enough. I had a brandee cream cheese to hand so used that. Lovely
I'll try cottage cheese next time though.
Beryl lee
I would like to make this recipe but shape the dough into bread rolls?
Thank you
Katrin Nürnberger
The dough may be a little sticky for that. What could help is wetting your hands when forming rolls, or portion the dough into muffin cups.