All You Need to Know About Liver Pate for Keto and Carnivore Diets
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Liver pate is best for beginners dipping their toes into the adventurous world of nose to tail eating. Of all the organs and odd bits, liver is usually the one people try first. Blending it into a liver pate is a simple and enjoyable way to add it to your diet.
There are many reasons why pate is a good option to start with once you decide to eat organ meats in your keto diet or carnivore diet. To begin with, when compared with other foods, ounce for ounce animal livers are the highest source of nutrition on the planet.
Pates are blended, making them visually appealing and easy to get down. Since they are so rich, a little bit goes a long way. You’ll get a satisfying sense of accomplishment about eating organ meats and only need to have just a little bit.
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What Makes a Pate?
Technically written as โPรขtรฉโ (pronounced pah-TAY), the word is French for “paste”. This paste may be a mixture of meat, poultry, vegetables or seafood blended together with seasonings and salt. From ultra-smooth to slightly chunky, any grind of texture may be allowed depending on the recipe and personal preference.
Pates are made all over Northern and Eastern Europe and Russia even though they are usually associated with French cuisine. Almost every European country has its own spin on pate, you can find leverworst (Dutch), pate or lebฤr (Romanian), Leberwurst (German), leverpastei (Netherlands), pasztet (Poland) and so on. Americans have their own favorite version called liverwurst which is essentially the same thing.
What is Liver Pate Made of?
The base of any liver pate contains liver ground with various culinary herbs and other flavoring agents. Choose beef, poultry, pork, lamb, goat or bison liver – all are excellent!
Low-carb Beef Liver Pate: Directions & Tips
The hardest part about making any liver pate is cleaning the liver. In order to make the smoothest pate possible, youโll want to take a sharp knife and trim down any connective tissue and arteries.
It might be weird to be so close to your food, handling an organ and all, but really without the modern food system, we would all be doing this. Take this as an opportunity to think about where food really comes from (not a shrink-wrapped package, not a vending machine) and feel grateful that you can bring such, pure and wholesome ingredients into your home.
Apply your will and you’ll learn how to make liver pate (and not hate it!).
Cooking the liver calls for some attention but the rest of the process is pretty straightforward. Take a hefty portion of butter and fry your meat with whatever add-ins the recipe calls for. Remove from heat once cooked, let cool, slightly and blend it all up in a blender or food processor.
Serve liver pate warm or cold. Itโs really worth the forethought to be able to chill it before serving. If you are in a hurry, pop it in the freezer for 30-45 minutes. Ideally, you make this dish ahead of time and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight for the flavors to melt and texture set.
Is Liver Pate Raw?
Liver pate is not raw. Cooked liver is the main ingredient of this spread.
Younger livers of lamb and calf are milder in flavor. Start with one of these or with chicken livers, if you are wary about a strong flavor. Garlic, onion, and rosemary are classic pate flavors that do a good job at masking the taste of offal.
Supplement with Desiccated Grass-Fed Liver Pills Instead
If after reading all this, you still canโt wrap your head around eating liver, an easy to take vitamin supplement made from high-quality beef organs would be a good place to start. Ancestral Supplements offers different blends to choose from to best suit your needs.
Read my full Ancestral Supplements Review to understand more about the options, benefits, and quality available.
What are the Best Easy Liver Pate Recipes?
Iโm all about easy recipes, especially when it comes to working with organ meats. Who wants to eat nose to tail if all the recipes look complicated? Probably not too many people, easy organ meat recipes are a must!
Start with these simple keto carnivore liver pate recipes
Easy and Delicious Liver Recipes
Trying to find something a healthy variety to your meals? Get ready to explore a lineup of easy and delicious liver recipes that will change the way you think about this nutritious ingredient. These recipes will help you incorporate liver into your diet in a tasty and enjoyable way, making your meals both nutritious and satisfying.
How do you Eat Liver Pate?
Traditionally people serve pate on a toasted or fresh slice of bread. Obviously, for us on a low-carb diet, bread isnโt an option. So, what are we to do?
We need some dip-ables!
Serve pate with:
- Just a spoon (my personal favorite)
- Crispy bacon slices
- Fresh slices of cucumber
- Celery sticks (assuming no oxalate sensitivity)
- Baked vegetable chips
- Grilled vegetables
- Keto Flax Crackers
How Long Will Liver Pate Keep?
Kept in an air-tight container, liver pate stores well in the fridge for up to 7 days. Like most home-cooked food, it is best eaten within 3-5 days.
If after 3 days, there is still a lot more to go through, divide it into individual portions, freeze, and defrost later as desired. Liver pate freezes very well.
Chicken liver pate tends to last longer due to the layer of fat that rests on top which preserves the meat below.
What Can I do with Leftover Beef Liver?
If you pan sear or sautรฉ liver in beef tallow and have some leftover. Use it as the base of a pate! Donโt be too shy to explore flavors and mix and match what you like. Say you sautรฉed liver with onion, garlic, and parsley, even though those arenโt a traditional combination for pate it would still be great!
Feel free to divide a pate recipe in half or thirds to accommodate the amount of liver you have leftover.
Leftover liver pate?
Well, now you get to share it with everyone you know!
- Make sure everyone in the family gets at least one bite.
- Impress your house visitors with a sampling of your fancy pate.
- Bring leftovers to work and leave it on the counter with cucumber slices, celery sticks or bread for your co-workers.
If after all this you still manage to have leftover, freeze it. Transfer the pate to a freezer-safe container, label it with the date and pop it into the freezer. Consider using an ice cube tray as a way to divide the pate into individual servings; a muffin pan would work as well.
Liver pate is freezer-friendly so take advantage of storing some away for later. Pull it out when youโre ready and you wonโt feel any pressure to make it through a whole recipe your first time around.
Beef Liver Pate Nutrition Facts
The health benefits of organ meats are plentiful!
There are many nutritional benefits in beef liver. It is known to be, ounce for ounce, the most nutrient-dense food on the planet.
Surely this must be why
โLiver has ranked above all other offal as one of the most prized culinary delights. Its heritage is illustriousโwhether savored by young warriors after a kill or mixed with truffles and cognac for fine patรฉs de foie gras.โ
Margaret Gin and Jana Allen, Innards and Other Variety Meats (San Francisco, 1974)
The Weston A Price Foundation notes that liver provides:
- An excellent source of high-quality protein
- Natureโs most concentrated source of vitamin A
- All the B vitamins in abundance, particularly vitamin B12
- One of our best sources of folic acid
- A highly usable form of iron
- Trace elements such as copper, zinc, and chromium; liver is our best source of copper
- An unidentified anti-fatigue factor
- CoQ10, a nutrient that is especially important for cardiovascular function
- A good source of purines, nitrogen-containing compounds that serve as precursors for DNA and RNA.
Beef Liver Macros
According to FatSecret per ounce, beef liver has 38 calories. It is a lean organ with only 1 gram of fat, 1 gram of carbohydrate, and 5.77 grams protein per ounce. Macros will vary slightly with the source; beef, chicken, lamb, and pork have slight differences in their nutrition content.
Take a deeper dive into beef liver vs. chicken liver and give each a taste test to find your favorite. Liver is an excellent addition to any diet, especially a low-carb, keto, or strict carnivore one.
Is Liver Pate Best with Grass Fed Liver?
When it comes to organ meat, grass-fed, organic and pasture-raised options are going to provide the best quality. Some people are able to eat conventionally raised organs without any negative side effects. However, personally, I think it is worth the effort and money to source unconventionally raised liver.
Follow my Complete Buyerโs Guide to Liver to learn the best places to buy liver in person and online, what to order, and what to do with it once you bring it home.
How much does beef liver cost?
Grass-fed beef liver can range anywhere from $4.99 to $15 per pound. Online, I see an average price of $9.99/pound or so. Chicken and pork livers tend to be less costly; lamb liver tends to be a little more pricey. There are many outliers. If you can find quality food directly from the ranchers themselves you may be able to get a great deal. I know many people who source direct and come home with FREE organ meat!
How to Cook Beef Liver on a Carnivore Diet
There are many delicious zero fiber carnivore diet recipes to enjoy! Even if you are on a strict carnivore diet, you can still enjoy liver pate with a few simple modifications.
The easy omission of any herbs and spices that donโt agree with you should be good enough. Make a simple carnivore pate with liver, butter (duck fat, or lard), salt and optional heavy cream. Serve a la louche (by the spoon), with bacon as a dipper, or on the side of your meat.
You might be interested in more than just blended liver and butter for your meal (which sounds like great baby food doesnโt it?).
There are many ways to eat liver on a carnivore diet.
These keto carnivore recipes with liver may be your new favorites!
Would it be okay to use a different animal like duck liver? My husband passed a farm selling venison and while in the shop, he saw duck livers and brought them home. There’s a very good farm to table restaurant nearby that makes an incredible duck liver pate so I’d like to recreate it!
One more question as well. I’m a healthy type 1 diabetic ( oxymoron or what!), and when a lot of people mention diabetes, they fail to specify that they’re mostly talking about type 2! Would the strict carnivore diet also put me into a state of ketosis, being that it’s no carb? That’s one thing I want to be mindful about, for my disease I’m not sure if being in ketosis is a good thing or not.
Hello Danielle, It’s great to get a message from you. You sound so joyful. Duck livers are absolutely ok to use for pate. I suggest starting with my chicken liver pate recipe and substituting duck liver. It will be tasty! We raise ducks and always enjoy the livers. In regards to your other question, yes. Due to the low/zero-carb nature of carnivore, the body does go into a state of ketosis, so please consider that while making your dietary choices. Thanks so much for visiting my blog. I hope you enjoy all our work here. Wishing you and your husband the very best!
My favorite way to eat chopped chicken livers is on a sandwich After the liver is fried up with an onion and maybe a piece of garlic, mix with mayo — preferably avocado oil or coconut oil mayo (instead of a name brand like Hellman’s or Kraft which have junk oils in them) and a couple of pastured hard-cooked eggs. Put on rye bread or a good keto bread with lettuce, tomato and raw onion.
That does sound good!