Low Carb Gingerbread Protein Balls

With only five core ingredients and the option to use a blend of spices or store bought gingerbread spice, these protein balls are perfect for a quick and healthy sweets fix. Each one of these gingerbread protein balls has 9 grams of protein and 7 grams of both carbs and fat.

And if you’re following a low carb or keto protocol and count net carbs, each protein ball has just 3 grams of carbs.

Oh, and I can’t forget to mention they’re unbelievably moist and packed with flavor. You’ll never know you’re eating a low carb, low calorie treat.

How to Make These Gingerbread Protein Balls

If you’ve made my white chocolate protein cake bites or chocolate cake protein donut holes, these protein balls use a very similar method. In this recipe, you’ll need to mix the dry ingredients in a bowl before adding a bit of butter and apple sauce and stirring to form a dough.

You can see this in action in the photos below. If you’re wondering about the gingerbread spice ingredients, I’ll cover that below. Just as a reminder, you can use a pre mixed gingerbread spice to cut down on ingredient needs.

After you’ve formed the dough for your gingerbread protein balls, all that’s left to do is form them. If you’re a macro tracker, you can weigh the dough and divide that by the number of protein balls you’re making. (The recipe makes 10 – yay for easy math.) 

Form ’em, bake ’em, roll ’em, and you’re done.

Gingerbread Protein Balls Ingredients

Let’s talk ingredients and potential modifications.

Gingerbread Spice Recipe

Here’s everything you’ll need to make the gingerbread spice for these protein balls:

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

If you wanted to use this in other recipes, you could easily extrapolate the ratio to fit larger/smaller recipes.

Protein Powder

I used PEScience Select Whey and Casein for these gingerbread protein balls. This is one of my two go-to protein powders for my recipes, with the other being Dymatize 100% Whey.

That said, you’re more than welcome to use any protein powder you’d like. If you go that route, here are a few tips for successfully adapting recipes with different protein powders:

• Pay attention to the scoop size. One scoop of PEScience is 31 grams. If your protein powder has a 40-gram scoop, it would be like adding an extra scoop of protein to this recipe by the time you’re done.
• Add liquid ingredients slowly to avoid over hydrating recipes. Likewise, you may need to add a bit more if a dough or batter seems too dry. The two protein powders I mentioned above are thicker and may not require as much liquid as a fine textured powder.
• If you’re using a plant based protein powder, you’ll likely need more liquid ingredients. Choose a fat source like more light butter or eggs, oil, etc. for best results.

Swerve Confectioners

Swerve makes zero calorie sugar substitutes, and their confectioners product is a powdered sugar replacement. I’m not affiliated with Swerve, I’m just obsessed with their products.

If you have another powdered sugar replacement, feel free to use that. Or if you’re fine with the added carbs, you could use real powdered sugar. The recipe only calls for 1/4 a cup so the added calories wouldn’t be too crazy.

Click here to visit Swerve’s FAQ page about their products and ingredients and click here to see all the recipes on my blog that use Swerve.

Note: I’ve used a few powdered sugar workarounds in other recipes like mixing a granular sweetener like stevia with protein powder and a thickener like cornstarch or xanthan gum, but I don’t think I’d recommend using those methods in this recipe.

Almond Flour

If you wanted to try these gingerbread protein balls with another flour, I’d start with something like all purpose flour. As a disclaimer, I’m not as experienced in converting almond flour to other flours as I am with something like coconut flour. So my suggestions are guidelines, and you may need to play with the recipe a bit to get things just right.

Substitute flour at your own risk, nom sayin’?

Okay, back to the all purpose flour. In this recipe, I’d start with 1/2-3/4 cup (60-90 grams) all purpose flour in place of the almond flour. Get a close look at the ball of dough in the photo above for an idea of what yours should look like. If it’s too moist, add flour. Too dry? Add liquid ingredients like apple sauce in this recipe.

If you’d like to try using something like coconut flour, I’d start small with maybe 1/4 cup (28 grams) and add as needed. Coconut flour is super absorbent and doesn’t require as much to get flour’s job done.

You’re Ready to Make Gingerbread Protein Balls

That’s all I have for ya. You’ll find the full recipe below.

If you make these gingerbread protein balls, I’d appreciate you sharing it with your frands. Or you can take a photo and tag me on Instagram @mason_woodruff, join my free Facebook group and share it with the Proton Party, or pin this recipe to Pinterest.

Bone apple tea!

More Low Carb Recipes You Might Like

My easy chocolate protein pancakes have 16 grams of protein and only 10 grams of carbs per pancake. They’re also flourless.

And if you’re looking for a more savory recipe, my lower carb chicken bacon ranch mac and cheese is a reader favorite.