Let’s face it, adulting is hard. And sometimes you have to make tough decisions. Like choosing between keto cheesecake or keto chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Really, it’s quite heart-wrenching stuff!
Thank goodness there are delicious mashup desserts like these Keto Cheesecake Bars. This way, you can enjoy all the creamy deliciousness of cheesecake with the buttery sweet flavor of your favorite cookies. This is one of my most popular keto desserts, with good reason!
I got it into my head that I needed to make them again for a party, and while I was at it, I took some new photos. To be honest, I had forgotten just how much I liked them. And they got rave reviews from everyone.
If you like to maximize your sweet treats, check out other mashup recipes like Keto Coffee Cake Cookies or my delectable Keto Brookies. So many wonderful ways to bring two recipes together!
Why we love this recipe
- Easy to make: Cheesecake Bars like these are also wonderful because they’re easier than full scale cakes. And they don’t require a water bath!
- Great flavor: You really do get to get to enjoy two desserts in one!
- Great for parties: This recipe makes 16 delicious bars so you can share with family and friends.
- Freezable: Want to keep them all to yourself? Store them in a covered container in the freezer for up to 3 months.
- Macros: They look and taste like a high carb dessert but have only 6.1g total carbs per serving!
Reader’s Thoughts
“Hello and thank you from Australia! My husband became a type 1 diabetic in his late 20’s, and when he got the diagnosis it was such a struggle to try and find ways for him to still enjoy desserts safely. This recipe and all the other incredible recipes on your website have been an absolute godsend. Keep up the fantastic work!” — Gin
Ingredient Notes
- Almond flour: This keto shortbread crust is made with almond flour. You could use sunflower seed flour for a nut free option, but you will need to add a little lemon juice to offset the green reaction.
- Sweetener: You will want a brown sugar substitute in the cookie portion and a powdered sweetener in the cheesecake portion.
- Cream cheese: Make sure your cream cheese is properly softened.
- Sour cream: This helps make the filling extra creamy. You could also use heavy cream.
- Sugar-free chocolate chips: I like to use Lily’s or ChocZero dark chocolate chips. If you can find them, mini keto chocolate chips are great too.
- Kitchen staples: Eggs, butter, vanilla extract, baking powder and salt.
Step by Step Directions
- Prepare the cookie dough: In a medium bowl, whisk together the almond flour, sweetener, baking powder, and salt. Add the egg, melted butter, and vanilla extract and beat until the dough comes together. Stir in the chocolate chips.
- Bake the crust: Press about two-thirds of the dough into the bottom of a greased 9-inch square pan. Bake at 325ºF for 12 to 15 minutes, until light golden brown, then remove from the oven and let cool (it will not be fully baked at this point).
- Make the cheesecake filling: In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until completely smooth, about 1 minutes. Add the powdered sweetener, sour cream, and vanilla and beat until smooth. Finally beat in the egg until just combined.
- Assemble the bars: Pour the filling over the cooled crust. Take the remaining cookie crust mixture and crumble over the top of the filling, pressing lightly to adhere.
- Bake, then chill: Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the top crust is golden and the filling is just a little jiggly in the center. Remove from the oven and let cool, then refrigerate for 1 hour until set.
Tips for Success
I cannot stress how important it is to have your cream cheese properly softened before beating. In cooler climes, this means warming it up a tiny bit. I always zap mine in the microwave for 5 to 10 seconds.
Bake the bottom crust until it’s just golden brown. You don’t want it fully baked but you want it to bake enough to be firm under the cheesecake filling.
Sweetener Options: I recommend using an erythritol-based brown sugar sweetener for the crust. Allulose will cause it to brown too much and it will also be overly soft, so the bars won’t have enough structure.
You do want a powdered sweetener for the cheesecake filling but it can be whatever kind you like best. I used a combination of erythritol and allulose.
Frequently Asked Questions
Good news! Cheesecake is a wonderful dessert that is easy to make without sugar or flour. You can enjoy many wonderful flavors and styles of keto friendly cheesecake! I advise making your own rather than trying to purchase it, so you know exactly what it contains and how many carbs it has.
Keto dessert bars like this refrigerate and freeze really well. Make sure to let them cool properly before wrapping them up tightly to store. You can freeze them in the pan, if you like, but I recommend pressing plastic wrap to the surface of the cooled bars, to avoid freezer burn. Then wrap the whole pan tightly in foil or additional plastic. You could also cut them into individual servings and store in a covered container between sheets of waxed paper, so that you can enjoy them anytime the craving strikes.
This keto chocolate chip cheesecake bar recipe has 6.1g of carbs and 3.2g of fiber per serving. That comes to 2.9g net carbs per bar.
More Delicious Keto Cheesecake Bars
Keto Chocolate Chip Cookie Cheesecake Bars
Ingredients
Cookies Crust:
- 2 1/2 cups (280 g) almond flour
- 1/2 cup (100 g) brown sugar replacement
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 1/2 cup (113.5 g) butter, melted
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup (60 g) sugar-free chocolate chips
Cheesecake Filling:
- 8 ounces (226.8 g) cream cheese, softened
- 1/3 cup (60.67 g) powdered sweetener
- 2 tbsp sour cream, or heavy whipping cream
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
Instructions
Crust
- Preheat oven to 325ºF and grease a 9-inch square pan well.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the almond flour, sweetener, baking powder, and salt.
- Add the egg, melted butter, and vanilla extract and beat until the dough comes together. Stir in the chocolate chips.
- Press about two-thirds of the dough into the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake 12 to 15 minutes, until light golden brown, then remove from the oven and let cool (it will not be fully baked at this point).
Filling
- In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until completely smooth, about 1 minutes. Add the powdered sweetener, sour cream, and vanilla and beat until smooth. Finally beat in the egg until just combined.
- Pour the filling over the cooled crust. Take the remaining cookie crust mixture and crumble over the top of the filling, pressing lightly to adhere.
- Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until the top crust is golden and the filling is just a little jiggly in the center. Remove from the oven and let cool, then refrigerate for 1 hour until set.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional Disclaimer
Please note that I am not a medical or nutritional professional. I am simply recounting and sharing my own experiences on this blog. Nothing I express here should be taken as medical advice and you should consult with your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. I provide nutritional information for my recipes simply as a courtesy to my readers. It is calculated using MacGourmet software and I remove erythritol from the final carb count and net carb count, as it does not affect my own blood glucose levels. I do my best to be as accurate as possible but you should independently calculate nutritional information on your own before relying on them. I expressly disclaim any and all liability of any kind with respect to any act or omission wholly or in part in reliance on anything contained in this website.
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Made this today and it’s absolutely delicious. Will definitely make again, it would be a great thing to bring to a party as no one would miss the “real stuff”. It’s recipes like this that help me stay sane while doing Keto.
This was easy to make and delicious which equals Awesome!
This is by far my favorite keto dessert recipe I’ve tried so far. I use allulose instead of powdered swerve. The brown swerve is a must! I added some chopped, dry roasted macadamia nuts on top for added crunch and it’s phenomenal! The best dessert! Thank you Carolyn! We love your palette and recipes ????
When you cut the bars and put one on the pate, I noticed that there were chocolate chips on top. Did you add more chocolate chips to the cream cheese mixture before baking?
Nope, if you watch the video, you see that some of them fall out of the cookie dough as you crumble it. But you can always add a few extra if you like.
Is the coconut unsweetened or sweetened? Can you use less fat cream cheese?
Unsweetened… I really can’t say how well the other cream cheese will work since they tend to have a lot of fillers. But you’re welcome to experiment!
These are delicious! Another hit! I’m working on getting used to the different texture of the lower carb flours, but the fantastic taste of this helps a ton! Thank you for your tireless work to help us who need to be low carb, especially diabetics, still enjoy our food!
Excellent
What can I do if my cream cheese is a little bit clumpy after I mixed in my other ingredients?
Oh dear… were your eggs cold? Cold eggs can make it clump. I don’t think you can do much now except bake it.
I made these last weekend —— OMG SO GOOD!! I’m thinking of using just the crust part of the recipe and trying to make cookies out of it. I just LOVED the flavor! Thoughts?
So so incredibly good. My kids who aren’t keto, loved them!! Shared with friends and they loved them too. Definitely will make again. ☺️ Mmmmm yummy. Thanks for sharing the recipe!
So, this is my first review. Ever! I have tried many recipes and while I have liked some, I have never loved them enough to brag about them. These keto bars however, are on another level! I have never found another keto dessert recipe quite as delicious. I had to make a small adjustment with my sweetener because I did not have the powdered blend. I blended the monk fruit sweetener in my bullet to get the powdered consistency and it turned out beautifully. Anyways, if any of you are on the fence about these just take the plunge! It is worth it! Thank you for a great recipe!
I am so happy to have won you over! 🙂
Did you use the same amount of monk fruit sweetener as recommended for the Swerve? I usually use at least 2 different sweeteners in my recipes because I don’t like the cooling effect of the Swerve.
Made these today just as written. I used the extra almond flour. They are fantastic!
I just wanted to know how many grams make a serving so I can calculate the macros. They’re delicious by the way. Thank you.
I am sorry, I don’t measure my bars in grams after they are baked.
Waiting for them to finish baking. Excited to try them. Can you tell me how you figured out carbs per serving? Adding up all the carbs of the ingredients minus the erythritol /Swerve I get almost nine carbs per bar assuming 16 bars in a pan. So I was wondering how you arrived at 6.1. Thanks.
I have paid software called MacGourmet that does all the work for me. It pulls amounts from the USDA database so it’s quite reliable (except in some random cases… it used to have some funky numbers for cauliflower but they finally fixed that!).
I made this recipe, but added walnuts and cinnamon instead of the chocolate chips. It turned out amazing. Thank you!
Dear Carolyn,
I am pretty new in keto but thanks to your amazing recipes I am enjoying it from the very first moment! I am about to make this fantastic dessert of yours and I want to use ChocZero chocolate chips.
However, I am a bit concerned… I came across with some discouraging reviews about this brand, stating that it does cause blood sugar spikes, and pushes you out of ketosis.
One happy customer left a convincing explanation why ChocZero is keto-safe as it is advertised, but I would feel more confident hearing your opinion.
I copied her review:
“There are two types of dietary fiber, each with important health benefits. Insoluble fiber, found in wheat bran, vegetables, and whole grains, is fiber that does not dissolve as it moves through the digestive tract. (It’s the type of fiber you’ve heard referred to as “roughage.”) Soluble fiber, which appears in nuts, seeds, and some fruits and vegetables, dissolves in water and becomes a gel that slows digestion of other nutrients such as carbohydrates. Unlike some fibers like isomaltooligosaccharides (often labeled as prebiotic fiber or tapioca fiber), soluble corn fiber is considered a true dietary fiber by the FDA. “Soluble corn fiber is not the same thing as corn,” registered dietitian Alix Turoff explains. “It is the fiber extracted from corn and has a very low net carb load, so it is appropriate for a ketogenic diet.” Since another name for soluble corn fiber is resistant maltodextrin, it has sometimes been confused with the ingredient maltodextrin. However, the two are nothing alike in their glycemic effects. Maltodextrin is very high on the glycemic index (GI), meaning that it can lead to a spike in blood sugar, but research shows that soluble corn fiber does not have the same effect.”
I know it was a long one, but I couldn’t sum it up any shorter. Thank you for your time and response in advance. Much love!
Hi… I answered you via email! 🙂
I saw this recipe and knew I had to try it. And I am so glad I did. This is THE BEST keto dessert recipe that I have made so far. Great job as usual Carolyn!
Any substitute if i dont have the swerve brown sugar? Can i just use the granulated erythritol instead? Thank you
Yes… won’t be quite the same but should be okay.
The original recipe has made frequent appearances at gatherings with my keto friends for the past couple years! SO GOOD. Excited to try them with the addition of the brown Swerve! Yum yum! Thank you!
These keto chocolate chip cheesecake bars look so amazing and super easy to make! 🙂 Low carb goodness at its finest.