Simple Sugar-Free Keto Sweet Tea Recipe

Keto sweet tea over ice in a mason jar with a striped straw, a bowl of lemon wedges beside
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Introduction

Sweet tea is black tea, poured over ice, sweet enough that you taste the sweetness before you taste the tea. That is the whole appeal, and it is also the problem: the sweetness comes from sugar stirred into the pitcher, and there is a lot of it in a glass.

Brewed tea itself has nothing in it to worry about. Only the sweetening has to change, and that turns out to be the easy part. A granulated monk fruit blend measures cup for cup against sugar and dissolves into hot tea the same way, so the pitcher is made exactly as it always was and comes out of the fridge tasting the way you remember.

Brew it as strong as you like — that part is down to how long you leave the bags in — and there is a cold-brew version in the notes if you would rather not boil a kettle in August.

Keto Sweet Tea Recipe

0 net carbs
Total Time
5 minutes Plus boiling, steeping and chilling
Yield
8 servings
Course
Drink
Cuisine
American

Ingredients

Nutrition Facts

8 servings per recipe
Total Fat 0g 0% 0g 0%
Saturated Fat 0g 0% 0g 0%
Trans Fat 0g 0% 0g 0%
Cholesterol 0mg 0% 0mg 0%
Dietary Fiber 0g 0% 0g 0%
Total Sugars 0g 0% 0g 0%
Allulose 0g 0% 0g 0%
Protein 0g 0% 0g 0%

About these numbers: We are home cooks, not certified nutritionists. Nutrition is shared as a courtesy. We pick a representative product for each ingredient, and our recipe system works out the totals from the amounts in this recipe, so please treat them as a helpful estimate rather than a guarantee. The brands you buy, any swaps you make, and how generously you portion the recipe will all move these numbers.

Directions

  1. Bring 8 cups of water to a boil, then take it off the heat.

    This is the hot-brew method. There is a cold-brew version in the Notes below that skips the kettle entirely.

  2. Steep the tea bags in the hot water until the tea reaches the strength you want, then lift them out.

    Steeping time is the one thing you set by taste rather than by the clock — longer for a stronger brew, shorter for a lighter one. Start tasting early; you can always give it another minute, but you cannot take it back out.

    Don't squeeze the bags on the way out. Squeezing pushes more tannin into the tea, and tannin is what makes it taste harsh.

  3. Add the Lakanto Monk Fruit Sweetener and stir until fully dissolved.

    The granulated blend dissolves readily in tea this hot, which is why the sweetener goes in now rather than later. Then either put the tea in the fridge to chill, or pour it straight over ice.

Notes

Preparation

  • Tea is almost entirely water, so it tastes like the water you make it with. Filtered water is worth using if your tap water has much of a flavor of its own.
  • Cold brew, if you would rather not boil anything. Put the tea bags straight into a pitcher of cold water, leave it in the fridge for 6–8 hours or overnight, then lift the bags out and stir in the sweetener. The granulated blend takes longer to dissolve in cold tea than in hot, so keep stirring until you cannot feel grains at the bottom. Cold water also pulls less tannin out of the leaf than boiling water does, so the result is rounder and less astringent — not sweeter, just less harsh. Same two bags, same 8 cups; only the temperature and the waiting change.
  • If a hot-brewed batch comes out more bitter than you wanted, a pinch of baking soda added while the bags are steeping takes the edge off it. This is an old sweet-tea trick rather than something this recipe needs.

Storage

  • Store leftover tea in the fridge in a covered container, and give it a stir before you pour it again — the sweetener settles.
  • Keep it away from anything strong-smelling in the fridge. Tea picks up odors.

Serving Suggestions

  • Cold glasses and big ice cubes both buy you time before the tea waters down. Small cubes melt fast.
  • A lemon wedge, a lime wedge or a few mint leaves on the glass is the usual finish. A splash of vanilla extract or a dash of cinnamon in the pitcher takes it somewhere else entirely, if you want that.

Frequently Asked Questions

Isn't any tea on keto diet good?

Brewed tea itself is — leaves and water, nothing else. What varies is everything added to it afterwards, so the answer depends on the label rather than on the word “tea”.

Plenty of bottled teas are sweetened with sugar or fruit juice, and some are not; the Nutrition Facts panel and the ingredient list settle it in a couple of seconds, and “natural” on the front of the bottle does not. Bubble tea is the one to look at hardest: the fruit syrups are sugar-based and the boba pearls are starch, so a shop’s “0% sugar” setting usually refers to the sweetener they add at the end rather than to the rest of the cup.

Milky teas are their own question, and there is an answer below on which milk and how much.

Can I add ice directly to the sweet tea while it's still hot?

You can, and the recipe says to — but there is a trade-off, and it is worth knowing which way you are making it.

Poured straight over ice while hot, a good deal of that ice melts on contact and the tea ends up weaker than it was in the pitcher. That is fine if you brewed it strong on purpose, which is one reason to leave the bags in longer.

Chilled in the fridge first and then poured over ice, the ice mostly stays ice and the tea tastes the way it did in the pitcher. It takes a few hours, and it is the better glass. Chilling the glasses helps either way.

Can I add milk or cream to my keto sweet tea?

Yes, with an eye on which one and how much.

Heavy cream is the easy choice — a splash carries very little in the way of carbs, and the fat is what makes a milky tea taste like one. Unsweetened almond or coconut milk works the same way and keeps it lighter.

Ordinary dairy milk is the one to go carefully with. Its carbs come from lactose and they are real, so a splash is a small amount and a mug half full of it is not. Sweetened or flavored plant milks are the other thing to check, since the sugar is in the carton rather than something you added.

How can I make the sweet tea stronger or milder in flavor?

Steeping time is the main lever: longer for stronger, shorter for milder. The number of bags is the other one — drop to one bag for a lighter pitcher, or go to three for a brew that still tastes like tea under all that ice. Taste as you go, because you can keep steeping but you cannot un-steep.

What should people with diabetes know about this keto sweet tea?

This keto sweet tea recipe is made without any added sugar and is low in carbohydrates because it’s sweetened with monk fruit rather than sugar. Everyone’s body responds to foods and drinks differently, so if you have diabetes or other specific dietary needs, please consult a healthcare professional before adding any new recipe to your diet, even a sugar-free one.

Wrap-Up

Make it by the pitcher. It keeps in the fridge, it is better the colder it gets, and a glass of it with a lemon wedge is most of what a hot afternoon needs.

Have you tried this recipe or any other recipe on the blog? Please rate it below and let us know what you think in the comments! We love hearing from you!

You can also share it on Instagram and use the hashtag #buttertogetherkitchen — we love seeing them. Enjoy!

From another keto kitchen: Keto Sorrel Drink.

Updated — October 15, 2026: We rewrote the opening around the tea itself, made the cold-brew method complete, and corrected what the commercial-tea answer says about bottled and bubble teas.

Correction — October 15, 2026: The recipe card never told you to steep the tea — the step jumped from boiling the water to taking the bags out. The steeping step is back, with the strength cue it should have had.