Ghee (clarified butter)
Dairy · Cream Butter
Ghee is a cooking fat rather than a dairy food you have to portion out. The tested serve of 20 g, a tablespoon and a half, records zero in all six FODMAP groups. Everything a low FODMAP diet worries about in dairy is a sugar, and the process that turns butter into ghee discards the part that carried it. What remains is fat, and fat ferments in nobody’s gut.
Last updated 4 September 2026Serving sizes for ghee (clarified butter)
The tested serve is 20 g, about a tablespoon and a half, rated green with no FODMAP group registering.
Tested serving sizes
| Serving | Amount | Main FODMAP | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.5 tablespoons | 20 g | None detected |
Breakdown for 1.5 tablespoons
Is ghee (clarified butter) low FODMAP?
Put butter in a pan and it comes apart into three things: water that steams away, milk solids that sink and toast on the bottom, and clear gold fat you strain off the top. Ghee is only the last of those. Whatever milk sugar the butter still held sat in the watery portion and in those solids, so it leaves with them, and the tested serve comes back empty across excess fructose, lactose, fructans, GOS, sorbitol and mannitol. Those toasted solids also scent the fat on their way to being thrown out, which is why ghee tastes nuttier than what it was made from.
Ghee (clarified butter) and IBS: what to know
Two separate things get tangled together here. Straining takes out the milk solids, and the solids are where dairy protein sits, which is why ghee turns up in kitchens where milk protein is being avoided for reasons that have nothing to do with FODMAPs. Traces can survive the muslin, though, so if an allergy is what you are working around, that belongs with whoever is guiding it rather than with a FODMAP rating. Fat is the other thing worth separating out: rich food can unsettle a gut on its own terms, and ghee makes food rich efficiently, since a spoonful carries no water to cook away.
Gut-friendly ways to eat ghee (clarified butter)
The advantage is heat. With the water and solids gone there is little left to burn at ordinary frying temperatures, so ghee browns meat and roasts vegetables where butter would blacken in the pan. It is also the correct fat for tempering spices, that trick of heating cumin seeds and a pinch of asafoetida until they crackle and pouring the lot over a finished dal or a plate of rice, which is how savoury depth gets built without onion. A jar keeps at room temperature, because what turns rancid in butter is the water and the solids.
Frequently asked questions
Is ghee lactose free?
For low FODMAP purposes it behaves that way: our tested serve records no lactose at all, since the milk sugar goes out with the water and the strained solids. Butter’s own figure was already a trace rather than a dose, so nobody should switch to ghee expecting a large change in milk sugar. Choose it for the cooking properties instead.
Can I use ghee instead of butter in a recipe?
In savoury cooking, freely. Baking needs a small adjustment, because butter is roughly a fifth water and ghee is none, so a straight swap by weight gives a denser, richer, slightly greasier result. Use a little less, or accept a shortbread that shatters differently. Neither fat shifts the FODMAP picture of the recipe, so the decision is about texture and flavour.
Is ghee dairy-free?
No. It starts as butter and butter starts as cream, so ghee is a dairy product with most of the non-fat parts removed rather than a plant fat. If you need genuinely dairy-free cooking, olive oil and coconut oil do the job. The label wording that matters here is clarified, which describes what was taken out, not what it was made from.
Can I make ghee at home?
Yes, and it is mostly waiting. Melt unsalted butter over a low heat, let it bubble until the noise dies down and the solids on the bottom turn golden, then pour it through muslin into a clean jar. Do not be tempted to drop garlic cloves in and leave them there, since the fructans wash into any water still in the pan.
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