Nielsen proved that the maximum number of maximal independent sets (MISs) of size $k$ in an $n$-vertex graph is asymptotic to $(n/k)^k$, with the extremal construction a disjoint union of $k$ cliques with sizes as close to $n/k$ as possible. In this paper we study how many MISs of size $k$ an $n$-vertex graph $G$ can have if $G$ does not contain a clique $K_t$. We prove for all fixed $k$ and $t$ that there exist such graphs with $n^{lfloorfrac{(t-2)k}{t-1}rfloor-o(1)}$ MISs of size $k$ by utilizing recent work of Gowers and B. Janzer on a generalization of the Ruzsa-Szemeredi problem. We prove that this bound is essentially best possible for triangle-free graphs when $kle 4$.
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