A Curious Eater’s Guide to Alternative Flours

The COVID-19 pandemic boosted interest in several domestic pastimes, but baking arrived out on top. Sourdough starters turned a kitchen staple, and shut-up pictures of homemade banana bread experienced their moment on Instagram. Then there was a run on baking materials in the spring—when staples like wheat and bread flour bought out, lots of home cooks turned to option flours like oat and quinoa.

But it can be challenging to adhere the landing on your do-it-yourself baked items with something like rice or coconut flour. Non-wheat options have distinct nutritional profiles than wheat flour, and most never incorporate gluten. That’s a excellent marketing point for anyone on a gluten-free of charge diet regime, but it has a significant impression on texture. Gluten presents dough its doughiness, aiding it extend and increase, trapping air bubbles, and earning the concluded item chewy and fluffy. Do not fret—as lengthy as you know how your choice can have an affect on density, texture, and dampness, you can make fantastic matters with option flours.

Whether you are searching to experiment for the reason that of scarcity, a gluten intolerance, or culinary curiosity, here’s a handy guide to the alternative flour landscape.

Oat Flour

You can get oat flour at the retail store or make it you by grinding rolled oats to a great powder in a food stuff processor or blender. Elliott Prag, lead chef at the Institute of Culinary Schooling in New York Metropolis, describes that oat flour absorbs far more liquid than other flours, which makes for drier, denser baked goods. It is fantastic in pie crusts or granola bars, but you are going to have to have to incorporate a little additional liquid or excess fat for moisture. If you’re producing bread, cake, or everything which is supposed to be fluffy, you just can’t use only oat flour—the batter or dough will not increase. But if you nonetheless want to add flavor and a crumbly texture, try mixing 3 areas all-purpose flour with just one part oat.

A quarter-cup serving of oat flour has a similar nutritional profile to all-goal flour. It’s mainly carbs—22 grams—with 4 grams of protein and two grams of unwanted fat. It also packs in 3 grams of typically soluble fiber, which gels up when blended with liquid, slowing digestion and lowering LDL cholesterol (the poor kind).

Almond Flour

When standard wheat flour is produced up of typically carbs, almond flour is mainly extra fat: 15 grams of it in a 170-calorie quarter-cup serving. It has fewer carbs and more protein than traditional flour, with six grams of just about every, and it is in general more calorically dense. The superior excess fat information keeps matters moist but can also weigh matters down. Prag recommends doctoring your recipes with components that increase increase, like eggs or baking soda, as very well as incorporate-ins that can assist lend some construction, like bananas. Almond flour is flavorful, creating it a fantastic solution for a dense, nutty cake or a sweet quickbread.

Coconut Flour

Coconut flour has an even more robust taste than almond, so Prag suggests working with it in recipes with complementary taste profiles, like pineapple upside-down cake or banana bread. When its considerably higher excess fat content—four grams per serving—makes for denser baked merchandise, it is nonetheless mainly carbohyrates. Eighteen grams of carbs lend sweetness and starch, so you can still get a cakey crumb when you bake with coconut flour. Just be all set to experiment with further leavening brokers like eggs, baking soda, or baking powder. A 120-calorie quarter-cup serving has 4 grams of protein, which adds a little bit of chew. 1 factor to note: all that unwanted fat is saturated, which the Dietary Rules for People in america advocate limiting to no additional than 10 p.c of your complete every day calories. That is about 22 grams for men and women who eat 2,000 calories for each day.

Chickpea Flour

Chickpea flour has usually been employed in Mediterranean cooking to make carb-rich dishes like socca, a chickpea pancake. These times, people are making use of it to make all kinds of baked goods—including a mean gluten-free pizza crust. Its high starch articles will help bind batters and doughs with each other, in contrast to crumbly oat or almond flour. With 120 calories, just one gram of fat, 21 grams of carbs, and five grams of protein, a quarter-cup serving is virtually identical to all-goal flour in conditions of energy and macronutrients, but it has the additional advantage of 5 grams of fiber, which is fantastic for digestion and general wellness. 

Rice Flour

Kimberly Hansan, who wrote an full cookbook about rice flour, explains that it has often been a staple in Jap cultures—it just happens to be booming in Western cooking appropriate now thanks to the increase of gluten-totally free diets. Rice flour has virtually no fat and just two grams of protein—about fifty percent of what’s in all-goal flour. It is significant in starch, with 24 grams of carbs per quarter-cup serving, which suggests it can bind doughs jointly and create a chewy texture. Although rice flour is historically used in dense, flat recipes like scallion pancakes or noodles, it also will work for baking since it is almost flavorless and rises quickly. Just be guaranteed to use baking powder or soda to assist develop and lure air bubbles.

Quinoa Flour 

Although quinoa has been a key section of South American delicacies for hundreds of years, the concept of grinding it into a flour didn’t actually get hold right until gluten-free of charge diets turned well known. It has slightly more body fat than all-purpose flour—two grams for every quarter-cup serving—but is or else related, with most of its 105 energy coming from carbs. Prag explains that quinoa flour bakes equally to oat flour, making a denser, far more crumbly texture. You can attempt mixing all-goal and quinoa flour in a three-to-one ratio to add nutty taste to bread devoid of sacrificing that squishy, chewy texture. If you are operating with just quinoa flour, choose for some thing like muffins or pancakes.