The selection of crackers or crisp bread with seeds at organic shops is quite wide – buckwheat, spelt rye; you name it! However they’re all made with oil. I remember trying the spelt crackers, which made me feel as if I had a thin layer of fat covering my mouth – it was not pleasant at all. Surely I’m more sensitive about fat content than most people given that I use no oil when cooking at home.
Another ingredient that I’m not at all happy about is yeast. I mean, why do you even need to use yeast for such crisp and thin crackers?
I’m sure that organic oil-free and yeast-free crackers are out there – I just haven’t found them yet in Barcelona. So, I took the matter into my own hands and created my very first plant-based or vegan, oil-free, flourless, gluten-free and yeast-free buckwheat crackers’ recipe. Yes, you read that right – my crackers are flourless as well. It’s because I use soaked buckwheat groats instead of flour. If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you know that soaked grains are my thing these days – muffins, cakes, bread and now even crackers can be made with soaked grains, particularly with buckwheat, millet, quinoa and barley.
The crackers or crisp bread (as you prefer) turned out just perfect and full of flavour – my family and me loved them. Needless to say, they didn’t last very long. We just had had millet-buckwheat waffles when the crackers’ batch was ready and photographed and we couldn’t help ourselves but to eat at least one third of them at one go. The rest was finished by lunchtime the next day.
I’ll need to develop another recipe over the weekend – I’m thinking of a plainer version that’d go well with spreads and wouldn’t make me eat a whole bunch at a time.
Homemade Oil-Free Buckwheat Crackers’ Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup (170g, 6oz) raw buckwheat groats, soaked
- ⅓ cup sunflower seeds
- 1 tbsp. ground flax or chia seeds
- 6 sun dried tomato halves, soaked
- ¼ tsp. Himalayan salt or sea salt
- 10 green olives
- ¼ tsp. smoked paprika
- 1 tsp. granulated garlic
- 2 tbsps. onion flakes
- 1 tbsp. lemon juice
- 1 tbsp. water or plant-based milk
Directions
- Soak buckwheat and dried tomato halves overnight or at least for 6 hours.
- Heat oven to 175 C (350 F).
- Rinse and drain buckwheat and tomato halves and put them in the food processor together with all the other ingredients.
- Process the goodies until homogenous batter forms. You’ll need to scrape the sides with a spoon now and again.
- Measure two pieces of parchment paper of the size of your baking sheet. Place one sheet on a chopping board or on kitchen counter. Form a batter pile in the middle of parchment paper and place the second piece of parchment paper over the batter. Gently press the pile down with your hands. Now, start rolling it out until it is almost the same shape and size as your baking sheet. Remove the top paper and lift the rolled out batter onto baking sheet.
- Sprinkle some sunflower seeds and flax seeds on top and press them in using a spoon.
- Bake for 30 minutes, and then turn off the heat, open the oven door a bit and let cool in the oven to get it really crispy. Should you like it a bit soft, remove immediately and start munching.
We found them so full of flavour that we didn’t even need anything to spread on them, but you can go ahead and use hummus, nut butter, tomato, avocado etc.
I’m so happy to have found your site today- I can hardly wait to try your recipes!
It has been a challenge for me to find WFPB recipes that include soaking.
Until now that is.
Thank you so much!
Hi Leslie!
I am so glad I’m useful to someone 😉 Since I discovered cooking and baking with soaked buckwheat, barley, millet and quinoa, there’s no going back — I absolutely love it!
Take care!
sounds like a tasty recipe! when do you score the batter/cracker? that is not mentioned in your cracker recipes that I have found……
Thank you! You score the cracker batter when it’s spread out onto the baking sheet, before putting it into oven. Cheers!
I can’t find dried tomatoes anywhere near me..
I will have to buy some online and wait 🙁
Any substitutions you might suggest?
Hello!
You can omit them for now! And once you have them, try the original version.
However, it’s hard to believe you can’t find them — any stores have at least the ones in a jar which you can wash clean from oil before adding to batter.
All the best!
In the US we called them
Sun Dried tomatoes
Thank you Laura! It was a typo on my side — I have added the “sun” 🙂
I love olive oil but try to avoid it but can’t stand olives (weird !) Do you think they are a necessary ingredient in your recipe (essentiel for the structure for instance ?) or just in the recipe for taste and therefore I might be able to do it without them … what do you think? Thanks
Hi!
You can ditch the olives — they are there for the taste 🙂
Nice recipe! You probably ate them so quickly because of the salt from the olives and salt in the recipe. I will omit both of those ingredients to see if it results in long lasting–but still tasty–crackers.
Hi Rebecca!
Thank you! Of course you can omit the salt and olives if it feels too salty!
Even I myself don’t make them too often (just on special occasions) — salty or not, crispy and dry things tend to be addictive 🙂
Hi there,
Is it ok to eat the Buckwheat groats without dehydrating/slow oven roasting them first?
Many thanks!!!!
Hi Rachael!
I’m not sure I follow 🙂 Do you mean buckwheat groats in general or do you ask about this recipe? Or maybe you mean buckwheat crackers (not groats). You could eat them raw, but the batter is quite soft…
Anyway, it is ok to eat soaked buckwheat groats without cooking them! I use them to make my sweet vegan ricotta cheese for example https://www.nutriplanet.org/2018/02/vegan-ricotta-cheese-recipe/
Please let me know if you meant something else! 🙂
what can i substitute the flax for? chia?
Hi Tania!
Yes chia! I’ve made an update into the recipe as well — the seeds need to be ground. Happy baking!