Crackers

This post is part of our Easy, Waste-Busting Food and Drink Recipes resource.

This page includes recipes for:

• Crackers
  • Pea Flour “Shapes” Crackers (GF, V+, NF)
  • Oat Crackers (V+, NF)
  • Walnut and Rice Flour Crackers (WF, V+, OF)

Scroll down to find the recipe you’re interested in.

Pea Flour “Shapes” Crackers (Gluten-Free, Vegan, Nut-Free)

Ingredients

• 1 cup of yellow pea flour (you can use chickpea flour, but we prefer pea flour – it’s more delicious and it’s locally-grown in NZ)
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• Handful of herbs of your choice (we use fresh rosemary)
• 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 4+ tablespoons of water (as needed)
• Flour for dusting work surface (rice flour is great for dusting, but you can just use more pea flour or standard flour if not concerned about gluten)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180oC.
2. Mix together all the dried ingredients and the herbs in a mixing bowl (but not the dusting flour).
3. Add the olive oil and mix by hand until the mixture becomes like breadcrumbs.
4. Add water, a tablespoon at a time, mixing between additions, until the dough comes together in a firm, non-crumbly, consistent dough that is not too sticky. We usually use around 5 tablespoons of water.
5. Dust work surface with flour and then roll out dough until ½ cm thick, adding more dusting flour if needed to avoid sticking.
6. Put the rolled out sheet of dough onto a baking tray and then score crackers to desired shape and size.
7. Cook in oven for 10-15 minutes or until just beginning to turn golden (keep a close eye as they can turn very quickly – golden brown is probably overcooked!)
8. Place on a wire rack to cool. Once thoroughly cool, transfer to an airtight container.

Oat Crackers (Vegan, Nut-Free)

We love this recipe. Our only adaptations are, first, that we do not use greaseproof paper to roll them out – it’s not necessary and of course would render the crackers non-waste-free. Second, we add nutritional yeast to the dry ingredients (about 2-3 tablespoons) for a ‘cheesy’ kick. Handy hint: we cut the crackers to be quite large, so we can use it instead of slices of bread for picking up chunkier dips or salads.

Walnut and Rice Flour Crackers (Vegan, Wheat-free, Oil-free)

These are the best damn homemade crackers ever BUT they are slightly more fiddly than the crackers above because rice flour is much trickier to work with than pea flour or wheat flour. If you have a bit more time and want to make a real crowdpleaser, these are the ones for you! They are also oil-free, so are the heart-friendliest of the bunch (but you wouldn’t know they are oil-free when you taste them!)

Ingredients

• 1 cup rice flour
• 1 cup NZ-grown walnuts
• 4 tbsp ground flaxseed
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp of your fave dried herbs (we love sage, thyme, rosemary or oregano for this recipe)
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 4 tbsp sesame seeds
• 1 big clove of garlic
• 1/2 cup homemade oat milk (see how to make oat milk here)
• Extra rice flour on hand for dusting work surface.

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
2. Put walnuts into a food processor and grind until they become pretty crumbly. Don’t do it too long or they will start to go release oil and go pasty, which you don’t really want – you want to aim for a crumble/flour.
3. In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and mix well with spoon. Knead dough with hands until it comes together. Shape into a ball.
4. Place the ball on to a well (rice) floured work surface. Dust the ball all over with rice flour too. Now start to roll the dough out. You want to get it as thin as you can get it without the dough tearing. Be aware that rice flour is quite sticky and you will need to repeatedly dust the dough with rice flour as you go. We roll it a bit, dust it, then flip it over, dust that side too, and then roll. Basically you need to do it this way to avoid using baking paper.
5. Slice the dough into crackers (whatever size you like), using a large knife or, if you’re so lucky, a pastry/pizza slice and then pop the crackers onto an oven tray.
6. Bake the crackers for 18-20 minutes until slightly golden in colour. Watch them like a hawk because they can go from perfect to burnt in the space of 30 seconds because rice flour is quite delicate – so be careful!
7. Leave them to cool fully on the tray and then once cool, store them in an air-tight container.

NB: We adapted this crackers recipe from the legendary Angela Liddon’s recipe, which you can find here. Our main adaptations:

• Walnuts instead of almonds because a) walnuts taste way better b) walnuts are more sustainable to grow and it’s easy enough to find NZ-grown walnuts (whereas almost all almonds are imported, unless you live in Marlborough and can buy from Riverina).
• Omit oil because honestly these crackers do not need added oil – the walnuts provide all the oil necessary. We added oat milk to help it along rather than using straight water, but it’s possible that you could just use water or another milk. If you were to do this, then the recipe would be gluten-free and not just wheat-free.
• We make these crackers without using baking/parchment paper – you don’t need baking paper, it’s just extra waste and expense. Trust us!