Nuts and seeds are a fantastic garnish to a dish, as well as a great snack when you are in a pinch. Offering a good amount of protein and fat, a small handful of nuts or seeds can keep hunger at bay for quite some time. To obtain the most nutritional benefit from nuts and seeds, it is best to consume them raw, or even better to soak them overnight and then dehydrate them. On our website you will see the use of nuts and seeds mainly as a garnish in recipes, but more prominently in our grain free baking. Nut flours and nut butters make fantastic grain free substitutes for conventional wheat flour when baking.

Add nuts and seeds to salads to enhance flavor and texture, sprinkle over soups, create your own raw trail mix, or just grab a small handful when you need a quick bite. You can essentially make a nut butter out of any nut you desire. These are great to spread over fruit or vegetables, as well as added to sauces or dips. Nut butters can create a tasty grain free treat as well.

Nut flours are one of the staple ingredients that we use in our grain free baking recipes. We found the use of nut flours to be best suited for cookies, pie crusts, pizza crusts, and crackers.

Blanched Almond Flour

This almond flour is very fine due to the skin of the almond being removed. This nut flour will result in a very smooth textured baked good, very similar to conventional flour.

Almond Meal

This is a coarser almond flour due to the skin of the almond being ground into the flour as well. You can make almond meal at home by grinding raw almonds in a food processor. Almond meal works fine for all grain free baking, but the end result will not be as flawless as when using blanched almond flour.

Flax Seed Meal

Flax seed meal is simply ground flax seeds. These can be used to sprinkle over salads, or add to grain free baked goods to create a more “earthy” flavor. We typically use flax seed meal when we want to make something a bit more savory such as our “n’oatmeal cookies,” pizza crust, as well as grain free crackers.

Pecan Meal

Pecan meal is simply ground raw pecans. This nut flour is one that we have made at home using our food processor. Pecan meal is our first choice when making a grain free pumpkin or apple pie.