Using And Grinding Flax Seed

How To Use Flax Seed

Add ground flax seed to yogurt, cottage cheese, quark, smoothies and all baking – breads, muffin or cookies. Sprinkle some into your morning cereal or over salads for a nutty taste. Mix into salad dressing or stir into thicker soups just before serving. You can add ground flax seed to rice dishes, hummus or tabblouleh, but it is best to add just before serving.

Many cooks say they add up to 3 tablespoons of ground flax seed to almost any recipe. Experienced cooks regularly add this much flax seed to pasta sauces and casseroles, and say they see no difference in texture or taste.

Using Flax Seed As a Substitute:

Flour

For most recipes for baked products, you can substitute 2 tablespoons of ground flax seed for 2 tablespoons of the flour for each cup of flour in the recipe. If you don’t have a coffee mill to grind the flax seed, soak the seeds in warm water for about 10 minutes before adding them to your baked products.

Oil

You can also substitute 3 parts ground flax seed for one part oil in recipes as flax seed contains healthy polyunsaturated fat. If you add 3 tablespoons ground flax seed to a recipe, you can reduce the oil in the recipe by 1 tablespoon. Note that ground flax seed makes baked products brown faster, so you may want to consider monitoring or reducing the normal cooking time.

Eggs

Flax seed that is ground can be substituted for eggs in many recipes because ground flax seeds have a natural gum that thickens batter in much the same way as eggs do. To replace 1 egg: mix together 1 tablespoon of well ground flax seed and 3 tablespoons warm water. Let the mixture sit for a few minutes to set-up then use in your recipe. When wheat germ or bran is called for in a recipe, you can easily substitute ground flax seed in the same amount.

Grinding Flax Seed

By grinding whole flax seed into a course meal or fine powder, you will release the lignans and essential fatty acids, making them available to your body.

We suggest that flax seed should be freshly ground in a clean coffee grinder and the ground product used immediately. Ground flax seed can also be stored in an airtight container and kept in your fridge or freezer for short periods. Grinding the seed with a mortar pestle also breaks down the tough outer hull of the seed.

Soaking flax seeds overnight starts the germination process, which activates enzymes that also make the seeds easier to digest. Another way to break the seed coat of flax seed is to soften a tablespoon of seed in your morning cup of herbal tea. By the time you have finished your tea, the seeds are soft enough to chew and are more readily able to be digested.