Healthy Homemade Cheez-Its® — Gluten-free and Keto with Vegan Option
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If you love Cheez It Crackers, but you're trying to eat healthier, do I have a treat for you! Here is a great Healthy Homemade Gluten-free Cheez Its® Cracker recipe–and they're vegan and keto too!
Now you can enjoy your childhood favorite guilt-free!
I just love it when I can remake a processed food into a healthier version, like my “Almond Joy®” Bars, homemade protein bars, powdered sugar substitute, sugar-free lemonade, homemade ketchup, and 5 ingredient salad dressing.
If you're like me, Cheez-Its® were one of the most flavorful snacks of your childhood. I can't think of a time that I sat down with a box of those without almost polishing off the entire box.
Or at least more than I should have (ahem).
Anyone else with me?
Well, my CHEEZ-IT® days are over since I am gluten-free (and presently dairy-free due to an apparent food allergy), but thanks to Kate from Kate's Healthy Cupboard, I can have CHEEZ-IT®s again!
Well, sort of.
Homemade “Cheez-Its®” that are gluten-free, grain-free and even dairy-free, with a vegan option.
Now that's something to get excited about!
When you are on a special diet, having healthy snacks around is one of the biggest challenges I have found. It's fairly easy to pull off meals, but when the kids (or adults) are clamoring for something to eat, and the typical cheese sticks, crackers, cereal, cookies, and such isn't an option, you need to have easy to grab replacements.
These healthy crackers are a great solution to that problem.
These Homemade Gluten-free Keto Cheez Its Crackers are so good – they'll satisfy your craving for crunchy cheesy goodness without the refined flours, grains, and even without dairy!
What is Nutritional Yeast
Nutritional yeast has gained in popularity in recent years and is staple for many — particularly vegans or those who are allergic to dairy.
It gives a really nice cheesy-nutty flavor to dishes and can be made into many dairy-free versions of typical dairy heavy foods.
We've used it in our home for years since my son was born with a life-threatening milk allergy. Until we found nutritional yeast, our son had never had cheese sauce, grilled cheese, pizza with cheese — anything like that.
Imagine how thrilled he was to have his first Dairy-Free Grilled Cheese and “Cheeze” Sauce that he could dip things into.
And nutritional yeast doesn't feed candida, so if that is a concern (which it is for us), you should be fine eating it. However, there are some people who seem to react to it due to the fact that their systems are so sensitized to yeast from the proliferation of yeast in their system.
Besides these Homemade Keto Cheez Its, we have several favorite recipes using nutritional yeast:
Other Recipes Using Nutritional Yeast
– Nutritional Yeast Salad Dressing and
– “Dorito®” Popcorn
and Kate (the author of this recipe) has a few tempting ones as well:
– “Cheesy” Kale Chips and
– Cashew Alfredo Sauce
How To Make Cheez Its
Combine flour, salt, and yeast in a bowl. (Photo 1)
In another bowl, whisk the egg with the melted butter/oil and lemon juice. (Photo 2)
Combine the wet with the dry ingredients and stir until dough forms. (Photos 3 & 4)
Place the dough between two sheets of parchment paper and roll out to about 1/8 inch thickness. (Photo 5)
With a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut dough into desired cracker size and sprinkle the top with more sea salt. Slide the bottom piece of parchment and crackers onto a cookie sheet. (Photo 6)
Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes until golden. (Photos 7 & 8)
The outer crackers will brown the fastest, remove those and continue to cook the remaining crackers
Recipe Notes
- Good options for an egg substitute include my Powdered Egg Replacer as well as a flax or chia egg.
- This is an “S” for those on the Trim Healthy Mama plan.
The nutrition values below were calculated using egg and butter.
Homemade Cheez Its – keto w/ vegan option
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups almond flour
- 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
- 1/2 teaspoon salt (plus more for sprinkling on top)
- 1 egg (or egg substitute)
- 1 tablespoon butter or coconut oil (melted)
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
Instructions
- Combine flour, salt and yeast in a bowl.
- In a small mixing bowl, whisk the egg with the melted butter/oil and lemon juice.
- Combine the wets with the dries and stir until dough forms.
- Place the dough between two sheets of parchment paper and roll out to about 1/8 inch thickness.
- With a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut dough into desired cracker size (I use a ruler with a pizza slicer to get them straight and even) and sprinkle the top with more sea salt.
- Slide the bottom piece of parchment and crackers onto a cookie sheet.
- Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes until golden.
- The outer crackers will brown the fastest, remove those and continue to cook the remaining crackers.
Notes
-
- *Honeyville or Bob's Red Mill almond flour will work just fine for these crackers.
- I prefer using butter to make these a bit “creamier” tasting, but expeller pressed coconut oil will work for dairy-free option.
- Good options for an egg substitute include my Powdered Egg Replacer as well as a flax or chia egg.
- This is an “S” for those on the Trim Healthy Mama plan.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate only. It may vary depending on ingredient brands, substitutions, and preparation methods. Optional ingredients are not included. Net carbs are typically calculated by subtracting fiber and sugar alcohols (such as erythritol) from total carbohydrates. This information should not be relied upon for medical or nutritional purposes.
What childhood snacks were your favorite?
Kate Criswell is a Fitness Trainer and Nutrition Coach who loves spending time in the kitchen tweaking recipes to make them healthier yet still satisfying and delicious. For more of her grain-free recipes and tips, visit Kate’s Healthy Cupboard at www.kateshealthycupboard.com.
How important is the yeast in this? My son is on a dairy free, gluten free, soy free, corn free, YEAST free diet. Could I get away with baking soda somehow?
The yeast here gives it the cheesy flavor. Check to see if you can have this kind. Some practitioners are OK and some are not. It doesn’t feed candida but it can be cross reactive for some folks is my understanding. Hope you can have it!
Sorry, I made these, and the crunch just isn’t there. The flavor of a Cheez-it is close. But nowhere near the crunch. Maybe adding some tapioca flour would help. The almond flour, just doesn’t crisp up. Had to waste all the ingredients.
I have made these a dozen times and they are always crunchy! Maybe you didn’t bake them long emough, they should brown a bit. Adding a stach may make them airy, but that also adds carbs…not what I wanted in this recipe. Obviously they are not airy crunchy like cheezits, but that is near impossible to replicate with nut flour!!
These are wonderful thank you! I didn’t have lemon juice so I halfed it and used apple cider vinegar. I’m going to try and see if I can use a different flour since my son can’t have nuts.
So you tried it w/ the almond flour? I bet pumpkin and sunflower seeds would work fine.
Yes today I did. I was making them for my gluten free/dairy free/ egg free sister as a thank you! My son is dairy, gluten, and nut free plus others like sunflower. I’ve never seen pumpkin seed flour. What about brown rice or sorghum flour?
I think that should work. I make the pumpkin seed meal / flour myself. Just grind them in a grinder. It works great.
ACV should work in place of the lemon juice! Rice flour works so differenly compared to nut and seed flours. You may need to add liquid of some sort, even water. The dough may not roll out, you may need to spread out on parchment.
These look perfect!!
Thanks Girls!! Love seeing you over here!!
I was wondering if there is any other flour I could use other than almond flour. I live in Ghana,and can’t get almond flour. Some flours that I can find are: Rice flour,Tapioca Flour,Millet Flour,and Coconut flour! Thanks
I think you could use any but the coconut flour. You could try grinding your own almonds into a fine meal too. Hope you enjoy them!
Almonds are unavailable here! 🙁 Thanks though! 🙂
Any kind of nut or seed could work – just will be a little different. I would try pumpkin seeds personally – take care and hope it works!
Thank you! I love looking at sites like these it makes being gluten free a whole lot easier! 🙂 I will let you know how it turns out. 🙂
You are so welcome!! I hope to be making some more changes to my recipe page and more soon that should make it easier. Hope to see you around again!
Can you get cashews or sunflower seeds? You could grind those into a flour. You could try rice flour with a bit of tapioca mixed in, but the amount of flour will be less if you do that. This will take quite a bit of tweaking, you may need to add water or other liquid. You may have to just spread the dough instead of rolling it out. Sorry, I have not tried this and those flours work very differently than nut or seed flours!!
The reason I buy Cheez-it’s, is for the cheesy taste. Where’s the cheese?
The post mentions nutritional yeast – it’s a cheesy nutty flavored powder. Thanks!
I have all the ingredients for this except for the nutritional yeast. I feel silly asking, but what is nutritional yeast? All of the ingredients are expensive so I don’t want to make a costly mistake.
It’s a nutty / cheesy tasting yeast that doesn’t feed candida. It’s often used for vegans to get B12 in their diet. You could use dried parmesan if you like instead. There’s a link to it in the post – no silly questions – no worries :).
I am so excited to try this recipe! I have all the ingriendents in my kitchen right now! As soon as I get a free minute I will make them and let you know how the turned out…haven’t had a cheesy xracker in 2 years! Gluten and dairy free since 2012 and never felt better 🙂 thanks!!!
These crackers look amazing! Thanks for linking them up at Gluten-Free Wednesdays. Looks like you forgot to leave a link back. 🙂
Oops Linda! Did you check again? My son said he did it. We’ve had 2 family crises this week so I am so sorry. My father in law died and another issue that I will blog on in the future.
If it didn’t work out I can share them again.
Take care!
Sorry about that. I linked back on Thursday.
Hi Linda – that was my son who said that “I linked back on Thursday”. Just let me know if you are OK if we share it again -thanks for your understanding.
These look sooo good! I love cheez-its.