This Low-carb Keto Gluten-Free Flax Bread Recipe is one of our favorite recipes of all times. It tastes great with sweet or savory filling and freezes well too, plus it's easily adaptable for vegan diets.
If you're on either a gluten-free diet or a grain-free, low-carb, or paleo diet and you miss bread, this Flax Bread Recipe is just what you have been waiting for.
It's grain free and even vegan (if need be) to boot and is one of our family's favorites. It's a very forgiving recipe that you won't even need my gluten-free baking tips for :).
And if you haven't heard about how healthy flax is, then read on.
Because this focaccia flax bread recipe is well–just great.
We've been eating flax seeds for years, but mainly in shakes and as a substitute for eggs in baking, but this bread is a great way to get the health benefits of flax into your family.
The Benefits of Flaxseed
Flax is high in:
- omega-3 essential fatty acids
- fiber
- antioxidants
Sounds like a good idea to get you and your family to eat more of this wonderfood, right? Well here's how!
I've shared this Focaccia Flax Bread with a number of folks, and everyone has asked for the recipe. It has a nice deep flavor and pleasing texture. And it's a great bread alternative for those on gluten free diets.
Gluten free folks need to take great care not to load up on refined starches for those do damage to their already compromised digestive systems. Alternatives like this are pleasing both to the palate and also healthy for your body.
If you're not that familiar with flax seeds, there are two varieties–light and dark. The bread in the main photos here above was made with light seeds.
The light ones will (of course :-)) produce a lighter-colored bread, but from what I understand, there is no difference in nutritional value and we haven't found there to be a taste difference either.
The light (golden) flax seeds are more expensive, so save your money (unless, of course, you really need the lighter variety for some reason) and buy the dark variety. The resulting bread will look like what you can see pictured below.
Serving Ideas: Top / Serve This Great Gluten-Free Flax Bread with:
- Homemade Nut or Seed Butter (and jam if you like)
- Savory Hummus
- Homemade Egg-Free Mayo with cheese, veggies, shredded carrots, etc. Makes a great sandwich! (that's what is on the sandwich in the main photo)
- Fried Egg and Cheese
- This Easy Marinara Sauce. Great for dipping!
- Nothing! Just eat it plain! I can barely keep my son out of it so this is how it mainly gets eaten in our home.
What You Will Need for this Flax Bread Recipe
- Flax Seed Meal
- Baking Powder
- Salt (I recommend Real Salt)
- Healthy Sweetener (optional: sucanat or coconut sugar would be goo options. I use xylitol or stevia extract for a candida-friendly option)
- Eggs (or equivalent alternative)
- Water (use filtered water please)
- Coconut Oil (other healthy fats may be substituted)
Notes on stevia:
You can use other sweeteners for this recipe, but in case you happen to use stevia, here are some tips for its use.
Stevia is super sweet so you only need a tad. I bought these (the links are affiliate links) scoops and use the 2nd smallest as “1 scoop”, or 1/32 of a tsp.
Yes, it’s THAT sweet!
Hope you love it as much as we do.
One more thing. If you need more information on stevia–like what it is and how to measure it, read this post here.
Recipe Notes for Flax Bread
- Sweeteners: Although xylitol is a good candida-friendly option for sweetener, stevia extract is as well. If using stevia, use 1 scoop. If candida is not an issue, organic sucanat or organic coconut sugar would be good options.
- Egg Options: You can use an egg substitute like Ener-G Egg Replacer for the eggs. See my Homemade Powdered Egg Replacer for a make-your-own option. For a low-carb egg substitute use a flax egg, chia egg, or gelatin egg.
- If you are able to eat eggs but are still not a big fan, using all five might be a bit much for you. You can try using 3-4 and substituting an egg alternative for the remaining eggs.
- Flax Meal Info: 4 cups of flax seeds yield about 6 – 6 1/2 cups flax meal. If you have extra after grinding, just store it in the fridge or freezer for adding to smoothies, etc.
- THM: For those on the Trim Healthy Mama plan, this recipe fits in as an “S.”
- Paleo: Use the homemade version of baking powder linked to in the recipe card to make this recipe Paleo.
- Whole30: Use my homemade baking powder, do not use powdered egg replacer as an egg substitute, and omit the xylitol to make this recipe friendly for Whole30.
- Pan sizes and conversion info: One recipe will fit well in a 10×15 pan. To use 2 9×13 pans, make 1 1/2 recipes.
3 recipes covers 2 large circular baking stones. - Baking in Bulk: If you really want to bake in bulk, make 4 1/2 recipes for 2 large size pizza stones and 2 9×13 pans (this is what I always do since we eat it up so quickly!)
Here are the measurements for 4 1/2 batches:
9 cups flax meal
4 1/2 T baking powder
22 eggs, or equivalent
4 1/2 tsp salt
4 1/2 T sweetener (using the lower measurement)
2 1/4 cups water
1 1/2 cups coconut oil
- Baking Stones: The baking stones really make clean up easy and there is no greasing necessary. No need to grease and clean up is a snap!
Focaccia Flax Bread Recipe (gluten and yeast-free with grain-free and vegan options)
Ingredients
- 2 cups organic flax seed meal
- 1 Tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1-2 Tbsps xylitol (optional)
- 5 beaten eggs
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/3 cup organic coconut oil (melted - other healthy fats may be substituted)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease pans (coconut oil works great!). See below for pan selection information.
- Mix dry ingredients well -- a whisk works well.
- Add wets to dries and combine well. If using eggs, make sure there aren't obvious strings of egg in the batter.
- Let batter set for 2 to 3 minutes to thicken up some (leave it too long and it gets past the point where it's easy to spread.)
- Spoon batter into pan and spread out.
- Bake for about 20 minutes, until it springs back when you touch the top and/or is visibly browned.
- Cool and cut into whatever size slices you want.
Note also that this post is one of the first ones that I put on my blog. I realize now that this recipe is on numerous sites around the internet–some with variations and some without. I do not recall where this Flax Bread Recipe came from, but obviously there are a lot of people who love it as much as we do!
How about you?
What would you serve this bread with?
Source: Web Md
I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. This happens to varying degrees every time I use flax. First batch, I made half the recipe. Used a gelatin egg (agar agar). Spread it out fairly thin, but it still took an hour to cook, didn’t rise. Turned out delicious, but more like a cracker than bread. Second time, made the whole recipe with the same (agar agar) eggs. Spread it out a little less thinly (this time on parchment paper). Didn’t rise, didn’t cook through, even after an hour – still very wet in the middle. I’m at 30′ sea level, so that can’t be the problem. I used 2 t cream of tartar and 1 t baking soda, which is a perfect substitute for baking powder. I’m so sad because the flaxseed was expensive, and I wasted 2/3 of it. I really love the nutritional value of this recipe, the low saturated fat content (I used algae oil) and the zero carb load. I want this to work!
Hmmm…it didn’t rise at all? I’m confused–are you saying that you let it sit to rise? Thanks!
No, I thought it would rise a bit because of the leaveners. Yours looks thicker than my first batch. I didn’t either batch sit either time, even to set, because after mixing it, the dough was pretty thick. However, it took some time to spread anyway, so I figured that was enough “sitting.” Regardless, after 20 minutes all I got was the very “greasy mess” your friend predicted, even at 30′ above sea level. So I tried cooking them longer. Next time, I’ll try actual baking powder and see if that makes any difference at all. I don’t know what else it could be otherwise. When I prep the agar egg, it’s the consistency of actual egg, and binds the ingredients beautifully. But perhaps that ingredient’s also a factor? I really need to stay away from saturated fat, hence avoiding eggs. Thanks for your reply, by the way – I know this is a very late conversation after your original post. I did love the cracker that the first batch turned into after an hour!
Hi there. My recipe does best for me w/ eggs or the powdered replacer. I haven’t tried it w/ agar. With chia eggs, it is more flat. Any success since?
I haven’t made a 3rd batch yet. The reason I don’t eat eggs is that I’m pescatarian. If I decide to try again, I’ll use the same agar egg and either eliminate most of the oil and use actual baking powder (aluminum free) instead of the cream of tartar and baking soda, or go back to what I did with my first batch, which turned into a giant cracker, rather than focaccia of any kind – but I loved it!
Could you use this instead? https://wholenewmom.com/recipes/energ-egg-substitute-egg-replacer-without-eggs/ It works great!
No, I’m also Keto. The carbs, and starch, in the potato starch alone would kill me dead!
Gotcha–I have made it w/ arrowroot only I think b/c I have read about health benefits of that but I understand! Hope it works out for you! I like meeting another flexible cook :)!
2 stars because I followed the recipe exactly but used vegetable oil instead (only oil I had in the house), same amount, and it was WAYYYY too oily I couldn’t even eat the bread. Will make it again tomorrow using just 1/2 tbs instead of 1/3 cup. Besides that I will stick to recipe. I’m gluten free and liked the flavor of the bread overall, though I will add more salt next time. Love the nutritional content of flaxseed so hoping it turns out alright next time!
Hello Juliet – I am sorry for the delay in responding to you–I wanted to do some research into your results so I consulted with some allergy-free bakers and here is the response that I got:
“Because eggs and flax are the only binders – and eggs can need emulsification, I would say there’s a good chance she is baking at higher altitude (3000 ft or above). Recipes like this are much more finicky as the rise quicker and separate. The type of oil shouldn’t matter mush (it’s possible that the saturated fat behaves a smidge differently in baking, but I haven’t found this), but I typically reduce the oil and add either more binder or just a touch more liquid. I don’t know that I would reduce the leavener though as you don’t use a lot. As a heads up, if someone tried to make this at higher altitude with the egg-free option (I read it), they would probably end up with a greasy mess that wouldn’t set up. So like people in the mountain states.”
Otherwise they thought perhaps there was an error on your end that you weren’t aware of. Can you tell me your thoughts? Thanks for reading!