Most of us like to sink our teeth into a piece of bread, slather some butter on a muffin or eat a crunchy cracker every once in a while. Eating gluten free, grain free, or Paleo can complicate that for us, though. With all the tricky food labeling out there, we may have trouble discerning which products to eat. Finding great alternative recipes often poses a difficult challenge, too.
Here’s a list of recipes and products that taste like the real thing. For the purpose of this post, I’m not going to focus on one particular type of diet, but give suggestions for all different diets. We’re all on a unique path in our food journey, so I want to give as many options as possible to help you on your way.
Grain Free, Gluten Free or Paleo:
Grain-Free Sandwich Bread from Nourished and Nurtured
Coconut Wraps by Pure Wraps
Paleo Bread by The Julian Bakery
Cranberry Almond Loaf by Elana’s Pantry
Grain Free Crackers (I make a batch of these once a week!)
Traditional:
Brown Soda Bread with Currants and Caraway by Nourished Kitchen
Soaked Zucchini Bread by Food Renegade
Dehydrated “Raw” Crackers by The Nourishing Cook
Einkorn Pitas by Food Loves Writing
A basic loaf of grain free bread is a great tool to have in your repertoire. Even if you don’t eat grain or gluten free, you can tuck this recipe away for the next time you have guests with a dietary need. It’s a sturdy bread that’s a great addition to dinner, a sandwich, or as a foundation for sweets like bread pudding. The beauty of this recipe – it can all be mixed in the food processor, poured into a buttered dish and baked!
Bread (Paleo, Gluten Free, Grain Free, Gaps)
The pureed cashews and unflavored gelatin help add structure to this bread. I store the bread wrapped in a large piece of parchment paper in an airtight container for up to 2 days at room temperature or for 4-5 days in the refrigerator.
Inspired by Elana’s Pantry
Makes one 7 1/2 x 4 1/2″ loaf
For the dough:
1/2 cup cashews (I prefer to use soaked and dehydrated cashews)
1 1/2 cups almond flour
2 tablespoons coconut flour
3/4 teaspoon unflavored gelatin (I prefer Great Lakes or Bernard Jensen)
1/2 teaspoon Celtic sea salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
4 large eggs
4 tablespoons unsalted butter or coconut oil, melted
1 tablespoon honey (I used clover)
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
Directions:
Place cashews and 1/4 cup water in a small bowl and let soak for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350ºF and adjust rack to middle position. Butter a 7 1/2 x 4 1/2″ glass loaf pan. Pour cashews and water mixture into the bowl of a food processor. Blend until smooth, scraping down the sides a few times to ensure all cashews are pureed. Add almond flour, coconut flour, gelatin, salt, baking soda, eggs, butter, honey and cider vinegar to the cashew mixture. Process until smooth. Pour batter into buttered loaf pan and bake for 30-35 minutes, until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the outer edges of the bread and then invert bread onto a cooling rack and remove from loaf pan. Serve.
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I rave about myself every night at the dinner table, “Honey, can you believe I made this??” And it’s all thanks to you!! (and teaching me that organic butter is welcomed and embraced! No more fat free, yay!!
{ 42 comments… read them below or add one }
Its so obvious in your posts that you are not only sharing good food and food that you make and love, but that you truly care about others and want them to have the best possible chance at success with a different diet. Your generosity of spirit is humbling my friend.
Thank you, Amanda. I truly appreciate the kind words.
Is it possible to substitute almonds for cashews? I’m highly allergic to cashews, but would love to make this recipe. Thanks!
I haven’t tried it. If you do, let me know how it goes!
Have you tried using almonds instead of cashews? Maybe macadamia? My son has an anaphylactic reaction to cashews so we avoid those. I agree with Amanda too! I have been following you ever since George Bryant at Civilized Caveman posted your Paleo Raspberry Almond Muffin recipe. Those are the tastiest muffins ever!
Macadamia seems like a nice substitution, since it would be creamy. Thank you for the kind words!
I think my favorite part of this recipe is that I have almost all of the ingredients already in my pantry.
What a lovely, simplistic recipe! I’ll try it right away!
I love being grain free now, but am allergic to eggs, and pretty much all baked goods that are grain free require eggs. Unless….somebody knows of any without??? It’s my current dream, especially for my two kids, who also cannot eat eggs. We all miss our bread and pancakes.
I made some egg free cookies the other day from Real Sustenance and they were soooooo good. I mean so good that the cookies were gone in 2 days and my hubby even thought they were good. (He doesn’t really accept my new way of cooking yet!) I had tried others and failed. My theory is that if I am going to do this whole grain free thing then I need stuff that tastes like actual stuff I would eat with grains in it. She also has a lot of recipes that have substitutions for common allergens. Check her out. (I am a food blog addict!)
Thank you for recommending that blog; I made her sausage stuffed pancakes with chia seed meal, and they turned out very well. I was very happy, but the kids were not that enthused. Well, I will still make them again! Thank you so much! I saw a lot of recipes to try.
Gonna try this bread someday as I miss breads so much! I don’t have any allergies to grains or gluten and unfortunately have snuck a few pieces of the real stuff over the last 2 months. Trying to cure or reduce the amount of thyroid supplement I take for my Hashimoto’s. Thanks for the inspiration!!!
All I can say is THANK YOU for providing such a precious list for when the “bread bug bites”….The height you achieved in your “basic” loaf of primal/paleo bread is astonishing and inviting! (The use of gelatin intrigues as well!)..Now…if only a paleo English Muffin existed!…Miss those nooks…miss those crannies!
Superlative site…this one.
Thank you! Now I should probably get to work on a grain-free English muffin with lots of nooks and crannies!
I am looking forward to grain-free English muffin. do you know when you might post that?
Thank you for all the valuable recipes and information
Am allergic to grains, corn, soy, rice and eggs also; thank you for the mention of the Real Sustenance site and the comment re: tasting like real food, and thank you for your site!
I absolutely love your web site and have been looking for a gluten free bread for sandwiches. On this particular recipe, is there another nut that could be used instead of cashews? I can’t have them. I’m also looking for a gluten free pizza crust that freezes well. Thank you much!
Another reader suggested macadamia nuts, and I think that could make for a nice substitution since it’s a nice and creamy nut. I haven’t tried it, but I think it would work well.
This sounds amazing! Looks like I’m going to have to invest in a food processor.
Thank you it looks so easy to make and best of all its good for us.
Where did you get your loaf pan? I’ve been looking for a loaf pan that size that isn’t aluminum (like the magic line one Elana Amsterdam uses), but so far I haven’t been able to find one.
I bought it from Target years ago. I looked online and that size is pretty hard to find. Who knew?! Here’s a link to purchase: http://www.shopworldkitchen.com/pyrex/easy-grab-loaf-dish-1085806
Hi Marianne,
I’m not sure if it is the same size, but I have a couple of Fiestaware loaf pans that I love. They are a nice alternative to aluminum, at least for me. Hope that helps.
Do you know of any recipes for paleo rolls? Or could you just make the bread recipe you linked in rolls form?
Thanks
Christine
Carrie thank you for this wonderful recipe! I have been Paleo for almost 2 years now and I have to admit I still get those cravings for bread every now and then. This is on my list to make for the kiddos for their lunch time “paleo sandwiches.”
For the reader who mentioned the allergies to cashews, I have used macadamia nuts to replace cashews before and they work great as an alternative. Worth trying if you don’t have allergies to macadamia nuts.
I know what you mean, sometime a nice piece of buttered bread hits the spot!
I am in the process of going Gluten Free (it’s taking me kicking and screaming), but you give me hope!! Thank you. I have been very scared to go gluten free all the way because I love bread, cookies and everything sweet and bad for you. I was diagnosed with IBD and need to have a healthier life, so I am trying this to help me. Your website gives me hope that I won’t have to give up my sweets and bread. I plan on trying this bread out and if you don’t mind I’d like to post it on my blog with your credit and link back (of course).
Thanks again !!!
You can it!! There are so many wonderful resources out there to help you too!
Hi Carrie, this morning I was looking for a recipe on how to make Hazelnut-chocolate spread and I found Deliciously Organic. It all looks so good! I’m so glad I found it
and I already have a question for you about the recipe for the bread above. We have been eating pretty much everything Organic for the last seven years, but just recently after reading the “China Study” by Dr. T. Collins and a few other books on Whole Plant based nutrition, I’ve been trying to slowly reduce the animal protein in our diet (my family’s included) so my question is if you think I can substitute the eggs in this recipe and still achieve the desired bread texture, are you familiar with baking using any eggs alternatives as well as dairy alternatives?
Thank you so much for sharing your experience and knowledge
I’m glad you found my site! I don’t have an alternative for the eggs. Many use flaxseeds, but flaxseed oil has a very low smoking point, so I don’t recommend baking with it. While I applaud Dr. Campbell for encouraging an unprocessed diet, the “The China Study” isn’t quite as iron-clad as it seems. There is quite a bit of cherry-picking and misrepresented data in his theory. I’m a huge advocate of always reading both sides of the story in order to make an educated decision and I found these articles about the China Study very compelling. http://www.westonaprice.org/vegetarianism-and-plant-foods/the-china-study-myth ; http://www.westonaprice.org/blogs/cmasterjohn/2010/09/22/the-curious-case-of-campbells-rats-does-protein-deficiency-prevent-cancer/ – I know what I’m sharing isn’t a popular opinion, but please know that I’m only sharing this b/c I care for the health of all my readers.
Thank you Carrie, I really appreciate your prompt replay.
I read the article, and though it raises questions about the topic I found the readers comments bellow the article more helpful than the article itself. I take it with a grain of salt, but in our case we were consuming a diet too high on meats and animal protein in general – my husband is a meat and potato kind of guy and very picky- so of course that’s what I tend to prepare more at home. But recently reading about the whole plant base diet decided to at least add more of it to our diets (specially my husband’s) and even though it has only been a month we’ve been adding more whole foods and vegetables to our diets and cutting the frequency of meats and dairy appear in our meals we have noticed a remarkable improvement in the way we feel, we have more energy, we’re sleeping better, less digestion problems and allergies as well, but definitely I take all information out there with a grain of salt, since there’s so much controversy about what’s good or bad for us, it’s a trial and error kind of thing
Thanks for sharing this recipe. It looks so delicious. I bet the kids would even taste the difference…I have to admit though that gluten free diet is really hard for me
I made this yesterday, and it’s really good! I couldn’t get my cashews to puree well after only 30 minutes, so I’d either soak them longer or use boiling water next time. I’ve seen many recipes that called for soaking overnight, so I don’t think you can oversoak them. Thanks for a great recipe!
I’m surprised so many people have issues going gluten free. I’ll admit when I first heard about it, I thought it would be impossible, but for me it’s been very easy, even though pasta used to be my favorite food, and grilled cheese was my lunch of choice. I’ve found that it wasn’t the pasta I loved, it was the sauce, so one just needs to learn to incorporate those yummy sauces (sometimes modified, of course). Once you wean yourself off processed food, it becomes unpalatable, IMHO.
If using raw cashews do you need to add any water to the mix? Thank you
Yes, the 1/4 water is necessary even if the cashews are raw.
Great recipe. I ate it toasted with lots of butter and I loved it! My 4 year old and 2 year old had two slices each.
I was wondering if you are able to freeze this. I make bread for my GF son, and like to make it in bulk, but he doesn’t generally go through it that quickly. Thanks!
I haven’t tested it, but I think that this bread would do well frozen and then thawed.
Just wondering if anyone else has had trouble getting this to rise? I love the bread and I have made it several times, but it never rises more than about 20% (max) from its raw volume. I would love to have it be just a little fluffier
Thanks!
I haven’t had a problem with it not rising. Did you make any substitutions? You might want to check the expiration date of the baking soda. Maybe it’s expired?
Is there any substitution for gelatin? I’ve not vegetarian but I dont eat pork products for religious reasons- and I know gelatin is sometimes made from pig fat as well. Is there something I can use instead of that? Other than that- the recipe looks great, can’t wait to try it out!
I don’t have a substitution, but you could always try the unflavored gelatin from Bernard Jensen. It’s made from cow.
Hi! I tried this recipe today! So neat that these ingredients work together the way they do! I doubled the batch, filled up my bread pan (I have a larger size than the one described here), and then added chocolate chips and made mini muffins. EVERYONE in the fam loved those but the bread isn’t a hit yet…They expected it to be sweet like the minis. Anyway, if we placed some ham, lettuce, tomato, mayo and mustard on it it would definitely hold up and most likely taste good. We will try tomorrow! Next time I will get REAL almond flour and REAL coconut flour – this time I used Almond meal and ground up dried coconut. Also, I think I will soak my cashews and then rinse real well and then continue to make a blend from there so I don’t have to go through the dehydration processes. THANK YOU for this AWESOME recipe!!!!!
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