Seed Crackers (Gluten-Free, Vegan)

No flour, no egg, nothing but seeds and water. The chia and flax turn the water into a gel that holds everything together, so give them the full fifteen minutes to soak before you spread the mixture.

Snack

Makes about 30 (10 servings of 3)

Thin golden seed crackers with pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds broken into shards on a board

Ingredients

100g pumpkin seeds
100g sunflower seeds
60g whole flaxseed
60g chia seeds
40g sesame seeds
1 tsp dried rosemary or thyme
Half a tsp flaky salt
250ml water

Method

Mix all the seeds, the rosemary and the salt in a bowl, pour in the water and stir well.
Leave it for 15 minutes, stirring once. The chia and flax absorb the water and turn into a thick gel. When you can drag a spoon through it and the gap stays, it is ready.
Heat the oven to 160C (140C fan). Tip the mixture onto a large tray lined with baking paper, lay a second sheet on top and roll it out as thinly and evenly as you can, about 3mm. Thin edges burn before a thick middle crisps, so push the edges in if they spread too far.
Peel off the top sheet. Bake for 25 minutes, then score the sheet into rectangles with a knife if you want neat crackers.
Bake for another 20 to 25 minutes, until golden and dry. Turn the oven off and leave them inside with the door ajar until cool; this dries out any soft patches in the middle.
Break into crackers. They keep for two weeks in an airtight tin. If they soften, five minutes in a warm oven brings them back.

Why it works

These are made from nothing but seeds, so a serving of three carries about 7g of protein and 5g of fibre for only 4g of carbohydrate. Topped with hummus, cottage cheese or smoked fish, they replace a slice of bread or a packet of crisps without the blood sugar rise either brings.

Pumpkin seeds are one of the richest plant sources of zinc, and sunflower seeds bring vitamin E and magnesium. Zinc is needed to make testosterone, but more zinc only helps if you are short of it; in men with normal levels, extra zinc does not raise testosterone: does zinc raise testosterone?

One thing the seed recipes rarely mention. Whole flaxseeds often pass through the gut intact, so you get their fibre but little of their omega-3. Here that does not matter much, because the flax is doing a structural job with the chia. If you eat flax for its omega-3, grind it first.

You may have seen these seeds sold as seed cycling, eaten in a set order to balance hormones through the month. There is no good evidence that the timing does anything; the seeds are simply good food whenever you eat them: seed cycling, the evidence.

The limit is energy. Seeds are about half fat by weight, so three crackers carry roughly 200 calories, about the same as two slices of wholemeal bread. That is fine as part of a meal and easy to overdo straight from the tin. For a sweeter seed snack, see the pumpkin seed and oat bites, and for a dip to go with these, the beetroot and walnut hummus.

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