Whether you want to learn how to make walnut flour or purchase a bag of walnut flour, our guide will help you. You do not have to be a gluten-free eater to enjoy walnut flour. Walnuts are considered brain food. Walnuts are rich in plant-based fatty acids called alpha-linolenic acid. Omega 3 fatty acids are critical for our brain to function.
Finding unique ways to incorporate more healthy nuts into our diet cannot be a bad thing! Walnuts are considered a superfood. Walnuts and walnut flour have antioxidants and a higher omega-3 concentration than any other nut.
Walnut meal, what is it? You can make a walnut meal by grinding up walnuts. You will want to use a blender or an electric nut chopper. Below we will go over the proper technique to create the perfect walnut flour. There are tricks to doing it right!
The Best Walnut Flour
I love the Oh! Nuts brand of nut flours and whole nuts. My parrot loves them too! If you don’t trust yourself to properly grind the nuts into flour, just purchase a bag of walnut flour.
The “Oh! Nuts” brand is a family business that began in the early ’90s as a candy and nut shop. They still have retail stores in Brooklyn, Long Island, and upstate NY. Now they have expanded to wholesale; their nuts are the freshest ones I have tried. When buying walnut flour, you want the product to be fresh because nuts tend to go rancid.
- HEART HEALTHY WALNUTS: Perfectly chopped and ground so you can incorporate the health benefits of nuts into your baking recipes easily
- DOUBLE THE NUT POWER: Our 2 stay-fresh bags are packed with freshly ground walnut meal, perfect for stocking your pantry
- OH! NUTS FINE WALNUT MEAL: Start with the freshest delicious natural nuts, carefully ground into the perfect baking texture for your favorite gluten-free baking needs
- ADD PROTEIN TO YOUR FAVORITE SHAKES: With the delightful rich-bodied taste of ground walnuts with skin on, boosting phenols and flavanoids
- FREE OF PRESERVATIVES, ADDITIVES, SALT FREE: These minced walnuts are Gluten-free, Vegan and Paleo Friendly Kosher Certified Product.
What We Like
- Works great for making certain pastries like baklava.
- If you are trying to reduce your wheat flour intake, walnut flour is a great alternative.
- The walnut flour comes in 2 stay-fresh bags, keeps each bag fresher for longer.
- The “Oh! Nuts” walnut flour is a gluten-free, vegan, and paleo-friendly, Kosher-certified Product.
What We Don’t Like
- This brand of pulverized walnuts is not organic.
How To Make Walnut Flour From Scratch
You may be wondering can you make walnut flour at home? Yes, it is a simple and healthy almond flour alternative.
When making a walnut meal from scratch, it’s best to do it in small batches and use an airtight flour canister for storage. A storage container comes in handy if you happen to have a little bit of walnut meal leftover.
A benefit of making walnut flour yourself is that you can grind the walnuts in ultra-small batches and use the walnut meal as necessary.
The most critical step when making walnuts into a grain-like substance is to watch the blender and pulse it in small spurts.
Step one
- Purchase a bag of fresh organic walnuts either in or out of the shell.
Step two
- Add the deshelled walnuts to a blender or a food processor. The blades and walnuts need to be dry and at room temperature.
Step Three
- Pulse or grind them slowly, do not turn the machine on, and then walk away. Turning raw walnuts into walnut meal takes seconds. If you grind them for too long, you will create walnut butter instead of walnut flour.
Step Four
- Take a sifter to remove the large pieces. You can either save these larger pieces on the side for a walnut topping or put them back through the nut grinder.
5 Walnut Flour Recipes
Recipes Ideas for walnut flour are hard to find. Below are a few ideas to get you thinking and creating! When baking with nut flours, you will want to use less oil than usual because nuts have a higher fat content than wheat, spelt, or rice flour. As long as you keep this in mind and are happy to experiment, you will find a recipe that works!
Another pro chef tip is to mix your walnut flour with the Bobs Red Mill gluten-free flour mix. Since nut flours complement the flavor in coffee cakes, muffins, brownies, and banana bread, they work great.
- Walnut Flour Flatbread
Learn how to make this delicious and healthy flatbread. We love how chef Janet Kniss mentions that she and her mom suffer from various health ailments that they are working through by incorporating more healthy wheat flour alternatives. Everyone loves this flat walnut bread, especially with the walnut butter!
- Walnut Flour Banana Bread Walnut flour recipes are hard to come by, but this excellent banana bread recipe uses a whole cup of walnut flour. Create a healthy snack that you won’t feel guilty about eating.
- Walnut Meal Brownies Trying to eat more healthy and use other types of flours but miss the chocolate? Try this excellent walnut meal recipe! Be aware that because they use walnut meal instead of wheat flour, the texture will be different. They will be a bit more crumbly because they don’t have the gluten to hold them together. Don’t worry; they will still taste amazing!
- Walnut Flour Pancakes Why not start the day off right with a healthy breakfast. Most pancake mixes have junky ingredients and additives. Why not make a pancake batter from scratch using an alternative flour, like a walnut meal? You do not have to follow a keto diet to get the health benefits of walnut flour pancakes.
- Chocolate Walnut Torte Are you serious? A chocolate walnut tore using walnut flour? Try this fantastic recipe, and you will not be disappointed! I would change this recipe a bit: I would not make this with the swerve sweetener; I do not like the taste and prefer to use a more natural sweetener like coconut sweetener.
Walnut Meal Substitutes
If you don’t have any walnuts on hand but want to use another nut or grain as a substitute, here are some ideas: For each substitution, you will need to experiment. No 1:1 substitution will taste the same or have the same texture.
- Pecan flour. You can use this as a substitute, but the flavor will be very different from walnut flour.
- Almond Flour. Almonds are the most common nut to use for flour. Making almond flour from scratch is easy; some people like to blanch the almonds before grinding them into flour. Keep in mind that people are often more commonly allergic to almonds as opposed to walnuts.
- Hazelnut flour. The flavor and texture will be different, but it will be closer than using sunflower seed flour. Hazelnuts are dry and will often grind up nicely into flour.
- Sunflower seed flour. The sunflower seeds tend to be wetter than the walnuts, so consider when making the substitution. The flavor profile is entirely different.
- Oat flour. The texture might be similar to walnut or almond flour, but the flavor will be oaty instead of nutty! Oat flour is excellent for blending with one of the walnut flour to create a gluten-free dessert!
- Gluten-Free Flour Blend. We at “I Love Cookware!” love the Bob’s Red Mill flour blends! You can’t go wrong with them. You may not want to substitute a gluten-free flour blend for an all-nut flour recipe, but if you mix them you can create a new similar recipe with a unique twist. There are a lot of recipe options for Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free flour blend. I am confident that you can make any recipe you want with this flour blend!
Other wheat flour alternatives are soy flour, rice flour, garbanzo bean flour, sesame flour, flaxseed flour, fava bean flour, and pumpkin seed flour.
FAQS on Walnut Meal
You Might Also Like These Posts
The Best Vegan NYC Brunch Spots
The Best Vegan Mac and Cheese in NYC with Gluten-Free Options