Gluten-Free Vegan Matzo 4 Ways (Oil-Free)

Those of you who are gluten-free and who celebrate Passover know the torture of a holiday that features wheat as its main ingredient for 8 days. While they now make gluten-free matzo, gluten-free cake meal and gluten-free matzo farfel, they are extremely expensive and contain eggs and oil. So if you also avoid eggs and oil, this is a complete show stopper.

So for the perhaps seven other people out there who would like (inexpensive) gluten-free vegan matzo without oil, I’ve got a treat for you! I went in search of a recipe on the net that met these criteria and came up empty. I did find a few that were close, so I made some modifications, baked them up and voila! Here you have four, count them, four, different varieties of gluten-free vegan matzo. Hooray!

I like to use teff flour in my matzo as it is a naturally gluten-free grain with a high protein content. It is the flour used in injera, an Ethiopian bread served with every meal. If you don’t have any, no worries, you can follow one of the other recipe options instead.

Disclaimer: I don’t know if these meet the criteria as being officially Kosher for Passover but when you have dietary restrictions, sometimes you just have to hope that G-d understands. I’m just here to give you options. 🙂

A couple of notes:

• The thinner you roll them out, the crunchier they will be.
• To further optimize crunchiness, bake them for 10 minutes on one side, then flip it over and bake for another 4 minutes on the other.
• Go into this with an open mind. If you don’t expect them to taste exactly like traditional matzo or have the same texture, you will be pleased. These are not exact replicas but are pretty darn close.
• Once you make the matzos, you can break them up to make your own matzo farfel or grind them in a high-speed blender to make a replication of cake meal (as long as they are sufficiently crunchy).
• Place a piece of parchment on your baking sheet. You can roll these out right on the baking sheet if you have a small rolling pin like the one shown below (thank you Pampered Chef). A full-sized rolling pin won’t work out this way. If your rolling pin is full-sized, roll it out on a piece of parchment (still with the plastic wrap on top–see recipe for further instructions). Then carefully pick up the parchment paper and turn it over onto the baking sheet. Trying to peel the dough off of the parchment paper might not work out so well.

• Recipe 1:
  • 1/3 cup teff flour
  • 1/3 cup potato starch
  • 2/3 cup almond meal
  • 2 tablespoons flax meal
  • 7 tablespoons warm water
  • A dash of salt
• Recipe 2: Without teff flour. In this option, follow the instructions above but increase the potato starch to 2/3 cup and omit the teff flour. You still use 2/3 cup almond meal and the flax meal. If it is too wet, add another tablespoon of potato starch. 
• Recipe 3: With quinoa flour. Use 1/3 cup quinoa flour, 1/3 cup potato starch and 2/3 cup almond meal (along with the rest of the ingredients). Quinoa adds some protein but may have a bit of a bitter taste. 
• Recipe 4: With quinoa and teff. Use 1/3 cup quinoa flour, 1/3 cup teff flour and 2/3 cup almond meal. Omit the potato starch. Add the rest of the ingredients. 

This recipe is pretty flexible as you can combine the quinoa flour, teff flour and potato starch in any combination as long as you maintain the ratio of a total of 2/3 cup of these and 2/3 cup almond meal.

This recipe makes enough for approximately two normal-sized sheets of matzo. The nice part is it is really easy and quick to make a sheet at a time so if you run out during Passover, just make a few more batches.

I hope these make your Passover a little easier (and a little less expensive). Please let me know how they work out for you.

For more Passover tips and recipes, check out our Plant-Based (Vegan) Passover Recipe Roundup.

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