How to make homemade crackers from sourdough discard or starter. A quick, easy and adaptable recipe. These crackers are crisp, tangy and incredibly addicting!
What you can plan is too small for you to live. ~David Whyte
Made with sourdough discard, these crackers are a favorite in our house and usually gone within a day. I have been playing around for a while now with this recipe from King Arthur Baking. I love that they are really quite simple to make and so versatile!
Using heartier flours such as rye, teff, cornmeal, and with the addition of seeds and spices, the flavor and texture are elevated to almost perfection. I throw on whatever seeds I have around. Fennel, sesame, nigella are favorites. These crackers are full of savory goodness and sturdy enough to dip or top with your favorite accompaniments.
what is sourdough starter/discard?
Sourdough Starter is often referred to as “wild yeast”, made from flour and water and the wild yeast in the air around us, and it is typically used as the “yeast” when baking Sourdough Bread. The sourdough “discard” – the part of the starter that often goes to waste- can be used to make flavorful crackers, biscuits, waffles and pancakes.
what can you do with sourdough discard?
- Make Sourdough Waffles!
- Make Sourdough Pancakes
- Make Banana Bread (Vegan!)
- Make Sourdough Biscuits!
- Make Sourdough Buns!
- Make Sourdough Tortillas!
- Make Sourdough Scones!
Gather the ingredients- flour, sourdough discard (cold out of the fridge or room temperature- either works!), butter, salt, and herbs. Let the butter soften to room temperature.
play around with adding seeds, spices, and fresh or dried herbs.
- Fresh herbs: rosemary, thyme, sage, chives, etc
- Dried herbs: basil, oregano, thyme, etc
- Spices: zaatar, dukkah, sumac, pepper, coriander, Aleppo, chili flakes, garlic, etc
- Seeds: fennel, sesame, poppy, nigella
- Finely chopped nuts
- Meyer lemon zest
Place all ingredients together in a bowl and combine.
Don’t be afraid to get your hands into it.
The dough is very forgiving. Mix until everything is fully incorporated.
Work with the cracker dough until it comes together into a ball.
Form dough into 2 pieces and refrigerate for 30 minutes or up to 24 hours.
Roll out directly on parchment or baking sheet. Lightly flour your rolling surface, rolling pin, and top of the dough. Roll out in a shape that will fit on your baking sheet.
You can add additional seeds on top of the dough and lightly roll in.
Transfer parchment with rolled out dough onto a baking pan.
Cut the sourdough cracker dough into the desired cracker shape. A pie or pizza cutter works well here.
Prick with a fork. This allows any steam to escape while baking and makes for fewer bubbles resulting in a sturdier cracker.
Bake 15-20 minutes.
Let cool completely.
how to store homemade crackers:
These save beautifully in an airtight container for several weeks.
serve Sourdough Crackers with:
- Smoky Harissa Red Pepper Dip
- Lemony Artichoke White Bean Dip
- Muhammara Dip
- Rainbow Veggie Hummus
- Tandoori hummus
- Baba Ganoush
- Winter Cheese and Charcuterie Board
- Winter Cheese Board with Blood Orange Marmalade
- How to make a Holiday Cheese Board
Enjoy how good it feels to use your sourdough discard and make these homemade sourdough crackers. Have fun with this one and tell us about your creations in the comments below!
xoxo
Sourdough Crackers
- Prep Time: 45
- Cook Time: 18
- Total Time: 1 hour 3 minutes
- Yield: about 80 crackers
- Category: sourdough, appetizer
- Method: baked
- Cuisine: american
- Diet: Vegetarian
Description
Easy and adaptable homemade sourdough crackers are full of tangy wholesome flavor. A perfect use for your sourdough discard! Add seeds and herbs or keep them simple! (Adapted from King Arthur Baking)
Ingredients
- 1 cup (113 grams) flour (AP, or use 1/2 rye, teff, cornmeal whole wheat etc.) plus a little for rolling out if needed
- 1 cup (227 grams) sourdough discard starter, unfed
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter or olive oil
- ½ teaspoon of sea salt
- 2 tablespoons fresh herbs, chopped or 2 teaspoons dried
- optional: whole spices like fennel seeds, sesame seeds, everything bagel spice, zaatar (see notes)
Instructions
- Combine together flour, sourdough starter, butter or oil, salt, and herbs until in comes together into a ball. Cut the dough in two pieces, and refrigerate for a half hour or up to a day.
- Set oven temperature to 350 degrees.
- Working with one portion of dough at a time, place on a piece of parchment paper.
- Flour your surface and dough as needed.
- Roll out evenly to about a 1/16 of an inch.
- If adding spices and seeds, sprinkle on top of dough and lightly roll the rolling pin over to get them to stick.
- Transfer dough and parchment to a baking pan.
- Using a pizza cutter or knife score into desired shapes. Prick with fork.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350F. Turning pan halfway through baking.
- Let cool completely before storing in an airtight container.
Notes
Experiment with alternative flours for flavor and texture such as cornmeal, semolina, rye and teff.
Tailor to your tastes! Add fresh herbs, spices, coarse or flaked salt, dukkah, zaatar, seeds, lemon zest, garlic, nigella, sumac, fennel, chili flakes, nutritional yeast…..have fun experimenting with flavors.
Optional: Brush top of crackers with olive oil or melted butter before baking if desired. This is especially helpful if adding spices to help them adhere.
Keywords: sourdough crackers, seeded sourdough crackers, homemade crackers, crackers with sourdough discard, sourdough seed crackers. seed crackers, rosemary sourdough crackers
I love these. This week had a huge amount of starter so quadrupled the recipe. Can I freeze the dough and bake later?
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Hi Ann, I haven’t tried freezing the dough. It should work, though you just may need to use extra flour when rolling out as freezing may create more moisture.
Thank you! I think I’ll freeze one of the 8 I have in the fridge and see how it worked. Will let you know.
Great, would love to hear how it works!
Loved them! 🙂
Used bread blend flour(wheat,rye, flax) Robin Hood w my white sour dough starter.
Made poppyseed and chia!
Didn’t have any sesame seeds ;-(
Thyme rosemary basil garlic!
Great w my pinto/northern bean beet garlic hummus!! (Type A blood type-can’t eat chic peas)
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Perfect Eileen!
Super yummy super easy thanks for the recipe !!
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Thanks Esther!
These were very good. They rolled out easy + baked nicely. I used a little sesame oil and the flavor was nice with my choice of seasonings.
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Great to hear! And I like the sesame oil idea!
What temperature do you bake it at?
350F
These crackers came out so GOOD, They were easy to make, rolled out easily, baked quickly. I topped them with everything Bagel seasoning, sesame seeds. I used an organic BASIL-PARMESAN extra virgin olive oil. I will make these over and over!
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great! yummy additions!
I make this recipe all the time now and it’s really versatile. Highly recommend, sometimes I switch up the flour and herbs, etc.
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Love it Stephanie!
I’ve made these twice – added homemade dukkah first time, then chopped fresh rosemary. Great way of using sourdough discard if I’m not baking. Love them – lovely and crisp and fabulous with cheese.
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So easy to make and so tasty. I have experimented with adding Parmesan cheese and various seeds. My daughter commented “these taste like gourmet crackers”.
Just watch the crackers when baking as they can burn – depends on your oven.
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Do you have any suggestions to make these with cinnamon sugar crackers. Thanks for your fantastic recipes
that sounds fun! you could try 2 teaspoons each mixed together and sprinkle over crackers just before baking? let us know how it turns out!
I made the rosemary with Meyer lemon zest crackers, nice flavor. To spread the dough very thinly without adding flour, I rolled the dough balls between 2 parchment papers, then removed the top paper and baked it. A tortilla press is also useful to flatten the dough balls between parchment papers.
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that sounds so good!
thanks for the rolling tips!
These were amazing! Making home snacky things was on my to do list and these were perfect for munching.I also love recipes that have room for a lot of improvisation. Hard to fail recipe and they taste great, I used them with soup too.
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Perfect! So glad you enjoyed.
I’ve just made these with rosemary and olive oil and they are delicious! So easy to make.
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Great to hear Carolyn!
why divide the dough into two pieces.
Hi Patricia, Good question! Half of the dough, rolled out, fits on one baking sheet. Hopefully that makes sense.
Hi Sylvia,
Did you make this whole wheat starter in the same way as your tutorial with white bread flour?
I’m not sure if Tonia did, but either way it should work? Hoping!
yes, this starter is made the same basic way. I often feed my starter with rye flour but that is just my preference. Whatever your starter is fed with, white or wheat flour, should not effect this recipes results. Hope you give them a try!
I did yesterday. Turned out lovely. Thank you for your recipe
oh good! 🤗
I love this recipe – I’ve been making it since I saw it posted on King Arthur Flour. Not sure if it’s a coincidence, but your recipe is identical to theirs 🙂
Yes, adapted from there- will note the recipe and link it.