When you begin exploring a gluten free diet, one of the first things you’ll want to do is become familiar with the different flours you can use instead of traditional wheat flour. One of those flours is sorghum flour. When you first hear the term sorghum flour gluten free may not be the first thing to spring to mind as it isn’t as widely used as rice flour or tapioca flour. That said, sorghum flour is becoming a more popular ingredient in gluten free recipes and makes a great addition to your pantry.
What is Sorghum Flour
Sorghum is a type of grass that plays an important role worldwide as a common source of food for pasture animals. More and more it is being used for food and to make alcoholic beverages. One of its benefits is that it is drought and heat tolerant making it one of the better grains to produce in arid or otherwise difficult climates.
Finding Sorghum Flour Recipes
The best resource for inexpensive for inexpensive sorghum flour recipes is online. Most of the time sorghum flour will be found in baked good recipes like pancakes, muffins, gluten free cakes and cookies. It will often be used in conjunction with other flours like rice flour, tapioca flour or potato starch.
If you use sorghum flour substitute for wheat, there are a few things to note:
- Sorghum flour alone will produce a dryer, more crumbly texture.
- Sorghum flour does not have any of the natural chewiness found in wheat flour. Add xanthan gum to help with the texture difference.
Shopping for Sorghum Flour
There are two primary places you can find sorghum flour. The first is your local health food store. Most will have a selection of brands to choose from. You may even be lucky enough to find sorghum flour at your local grocer. More and more grocery stores are carrying gluten free flours as part of their usual product selection. If you aren’t successful finding sorghum flour locally, you can definitely find it online. There are a host of merchants who sell sorghum flour, often at lower prices too. If you can find it available with free shipping it’s even better.
Sorghum flour is a great addition to your gluten free pantry. It will provide some variety in your selection of gluten free flours and is becoming used more and more often in gluten free recipes. Why not try some in a batch of pancakes this weekend? You may find that you enjoy it even more than the flour you’re currently using.