Rosemary Oven-Baked Sun-Dried Tomato Whole Flaxseed Crackers a.k.a. Flackers

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These delightful Rosemary Oven-Baked Sun-Dried Tomato Whole Flaxseed Crackers a.k.a. Flackers are full of flavor with an addictive texture that will keep you crunching. They are nutrient-packed and suitable for gluten-free, paleo, and low-carb eaters. Additionally, Flaxseeds are part of Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen Challenge.

This recipe is adapted from my absolute favorite recipe from the vegan cooking classes I took through Vegan Fusion when Chef Mark Reinfeld traveled around and taught classes. I adapted the recipe to make the crackers in my oven because my small apartment is not ready for me to have a dehydrator in my life. I actually considered buying a dehydrator just so I could make these crackers.

After many, many test batches and months of tweaking, I am very pleased to report that these crackers can be made in the oven. Additionally, they have light toasty notes when made in the oven, adding to their amazing sun-dried tomato flavor. Hands down, these are the best crackers of my life.

These Flackers Are Worth The Wait

Much like making them in a dehydrator, to make this in the oven you need a little patience and a fair amount of time. I am a freak for these crackers. I think they are totally worth it.

They are not difficult to make. However, they bake for a long time, sit in the warm, turned-off oven overnight, and in the morning you need to take them out of the oven and check them. Next, you likely preheat the oven back to 200 degrees F and bake them for another hour or two. Also, before baking, you’ve got 90 minutes of soak time.

If you are chilling at home reading books or streaming things, there is a lot of inactive time. Additionally, you get to turn the oven off and go to bed while the flackers are happening.

Tips for making these crackers (learn from my mistakes)

• Always preheat the oven before putting the crackers in. My oven heats itself on full blast and I have burnt crackers because I left them in my oven while it was preheating in the morning during the flacker home-stretch. Your oven might be different than mine, though.
• When you pour the flacker-mixture onto the two lined baking sheets, measure 2 cups per lined baking sheet and measure and divide the rest. It’s very hard to eyeball it and get the same amount on each baking sheet. If one baking sheet is too thick the crackers will be too thick and may not be very crispy. If the crackers are too thin they can burn. Even baking sheets make the best flackers.
• Make sure you won’t need your oven to make other food in the evening and morning that the crackers need to be sitting in the oven. I recommend stovetop meals, salads, or take out.
• If other people are home, put a note on the oven so that they don’t accidentally turn the oven on without looking inside, ready to broil some bread for a quick snack and Boom! Incinerated flackers.
• Even if you are alone you might want to put a note on the oven reminding yourself that it has crackers in it. Sometimes it takes me a while to re-enter this reality-realm in the morning. With the oven off while I sleep, I might not be aware of the crackers right away. Usually, I am excited about the crackers and I don’t forget they are waiting in the oven.
• Be patient and flexible with bake times. At some point the crackers might be a little damp when you want them to be done. It’s okay, you will have amazing crackers. They just need more time.

Flacker Factors

• I live in Denver. It’s drier here than other places, so your flackers may need more time if you live in a wetter climate.
• Ovens can vary. If you have a hot spot, you may want to rotate the baking sheets.
• I’ve made these flackers more times than I can count and the cooking time varies. It’s all part of the surprise! Enjoy it. Life is good, eat some flaxseed crackers and Vegan Garden Veggie Cream Cheese.

These flavor-forward crackers are marvelous when eaten solo or with:

• Garden Veggie Cream Cheese, my favorite pairing 
• Plain Dreamy Vegan Cashew Cream Cheese 
• Low or No-Oil Hummus
• A Yippee-Ki-Yay Holiday Vegan Cheese Ball
• Salads
• Soups
• Picnic Food

Baking Sheet Liner Options

Sil-mats and parchment paper both work. The parchment paper sometimes tears, gets a little stubborn and needs to be peeled off in pieces.  

Ingredient Notes

Whole Golden Flaxseeds

You can use golden flaxseeds as I have used when making the flackers in the photos for this post or you can use regular flaxseeds, which are darker in color and will make darker crackers. If you want some visually interesting crackers you can mix them together. Just be sure to buy whole flaxseeds and not ground flaxseeds or flaxseed meal. Whole golden flaxseeds can be purchased for $2.99 at Whole Foods and for even less at other places.

Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Ideally, the sun-dried tomatoes you get will be fresh, bendable, and reddish in color as opposed to old, hard, and brown in color. I’m talking about the sun-dried tomatoes that come in a little plastic bag and not oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes that come in a jar. Oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes do not work for this recipe.

The fresher your sun-dried tomatoes, the more flavorful they will be. If your sun-dried tomatoes are fresh they will be easy to cut up with kitchen scissors or cooking shears. After being cut, they will hydrate in about 30 minutes. If your sun-dried tomatoes are hard, they might need more time to hydrate and become soft; if this is the case, try an hour.

Let’s Make Rosemary Oven-Baked Sun-Dried Tomato Whole Flaxseed Crackers a.k.a. Flackers

Soak

Cut sun-dried tomatoes using a knife or cooking shears/scissors into small 1/4″ or smaller pieces.

Then combine in a small bowl with 2 ⅔ cups hot tap water. Soak for 30 minutes.

Drain the sun-dried tomatoes using a fine strainer. Push on the sun-dried tomato pieces with a spoon or spatula to get all of the water out. Reserve all soaking liquid from sun-dried tomatoes.

Remove 3/4 cup from the soaking liquid and put it in the food processor with the garlic, parsley, rosemary, lemon juice, low sodium tamari, red bell pepper, and salt.

Take the rest of the soaking liquid from the sun-dried tomatoes and mix it with the flaxseeds in a medium to large bowl. The flaxseeds will sit for 60 minutes. You don’t need to drain the flax seeds, they will gel up in the sun-dried tomato liquid.

Food Processor or Blender

Process the 3/4 cup soaking liquid from the sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, chopped fresh parsley, minced fresh rosemary, lemon juice, low sodium tamari, red bell pepper, and salt in the processor until well-blended.

There will be small bits of herbs and veggies in the fragrant liquid.

Pour this liquid into the bowl of soaking flaxseeds. Wait to stir.

Grate the carrot and slice the scallions, then place them and the drained sun-dried tomato pieces in the bowl with the mixture from the food processor and the flaxseeds.

I like getting everything in one bowl and waiting to stir until the flaxseeds finish soaking so that I can go clean up the rest of the dishes while I wait.

Once the flaxseeds have been soaking for an hour, stir everything together with a spatula until well combined.

Bake

Using a large measuring cup, measure two cups of flacker-mixture onto 2 baking sheets lined with sil-mats or parchment paper and divide any remaining flacker-mixture between the two sheets, measuring if desired to get it as even as possible. Spread the flaxseed mixture until it is very close to the edges. It’s a little like frosting a cake. Spread the flaxseed mixture until it is very close to the edges.

Score the crackers using a spatula or dough scraper.

Bake at 200° F for 5 hours, placing the two baking sheets in the middle racks. Do not place baking sheets in the oven until after it is preheated.

After 5 hours of baking turn the oven off, leaving the flackers in the warm oven. Go to bed if you want.

Return to the oven in 8-10 hours. Remove the flackers from the oven. The oven will still be warm. Be careful touching the baking sheets and use an oven mitt or towel if needed. Inspect the crackers; they will probably still be damp in a few spots. While the flackers are out of the oven, preheat the oven to 200° F. Bake for one hour, then leave them in the oven until they are dry.

If there is a point when you can pull the crackers off of the liner and flip them over in one piece or a few pieces fairly easily, I recommend it. It helps to dry the crackers thoroughly and more quickly if you pull them off of the liner and flip them over. I have made these crackers by flipping them and not flipping them because they were already dry and crispy.

***UPDATE: Lately, I’ve been baking these at 170 degress F for 8 hours. Then I get up in the morning and check on them. Sometimes I let them go another hour or 2. They usually get crispy and I don’t flip them, I just pull them off when they are cool and dry.***

Eat & Store

Once the flackers are dry and crisp, remove from the liner, break into crackers and serve or store in an airtight container once they have cooled. If the flackers bend and don’t easily break, they need more oven time.

Flackers can store for 2 weeks in an airtight container at room temp.

Notes

Nutrition information is approximate. It’s worth noting that since this recipe uses whole flaxseeds, all of their nutrition may not be absorbed when consumed. It depends on how well you chew. The good news is that you are getting lots of fiber and still absorbing a lot of nutrients. 

Dehydrator Flackers

Making these in the food dehydrator makes raw crackers if you use raw, unpasteurized soy sauce a.k.a. Nama Shoyu. If using Nama Shoyu, please keep in mind that it is likely not gluten-free. Typically tamari is gluten-free and most other soy sauces are not. Also, if your Nama Shoyu is full sodium and not reduced sodium, reduce or omit the salt in this recipe.

Some people believe that you get the benefits of the enzymes from raw foods while others believe that your stomach acid destroys the enzymes before your body can get the benefits. Either way, these crackers are good for you.

To make these crackers in a dehydrator, the original recipe’s instructions say to spread the flacker-mixture on Teflex sheet-lined dehydrator trays and dehydrate at 115 degrees F for 6 hours, then flip and remove Teflex sheets and continue dehydrating for at least another 6 hours. Please note that I have not tested this because I don’t have a dehydrator. I am just sharing what is written in the recipe I’ve adapted from.

Also, it feels important to mention that when we made these in class, the flackers were left in the dehydrator much longer before flipping because they were left in the dehydrator overnight. I’m not sure if the flackers would be dry enough to flip in one piece at 6 hours.

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If you like this recipe you might also enjoy Oven-Baked Sriracha Tofu and Addictive Coconut Bacon Flakes.

Did you make these Rosemary Oven-Baked Sun-Dried Tomato Whole Flaxseed Crackers a.k.a. Flackers?

How were they? Would you make them again and again? Did you snack on them solo, eat them with soup or salad? Have them with Garden Veggie Cream Cheese? Plain Dreamy Vegan Cashew Cream Cheese? Hummus? A Yippee-Ki-Yay Holiday Vegan Cheese Ball?