Well, this dinner biscuit recipe did not quite make it to dinner in our house. I decided to try the recipe on a weekend morning and by the time dinner rolled around at 7 pm every single biscuit had been eaten! As far as I can remember, this was the first time I attempted to make dinner biscuits, but they were such a hit I wish I had done so years ago. Please note, this recipe makes a dozen biscuits but they are very small, so you may want to consider making a double batch.
A Healthier Dinner Biscuit Recipe
I grew up eating (and loving) the kind of biscuits and gravy that were not made with health in mind. Oh but were they GOOD! Sometimes the biscuits from my childhood were from a can, sometimes from scratch, but they always had 3 staple ingredients: butter, all-purpose flour and cow’s milk. My recipes doesn’t have any one of those ingredients and yet I promise they do not taste anything at all like health food.
Nixing the Butter, All-Purpose Flour + Cow’s Milk…
By substituting extra virgin coconut oil for the butter you still get the desirable full-fat mouth feel. And, as long as you use a high-quality extra virgin coconut oil you won’t have to worry about any unwanted coconut-y after taste either.
As for the cow’s milk, I simply swapped unsweetened hemp milk. When it comes to dairy milk alternatives, hemp milk is definitely my favorite for it’s nutrition benefits (Click HERE for the 8 reasons why hemp milk is my favorite plant-based milk.) However, if you don’t have hemp milk you can also substitute unsweetened almond milk.
Instead of refined all-purpose flour, I use either sprouted spelt flour or barley flour, both of which I actually think give the biscuits considerably more flavor.
A Word About the Best Flour
For the record, I tested the biscuit recipe using both sprouted spelt flour and barley flour. Although both versions were delicious, my family slightly preferred the barley flour version to the spelt flour version. I think it is probably because the barley flour version had a nuttier and richer flavor.
Barley flour is easy to find at any natural foods store and is incredibly versatile. You can make everything from waffles, to muffins, pancakes and breads with barley flour and it’s a great alternative to wheat. If you have our Clean Cuisine book you know I am not wheat or gluten free, but that I do like to rotate my grains for nutritional variety.
If you can’t find it in your local supermarket, Bob’s Red Mill makes a great stone-ground barley flour that can be purchased online.
Wheat and Dairy Free Dinner Biscuit Recipe
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Prep Time: 15 mins -
Cook Time: 15 mins
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Total Time: 30 mins
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Yield: 1 dozen -
Category: Biscuit -
Cuisine: Clean Eating
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
This whole grain, wheat and dairy free dinner biscuit recipe can be made with either spelt or barley flour. It’s delicious with chicken, fish or meat.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon dry yeast
- 1/4 cup warm water
- 1 tablespoon raw honey
- 1 1/4 cups barley flour OR spelt flour
- 2 tablespoons organic, extra virgin coconut oil (room temperature)
- 1/4 cup unsweetened hemp or almond milk
- 1 organic, pasture-raised egg
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add honey and let sit for 5 minutes.
- Place flour in a medium-size bowl. With 2 knives, cut the coconut oil into the flour.
- Combine the almond (or hemp milk) and egg and beat slightly. Then stir in the flour mixture. Add yeast mixture, mix thoroughly, and let stand for 20 minutes.
- Drop the dough by tablespoons onto prepared baking sheet. Lightly shape into 2-inch rounds. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, or until lightly browned. Serve warm.
LOOKING FOR MORE CLEAN EATING DINNER RECIPES?
If you liked the Wheat Free Dinner Biscuit Recipe, be sure to check out a full month’s menu of delicious healthy dinner recipes (including weekly shopping lists!) in our Clean Cuisine Dinners digital cookbook.
Spelt is definitely a type of wheat.
[It’s in every definition of spelt. For example, the Wikipedia entry for spelt says “Spelt…is a species of wheat.”]
Therefore, for those people who *must* avoid wheat or gluten, spelt is not safe to eat. (Not even the sprouted form.)
The people who already know that they must not eat wheat or gluten for medical reasons will probably already know that spelt is a type of wheat,
but their well-meaning friends, neighbors, and co-workers may not know that, and if such acquaintances see on an authoritative internet resource like this one an announcement that spelt is “wheat-free”, they might put spelt in food that they serve to a person who must totally avoid wheat/gluten and promise them that it’s made from a “wheat-free” grain, which could lead to severe reactions.
Hi Reena!
Thank you for your comment. Yes, you are absolutely right that many people might not realize that spelt is not gluten free. However, spelt is an ancient form of wheat and doesn’t have as much gluten as modern wheat. Many people, even those who are gluten sensitive, are actually able to tolerate spelt even if they can’t tolerate wheat. Modern wheat has been progressively hybridized over several generations to improve yield, to increase gluten (which improves bread quality) and for various other reasons. After WWII, as part of the Green Revolution, scientists made some significant changes to heritage wheat that resulted in increased yields and higher gluten content. I believe these changes, along with the fact that a lot of modern wheat has glyphosate residue is one of the reasons so many people have wheat sensitivity today (you can read more about this in my blog post here: http://cleancuisine.com/biodynamic-farming/ ) Spelt doesn’t have the issues associated with modern wheat.
Having said that, if someone has celiac disease then they absolutely should not have spelt.