Healthy Snack Idea: Homemade Cheese Crackers Recipe

Need a healthy snack idea? Try this easy, from scratch homemade cheese crackers recipe. Homemade crackers are simple to make and are a great way to eliminate preservatives and additives from your diet.

Let just start by stating the obvious: I love snacks! Tasty, salty, crunchy, savory snack foods are so satisfying and delicious! I also hate snacks. Unhealthy, preservative-filled, hydrogenated-oil containing, highly processed, artificially colored snack foods are nutritional disasters! What’s a snack food lover to do? My solution is to make my own “junk food.”

Michael Pollan, author of several bestselling books about food including The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto and Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, argues that we can take back control of our food from corporations through one simple process. The process he advocates is making your own food from scratch.

This argument for healthier eating though food preparation means cooking food from basic, minimally processed ingredients such as unbleached flour, meat, vegetables and simple canned goods such as tomatoes. It does not include the use of highly processed ingredients such as cream of mushroom soup or “meal replacement” foods such as boxed meal helpers or prepackaged bags of freezer-to-crock pot entrees.

I was raised on “from scratch” cooking, but it is easy to see that prepackaged, processed foods are the norm in many American households. A quick look at Pinterest shows a massive amount of recipes that start with highly processed ingredients. One of my food conscious friends loves to point out the ridiculousness of recipes that include highly processed food but are labeled with deceptive titles such as Three Ingredient Cookies.

Does anyone actually believe these recipes include three ingredients? There are SOOOOO many actual ingredients in these recipes, many of which I cannot even pronounce.

For example, a popular Pinterest recipe for Three Ingredient Berry Cobbler includes frozen fruit, white cake mix and diet soda. Let’s count the number of actual ingredients in the recipe:

• Frozen mixed berries ingredients: 1) frozen berries

• White cake mix ingredients: 1) Sugar, 2) Enriched bleached wheat flour, 3) Partially hydrogenated soybean oil, 4) Propylene glycol mono- and diesters of fats, 5) Mono- and diglycerides, 6) Wheat starch, 7) Sodium bicarbonate, 8) Sodium aluminum phosphate, 9) Dicalcium phosphate, 10) Monocalcium phosphate, 11) Modified food starch, 12) Dextrose, 13) Salt, 14) Polyglycerol esters of fatty acids, 15) Soy lecithin, 16) Natural and artifical flavor, 17) Guar gum, 18) Xanthan gum

• Diet citrus soda ingredients: 1)Filtered carbonated water, 2) Natural flavors, 3) Citric acid, 4) Potassium citrate, 5) Potassium benzoate, 6) Aspartame, 7) Acesulfame potassium, 8) Calcium disodium edta

If you've lost count, that’s 27 total ingredients in Three Ingredient Berry Cobbler. Six of the ingredients can be found in my personal pantry: frozen berries, flour, sugar, sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), salt, and carbonated water – the rest are someone baffling and quite unappealing.

Compare this list of 27 ingredients to a popular Pinterest recipe for “from scratch” berry cobbler. It is made from basic, simple ingredients and contains a mere seven ingredients (all of these ingredients can be found in my pantry): all-purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, milk, butter, salt and berries.

Somewhere in recent American history we began to see from scratch cooking as being too time consuming and too hard to accomplish on a regular basis.

This is simply not true!

Many from scratch recipes are so easy that even little kids can complete them and many only take a few minutes of hands on time. In addition, most from scratch recipes can be prepared in large quantities and frozen. This saves time and allows you to eat from scratch, even on buys days!

So, to get back to Pollan's argument, by preparing “unhealthy” foods yourself you can instantly make them more healthy! In the case of the berry cobbler, you are eliminating 20 ingredients! I’m not suggesting you give up fresh fruits and vegetables and eat homemade berry cobbler for every meal, but I do think you can include it as a delicious treat in your regular diet.

One highly processed snack food our family loves is cheese crackers. They come from the grocery store in adorable little goldfish shapes, scrabble tiles and even superhero motifs. Unfortunately, they also come with a host ingredients: 1) Enriched flour, 2) Soybean oil with tbhq, 3) White cheddar cheese, 4) Salt, 5) Paprika, 6) Yeast, 7)Baking soda, 8) Paprika oleoresin, 9) Turmeric extract, 10) Annatto extract, 11) Soy lecithin.

I recently tried making my own and discovered that the “from scratch” recipe uses only six basic ingredients that are already in my kitchen: unsalted butter, sharp cheddar cheese, salt, pepper, unbleached flour, and water. This eliminates five unnecessary ingredients! In addition, the from scratch cheese cracker recipe only takes a few minutes to prepare and the results are outrageously delicious!

Homemade Cheese Crackers Ingredients

• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 16 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, grated
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 tablespoons water

Get the full directions for homemade cheese crackers below.

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Homemade Cheese Crackers Recipe

Prep Time

10 mins

Cook Time

12 mins

Total Time

22 mins

 

Need a healthy snack idea? Try this easy, from scratch homemade cheese crackers recipe from BrenDid. Homemade crackers are easy to make and are an easy way to eliminate preservatives and additives from your diet.

Course: Snack

Cuisine: American

Servings: 10

Calories: 350 kcal

Author: BrenDid.com

Ingredients

• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter softened
• 16 ounces sharp cheddar cheese grated
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 tablespoons water

Instructions

1. Beat together softened butter and cheese with an electric mixer. It will come together to form a soft dough of uniform color.
2. Once the butter and cheese have been completely combined, add the flour a few tablespoons at a time while mixing at a slow speed. The dough will become very crumbly.
3. After the flour is fully incorporated, add the water one tablespoon at a time until a pie crust like dough forms, it should not be crumbly but should not be wet. You can add an extra teaspoon or two of water if needed.
4. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and divide dough into three balls.
6. Use a rolling pin to roll one ball on a lightly floured surface until it is 1/8 inch thick.
7. Use a knife to cut the dough into squares or a small cookie cutter to make shaper. Place the crackers close together on a parchment lined baking sheet. Continue to roll and cut the dough until all the crackers are prepared.
8. Bake the crackers for 12 to 15 minutes, they should be bubbled up, golden brown, and dry to the touch. Remove pans from oven and allow crackers to cool to room temperature before serving.
9. Store the crackers in your refrigerator in an airtight container for 6-10 days. (Though I doubt they will last that long!)

Nutrition Facts

Homemade Cheese Crackers Recipe

Amount Per Serving

Calories 350

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

I hope you try making your own “junk food” to improve your health. It’s an easy recipe and satisfying to make your own snack from scratch (not to mention cheesy and delicious). Enjoy!