Quick Cracker Hack

I will never forget how I felt when I discovered my first bag of salt-free potato chips. It was a low-sodium snacking revelation! Then came salt-free tortilla chips, beet and sweet potato chips, and finally, salt-free rice crackers. All products that increasingly improved my ability to stay fueled and well appetize’d throughout the day and evening.

But what about feeding others?

Most of the time, my guests were surprisingly pleased with the taste and texture of these salt-free options. Many starting to opt for the salt-free versions. But as for the flavor options — well, they all fell to the blander side of things and there was yet to be BBQ, onion, vinegar and pepper, or other mouth-watering combinations to choose from.

That is, until pasta came along.

Fresh sheets of pasta are really nothing more than flour, egg, and water. Which is really just the basic start to a dough. And if you get sheets of pasta from a real pasta shop, you’ll also find that most don’t have salt in them.

See where I am going with this?

So while flaky salt-free pastry dough and pre-made pizza dough don’t exist in the grocery stores yet, you can find sheets of freshly made salt-free pasta dough. Which you can use for a super easy lasagna, breadsticks, or yes, homemade crackers.

That you can flavor with any spices and seeds you want. It’s a salt-free cracker game changer! And the next time you’re hosting a happy hour or a dinner party or packing a picnic, you can make homemade crackers in 15 minutes.

Get yourself some pasta, make a salt-free spice blend of your dreams, and get cracker hacking.

Chow on.

BAGEL-SPICED PASTA CRACKERS

Ingredients

• 1 large sheet salt-free pasta, about 8×10-inches
• 1 tsp salt-free garlic powder
• 1 tsp dried onion flakes
• 1 tsp rye seeds
• 1/2 tsp black sesame seeds
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 egg, beaten

Directions

Heat oven to 375 dg F.

Use a knife or ravioli cutter to cut the pasta sheet into even sized cracker shapes (really however you  want them, long rectangles or even squares — your choice!). Place them on an oven sheet. Then in a small bowl, mix the spices — garlic powder through black pepper — until well combined. Use a pastry brush to cover the top side of the crackers with the beaten egg. And sprinkle spices on top until all the crackers are covered.

Place the crackers into the oven and let them cook for 10 minutes. Open the oven and check on the crackers, they will be slightly puffy, crispy, and golden when finished. If they need a little more time, continue to cook for 2 minute increments, checking continually so they do not burn.

Then serve your crackers with a dip. Or store in an air-tight container for a few days. If they last that long.