Homemade Black Sesame Crackers

These vegan, crispy Black Sesame Crackers are super simple to make, are great for parties, on-the-go snacks, or just your everyday munchies. The first taste of a homemade freshly baked cracker is going to change your snacking game forever! You will love not only how simple these are to make, but how delicious they are.

With crispy edges, a pinch of seasonings, and a slight hint of toasted black sesame seeds, these crackers are sure to be a crowd pleaser.  You can dip these in homemade bitchin’ sauce, or maybe you make some vegan pepperoni and impress the family with your vegan holiday snack alternatives. These crackers would be great in some vegan fondue. The possibilities are endless, but that’s if you can resist eating them all right out of the oven. Let’s talk about some of the ingredients that make these tasty, crispy, sesame crackers.

Black Sesame Cracker Ingredients

AP Flour – Also known as All Purpose Flour or plain flour is medium in gluten protein content at 9.5–11.5% protein content. AP flour’s middling gluten content but also to its lack of any added leavening agent, like in self-rising flour. We believe a good cracker starts with good flour. We recommend finding an organic, unbleached AP (all purpose) flour for this recipe. The flavor of the cracker is dependent on the quality of the flour. 

Black Sesame Seeds – Black sesame seeds are so amazing and nutritious! Not only do we love them in our crackers but also as a black sesame seed drink. For this recipe black sesame seeds could be substituted for white sesame seeds. While the black sesame seeds are basically the best part of these crackers, they could be omitted completely if you have an allergy, food sensitivity, or don’t have any at home. We’ve tested this recipe without the sesame seeds and the crackers still came out crispy and delicious!

Nutritional Yeast – The nutritional yeast in this recipe adds a great flavor to these homemade crackers. To us, nutritional yeast almost tastes like dry crushed up cheese crackers. It’s also one of the most important ingredients in vegan cooking! Honestly, we have used on everything. If you’re purchasing nutritional yeast for this recipe, know there’s many other opportunities to utilize this ingredient. This gives a slight cheesiness to the crackers. It also adds depth of flavor.  

Seasoning Spice Blend – You are going to want to get yourself a trusty go to spice blend. For this recipe we used a “no salt added” 21 Herb and Spice Seasoning from Costco. It is absolutely delicious and we put it on many savory dishes to jazz up the flavor.  If you don’t have 21 Spice at home Italian seasoning would be the perfect substitute.

Something to keep in mind if substituting with a spice blend that already has salt, is how much extra salt to add to the mixture. Some saltier seasoning blends may be salty enough without any extra salt, so use your judgement. You can also taste a tiny bit of the dough to check for seasoning. Another substitute for 21 spice is dried or fresh herbs. If fresh, chop them up fine, and place as you would a dried blend right into the dough.

Baking Powder –  Baking powder is an important ingredient that should not be substituted. This is because baking powder is used to increase the volume and lighten the texture of baked goods. Essentially it is used as a leavening agent to help dough and batter rise.

Garlic powder – Even though 21 spice blend has some garlic powder we decided these crackers needed some extra garlic flavor. If using a different spice blend, remember to tweak the garlic powder amount accordingly.

Salt – For this recipe we used himalayan pink salt. Any salt can be used but be mindful some salt is saltier than others. Also, if using a seasoning blend that already contains salt be sure to add less salt than the recipe suggests.

Oil / Vegan butter – For every delicious recipe there is always a fatty component. For this recipe we used melted vegan butter because we enjoy the flavor of it better than vegetable oils. But the vegan butter can be substituted by vegetable oils like avocado, olive oil, grape seed oil or even safflower oil. 

Black Pepper – In the food world it’s widely accepted that freshly cracked black pepper has a better, fresher flavor than store bought powdered black pepper. According to Spicetopography.com, Cracked black pepper and ground black pepper don’t taste the same, which results from the difference in surface area. The flavor of both forms of black pepper comes from the compounds like piperine and terpenes in the peppercorn.

Cracked black pepper has less surface area so these volatile compounds do not evaporate quickly. In comparison, the fineness of ground black pepper provides a much greater surface area and a much higher rate of evaporation. The result is that cracked black pepper will keep its flavor for longer than ground black pepper. We recommend freshly cracked black pepper for this recipe but prepackaged powder black pepper works well too!

Water – Although water is the ingredient with the least hype it is arguably the most important because without the water component the mixture would never form into a dough. The amount of water in the recipe has been well tested and there shouldn’t be a need for less or extra water. Once the dry ingredients have been mixed and the water and vegan butter or oil has been added, mix either in a food processor or with a spatula. At first the mixture may seem dry but eventually all the flour and spices will come together to form a dough ball. 

Storing Crackers

Once baked let these Crispy Black Sesame Crackers cool and store them in an airtight container. We like to store them in a glass pyrex container or a reusable silicone ziplock bag. These crackers are great and will last up to 5 days. After the 5 day mark they start to get a little stale tasting. We had to do a specific test just to see their shelf life, if not they would have been gone in 2 days!

If you tried one of our recipes or found our articles helpful, let us know in the comments below how it turned out!

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Peace,
Luna & Nate

Crispy Sesame Crackers

Recipe by Cooking Up Vegan Course: SnacksCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy

Servings

6

servings

Prep time

15

minutes

Cooking time

16

minutes

Total time

31

minutes

Vegan crispy Black Sesame Crackers are easy to make. Great party snack. The first taste of a homemade freshly baked cracker is going to change your snacking game forever! With crispy edges, a pinch of seasonings, and a slight hint of toasted black sesame seeds, these crackers are sure to be a crowd pleaser. Dip these or served along with vegan pepperoni, or a vegan fondue. The possibilities are endless, but that’s if you can resist eating them all right out of the oven.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 Cups 1 1/2 All Purpose Flour

• 2 tsp 2 Twenty one spice blend or Italian seasoning

• 1 Tbsp 1 Black sesame seeds

• 2 Tbsp 2 Nutritional yeast

• 1 tsp 1 Salt

• 1/2 tsp 1/2 Garlic powder

• 1/4 tsp 1/4 Black pepper

• 1/4 tsp 1/4 Baking powder

• 1/2 Cup 1/2 Water

• 2 Tbsp 2 Grape seed oil or Vegan melted butter

Directions

• Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.
• Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or aluminum foil and set aside.
• Add all the dry ingredients into a bowl and mix.

  • 

• Then add the wet ingredients to the bowl and mix.

  • 

• Using a spatula mix together until a dough is formed.
• Once the dough has turned into a ball, lightly flour a clean work surface. Place the ball onto the lightly floured surface.

  • 

• Using a pizza cutter, knife, or pastry scraper, cut the dough in half.

  • 

• Set one dough piece to the side and using a rolling pin roll the out until its flat. Be sure not to make it too thin or it will be hard to remove it off the table.

  • 

• Now that the dough is flat using a pizza cutter, knife, pastry scraper or another straight edge begin to cut lines through the dough. Begin with vertical lines and then horizontal lines.

  • 

• Repeat same steps with the second dough.
• Optional: Using a fork poke each square 2-4 times. By poking holes in the dough the crackers will bake and turn out flat rather than with air bubbles. This is optional and will not effect the taste or flavor of the crackers.
• Add the dough squares to the sheet trays and add to the oven. Bake for 12-17 minutes.

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