Dehydrator: Seeded Vegetable Crackers

These delicious and nutritious crackers are made from vegetables and seeds with herbs for seasoning, and with no flour, oil or preservatives. You can use whatever vegetables and fresh herbs you have available, and experiment with adding other herbs and spices you want to change up the flavour: nutritional yeast for a cheesy flavour, cumin and coriander seed for a Middle Eastern flavour etc.

1.5 cups sunflower seeds
1 cup pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup sesame seeds
6 cups water
1 cup flax seeds
1/2 cup ground flax seeds
2 cups water
6 cups coarsely chopped vegetables (e.g. carrots, courgettes, peppers, celery, onions)
1/2 cup fresh herbs of choice (parsley, basil etc)
2 tbsp grated fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced (optional)
Pinch of chilli powder (optional)
2 tbsp tamari or 1 tsp salt (optional)

Soak sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds in 6 cups of water for at least 2-4 hours.

Soak flax seeds (whole and ground) in 2 cups water for at least 30 mins.

Chop vegetables into very small pieces in a food processor. Add herbs, ginger and garlic and pulse until thoroughly blended. Place vegetables in a large bowl.

Drain sunflower and pumpkin seeds and add to the vegetables. Stir in flax seeds (will have absorbed most of the water and become gluggy), chilli powder and tamari, and stir well.

Divide mixture onto non-stick sheets on dehydrator trays; spread evenly to about 5mm thick. Mine made enough for 5 trays but I got some of it a bit too thin so it didn’t hold together well – I will split it over 4 trays next time.

Dehydrate at 50C for about 10 hours (or more – see below).

Turn the partially dried crackers over if you can and score the desired size pieces. I couldn’t turn them over easily so dehydrated them for a bit longer and then cut them into pieces and turned those over.

Put them onto a mesh dehydrator trays and dehydrate for another 10 hours or until dry and crispy.

Store in an airtight container. Can be frozen.