Flaxseed Tortillas (Keto, Vegan, Gluten-Free)

I am not exaggerating when I say that these flaxseed tortillas are the best-tasting tortillas that I ever ate. They are great for making tasty wraps and I simply cannot get bored with them. Besides being absolutely delicious, these healthy wraps are also naturally vegan, keto, and gluten-free.

This simple recipe for homemade flaxseed tortillas is a real game-changer: you will need only four ingredients and up to twenty minutes to have a healthy meal ready. Combined with some fresh vegetables, tofu and some sauce, these wraps will make a perfect lunch or snack.

The texture of these flaxseed tortillas is amazing as well – they are tender and flexible, seriously better than any flour-based wraps out there. For those of you who don’t really like the taste of flaxseeds, here you really can’t tell! People were surprised when I told them what it was made of.

Ingredients for the flaxseed tortillas

To make these delicious and healthy flaxseed tortillas, you will need:

• flaxseeds or flaxseed meal
• boiling water
• salt
• nutritional yeast (optional)

The tortillas in this recipe are made from a really fine flaxseed meal. I prefer buying whole flaxseeds and grinding them into a meal for two reasons. 

1. The flax oil in whole flaxseeds will stay fresh for a longer time compared to the one in flax meal which can go bad fairly quickly (you’ll be able to tell because its smell will be off). Making your own fresh flaxseed meal every time is not that much work, and it ensures that you get the most out of flaxseeds.
2. By making your own flaxseed meal, you can control how fine it will come out. Store-bought flaxseed meal is sometimes a bit coarse, and for this recipe we need it to be as fine as possible.

I normally use a high-speed blender to make a super fine flax meal, but I’ve also made it in an electric coffee grinder and it worked. If you get a bit of a coarser grind, it will not be impossible to make the tortillas, but it will be a bit more difficult as the dough will be more sticky and not as easy to handle.

Golden flaxseeds have a less pronounced flavour than brown ones. For that reason, I prefer to use them in this recipe in order to get the mildest and tastiest possible result. Still, brown flax will be perfectly fine and give you super tasty tortillas as well.

Boiling water is absolutely essential for this recipe. It is impossible to get the tortillas from these pictures (or most likely any tortillas at all) if you use just hot or lukewarm water. 

Both superfine flax meal and boiling water are actually important in this recipe for the same reason – we need the mass to bind and become like a dough, and for that effect, we will need as much water absorbed by the flax meal in as little time as possible. Boiling water is absorbed quickly, and fine flaxseed meal has its water-absorbent fibre available and ready to absorb that water and form a nicely bound dough.

To make the tortillas more flavourful, I like to add salt and nutritional yeast. Nutritional yeast is not absolutely necessary, but I like it because it gives a hint of cheesy flavour to the flaxseed wraps. Other spices of choice can be added instead. An option without spices is also completely cool!

Making the dough

To make the flaxseed tortilla dough, you will need to pour boiling water into a bowl with finely ground flaxseeds and mix with a spoon as quickly as you can, so that all the flax meal absorbs the liquid while it is still hot.

As you continue mixing, the dough will thicken and get less and less sticky. This will happen quite quickly. When the dough is thick and compact enough to handle with hands, shape small balls that will be rolled out into tortillas.

Baking the flaxseed tortillas

A great thing about these tortillas is that they can be rolled out really thin without falling apart – the best way is to simply dust the ball of flaxseed dough with some starch (I use tapioca) or rice flour and roll it out with a rolling pin.

In case you don’t want to use anything for dusting, the flaxseed dough will need to be rolled out between two pieces of baking paper, to prevent it from sticking to the rolling pin.

If you’d like to get perfectly round shapes, you can cut them using any round thing with edges, such as a saucepan lid (if the lid doesn’t have a vertical edge, you can still use it as a template and cut with a knife around it). 

The tortillas are then baked on a dry non-stick pan over medium heat for a minute or two. You will know that it is ready to flip when its surface is dry and starts looking like, well, a baked tortilla. When you get that look on both sides (it shouldn’t take longer than 2-3 minutes altogether), it is done. It should still be flexible and soft, so don’t bake it for too long.

Serving ideas

• These tortillas are actually so tasty on their own that I sometimes only wrap some fresh and steamed veggies in them and have it as a meal. Stir-fried tofu cubes with tamari also go amazing with the mentioned combination.
• These tasty vegan mushroom meatballs are a really cool idea for serving in these flaxseed wraps, especially with fresh greens and this delicious sunflower seed pesto with chives and parsley.
• If you’d like to have a sweet wrap version, why not! I recommend combining them with some homemade toasted hazelnut butter and this easy oven-baked plum jam without added sugar.

Equipment for making flax wraps

To make the best flaxseed tortillas at home, you will need the following equipment:

• High-speed blender if you use whole flaxseeds and want to grind them into a super fine meal
• A simple coffee and spices grinder can also work instead of a blender
• Mixing bowl
• Cooking spoon or any spoon for mixing hot water and flax meal
• Non-stick pan for baking the flax wraps.

Yield: 6 medium tortillas

Flaxseed Tortillas Recipe (Keto, Vegan, Gluten-Free)

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These homemade flaxseed tortillas are simply amazing - besides being really tasty, tender and flexible (great for making wraps), they are also healthy, easy to make, paleo and keto-friendly, naturally vegan and gluten-free.

Ingredients

• 1 cup golden flax seeds (about 1+1/2 cup flaxseed meal)
• 1 cup water
• 1 pinch Himalayan salt
• 1 tsp powdered nutritional yeast (optional)

Instructions

1. Grind the flax seeds as finely as you can and mix them with salt and nutritional yeast. If it is too coarse, the dough will be stickier and more difficult to handle, but still doable and tasty.
2. Pour boiling (!!) water over the ground flax seeds and mix with a spoon, quickly and efficiently. The dough will soon thicken as the seeds absorb water. 
3. When it's thick enough to handle, form small balls and flatten them into tortillas. 
4. You can dust the dough balls with tapioca starch or rice flour if they are too sticky. 
5. Bake the tortillas on a dry non-stick pan over medium heat for 1-2 minutes on each side. That's it, super easy and delicious!

Notes

I normally use golden flaxseeds for this recipe because they are milder tasting and lighter in colour than brown flax. You can use brown flax instead and it will also turn out great.

If you prefer your food to be on the saltier side, you can add a bit more salt to the dry ingredients. A pinch is kind of a safe zone, but when I know that I’ll be eating these flax wraps only with unseasoned fresh and steamed greens and nothing else, I use 2 pinches of salt for the dough.

Nutritional yeast is totally optional, but I like to use it to enhance the flavour a bit. It gives the tortillas a really nice cheese-like note which makes them even tastier.