Homemade Gluten-Free Flour Mix
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This homemade gluten-free flour mix is convenient to have on hand for all your gluten-free baking.
Convenience foods such as cereal, bread, snack bars, and pasta tend to be full of gluten ingredients. For those of us with gluten sensitivity or celiac disease, this can be a real challenge.
This is the homemade gluten-free flour blend I use. I fill a big container with this mixture so I can easily grab a cup or two when I’m baking. It includes four ingredients: brown rice flour, tapioca flour, potato starch, and xanthan gum. The xanthan gum serves as a binder, which is a primary function of gluten.
You can substitute this gluten-free flour mix for all purpose flour in your favorite recipes. It works well in gluten-free bread recipes, as well as cookies, cakes, muffins, biscuits, pancakes, and other baked goods.
Other GF Flour Options
I love using oat flour in baking recipes as well. These oat flour chocolate chip cookies, oat flour banana bread, and oat flour waffles are delicious recipes featuring gluten-free ingredients. Many people bake with almond flour, too.
Try some of these gluten-free muffin recipes using this homemade blend.
Recommended Equipment
Ingredients
- 5 cups brown rice flour preferably Bob’s Red Mill
- 2 1/2 cups tapioca flour
- 1 1/4 cups potato starch
- 1 1/2 tbs. xanthan gum
Instructions
- Thoroughly combine all the ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk the mixture to combine evenly.
- Transfer to a storage container and store the flour in a cool, dark cabinet.
Approximate Nutrition Info
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Homemade Gluten-Free Flour Mix Price Breakdown
A cup of this homemade gluten-free flour blend recipe costs $.75, while a cup of white whole wheat flour costs $.15. I actually prefer the gluten-free version to whole wheat flour in many recipes because it’s lighter in texture.
I cannot eat xanthan gum. What can I substitute?
I’m not sure of a substitute. Some people leave it out. Xanthan gum helps to bind the final product together, but this mix should work without it. Your baked goods may be a bit more crumbly, though.
I can’t afford xanthan gum. I substitute the same amount of guar gum. Works great! Another idea is to use a package of plain gelatin to flours that don’t have gluten and crumbly and dry.
Psyllium Husk Powder. Mix it with your wet ingredients until it forms a glob, then add in your dry ingredients. 1 1/2 tbs per cup of flour. Its superior to xanthan gum, imho… Buy psyllium husk powder, not whole husks.
Can I use tapioca starch instead potato? Se don’t have arrowroot here.
Yes, Rebeca. That should work, although the variety of starches does have an impact on the quality of the baking texture. Let me know if you try it with a different combo.
Wow. This is one of the first times I have come across someone who is gluten/wheat sensitive and can’t have almonds. My daughter has seemingly random food allergies the worst of which are almonds and wheat. Great to have this mix.
It’s a challenging combination, Stephanie, but definitely doable. Good luck with your daughter’s allergies.
You should be aware the using brown rice flour instead of white has drawbacks. Google’ brown rice arsenic’. Serious problem, especially for those avoiding gluten.
Becky, white rice flour is a good alternative for those who are concerned about arsenic in brown rice flour. There’s a lot of conflicting information on the subject, so it’s important for people to do their own research and decide what makes the most sense for them. Thanks for bringing up the subject.
I recently tried a cookie recipe with a mix of 1/2 c oat flour (ground myself from gluten free oats), 1/4 c millet flour, and 1/4 cup almond flour. Was quite tasty and i’m experimenting with it myself for other baked goods. Almond and coconut flour are great too they work well with others but in some cases can be used solely on there own.
That sounds like a good mix! I’ve had success with millet flour, and I’ve been experimenting with coconut flour lately
potatoes have gluten
Diane, potatoes may be prepared with gluten ingredients sometimes, but potatoes themselves don’t contain gluten.
Excited to see this today…I haven’t had gluten in three days. Going to see how it goes for the next couple of weeks and maybe even meet with a nutritionist to go over things (I have thyroid issues and I’m just now hearing of the connection between the two). Ugh…
Good luck with it, LeAnn! I was off gluten for a year, and it was great for me. I now eat it in moderation (compared to before), and only the whole grain version. It’s definitely worth exploring. Let me know if you have questions.
Do u have a bread machine recipe using this flour or would I just follow the normal white bread recipe and sub this flour 1:1? I just found out my sons eczema could b from gluten;(
If you have the VitaMix machine with the dry goods attachment you can make your own brown rice or even wild rice flour in the VitaMix machine.
I would love to get a Vitamix one of these days, Tracy. That sounds like a great way to make gf flour.
Is there a substitute for potato starch? My LO can’t have potato corn or soy…
Thanks!
Kelly, arrowroot starch is a great substitute. Good luck!
I made a pancake recipe with coconut flour and it turned out awesome.. I don’t know how it would work if you replce it in other recipes.. check it out..
That’s good to know! I’d like to start experimenting with coconut flour.
Hey Anne Marie, I don’t know if you’re still interested in gf flour ideas, but I’ve been using GF Girl’s 60/40 starch/whole grain ratio. I use millet and sorghum for grain and sweet rice and potato starch. I add xanthan gum separately (if at all). It seems to work well as an all purpose flour. She has all kinds of ideas/suggestions for different grains and starches but that’s the only combo I’ve tried so far.
-Dana
That sounds like a good combination. I’d love to incorporate millet and sorghum into our diet.
I order the flour in bulk, Bob’s brand, on amazon. Let me know what you think if you try it!
Thanks, Dana. Will do!
How do you store the ingredients and the mixture. I usually keep flour in the freezer. because of weevils. Do you store this in the pantry?
I store the flour mix in my pantry and I’ve never had any problems. If I have open bags of flour (including whole wheat), I do store them in the fridge.
My son is allergic to Rice, Corn, Wheat and Eggs plus 31 other items, but do you have a good replacement flour for the Rice? I have so much to learn we only found out about all his allergies 2 weeks ago so I’m new to this whole way of cooking.
That is a challenging list of allergies. Hang in there, you will figure it out with time. Can he eat almond flour?
My daughter and I are also allergic to rice (in addition to wheat and a whole lot more). For baking I usually blend some combination of sorghum, black bean flour, coconut flour, quinoa flour and a starch like arrowroot. Very similar to this post. The important thing is to substitute by weight, not by volume, as different flours have different weights. A cup of AP flour is 140g, so I just use 140g of my flour blend per cup AP flour and it works great.
Have you tried buckwheat flour? I use it all the time and it works beautifully. I have a grinder so i grind my own buckwheat groats. Also, use oat groats. You can mi these for a fluffier result.
Hope this helps.
Great tip! I’m not sure if I’ve tried it, but I will now.
I have recently been using this mix and really like it! I have also successfully used it in combination with sorghum flour. I love the texture and fiber content of sorghum flour.
Thanks for the tip, Hillery. Do you substitute the sorghum for one of the other flours?
Hi! I bake gluten-free cakes for a farmers market booth I have at the local market. I developed my own mix that works so similarly to wheat flour that no adjustment to recipes are needed. I use sorghum flour, millet flour (adds that nutty taste), white rice (small quantity as it gobbles up liquid hence tends to make things dry!), both potato and tapioca starches (use both as they work in synergy together to mimic gluten), some corn starch (non-gmo) and both xanthum and guar gums (again synergy that mimics gluten). The cakes are moist, have a good crumb, and brown well. Folks generally cannot tell they are gluten-free and I sell out every week.
As far as substitutes for almond flour, there are several other types of nut flours to use – hazelnut is a great one! Also look at oat flour (oats are gluten free by nature but I still use Bob’s Red Mill certified gluten-free oats and oat flour. Look at buckwheat flour (earthy tasting), coconut flour (goes rancid fast and absorbs moisture….I don’t use this one), chestnut flour (slightly sweet and nutty). The rice flours will also work but I never use them alone as they can be gritty and absorb liquids in recipes leaving a tendency for dryness and crumbling!
If you need to read, check out Alice Medrich’s book “Flavor Flours”. Excellent info and recipes using non-wheat flours.
I really like this – where do you find your ingredients?
I can usually get Bob’s Red Mill flours at Christmas Tree Shop. Sometimes I get them at Stop and Shop or Whole Foods. I can also find good deals at Amazon (especially on brown rice flour) from time to time.
I’m allergic to potato starch. What else could I use in place of the potato starch.
Arrowroot starch also works well.
That is a bummer on the almonds. They are my go-to for hearty breads. I’ll have to give this a try though when I want a “lighter” texture 🙂
I like almond flour too, especially in muffins.