How To Use Flaxseed
Add ground flaxseed to yogurt, cottage cheese or smoothies and all baking; breads, muffin or cookies. Sprinkle some into your morning cereal or over salads for a nutty taste. Mix into salad dressing or stir into thicker soups just before serving. You can add ground flaxseed to rice dishes, hummus or tabblouleh, but it is best to add just before serving.
Many cooks say they add up to 3 tablespoons of ground flaxseed to almost any recipe. Experienced cooks regularly add this much flaxseed to pasta sauces and casseroles, and say they see no difference in texture or taste.
Using Flaxseed As a Substitute:
Flour
For most recipes for baked products, you can substitute 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed for 2 tablespoons of the flour for each cup of flour in the recipe. If you don’t have a coffee mill to grind the flaxseed, soak the seeds in warm water for about 10 minutes before adding them to your baked products.Oil
You can also substitue 3 parts ground flaxseed for one part oil in recipes as flaxseed contains healthy polyunsaturated fat. If you add 3 tablespoons ground flaxseed to a recipe, you can reduce the oil in the recipe by 1 tablespoon. Note that ground flaxseed makes baked products brown faster, so you may want to consider reducing the normal cooking time.
Eggs
Flaxseed that is ground can be substituted for eggs in many recipes because ground flax seeds have a natural gum that thickens batter in much the same way as eggs do. To replace 1 egg just mix together 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed and 3 tablespoons warm water. Let sit a few minutes and use in your recipe. When wheat germ or bran is called for in a recipe, you can easily substitute ground flaxseed in the same amount.