Vegan Gluten-Free Herb and Cheese Biscuits

I love carbs and breads and starches. If I could just eat bread and pastries all day and still be healthy, I’d be in heaven. Well, until my next food cravings kicked in… Probably cheese… I felt pretty sorry for myself thinking that going vegan would mean giving up cheesy, carby foods, specifically at breakfast time. Thankfully, I did not have to make such a sacrifice! There are TONS of incredible vegan adaptations of the breakfast treats you loved as an omnivore. I’m going to share with you one of my favourites — the Vegan and Gluten-Free Herb and Cheese Biscuits (or “Cheeze”).

This is a continuation from my earlier blog post sharing my most delectable recent breakfast of Tofu Scrambled Eggz & Vegan Cheeze Herb Biscuits with Matcha Latte. Yummm.

The recipe for these biscuits came from the Bitter Sweet blog. As usual, I modified it a bit to suit my tastes. Check out the original recipe for “Garden Herb Biscuits” here. See below for my adapted version. Be warned, this recipe gets a little messy…

Vegan Gluten-Free Herb and Cheese Biscuits

According to the original recipe on Bitter Sweet’s blog, this recipe should make 6-8 tall biscuits. I found it made way more, and got around double that. Depending on how “tall” you want to make your biscuits, this recipe should yield anywhere between 8 and 16 biscuits.

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 22 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups quinoa flour (or whatever flour of your preference)
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt (I use himalayan salt**)
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper (or to taste)
• 2 tbs finely chopped chives
• 1 tbs dried parsley flakes
• 1 tbs fresh rosemary sprigs
• 1 tbs garlic powder
• 1 1/2 tbs nutritional yeast (for the extra cheesy flavour)
• 1 tsp smoked paprika powder
• 1/4 cup vegan butter spread
• 1/2 package (4 ounces) vegan cream cheese
• 1 cup grated carrot
• 3/4 cup non-dairy milk (I used rice milk)
• 1 tbs apple cider vinegar

** Sea salt is often recommended in most healthy recipes you’ll find, but recent studies have shown that sea salt is largely contaminated with plastic from our oceans. Himalayan salt from mountains may be a healthier choice — or even table salt may be a healthier choice.

Directions

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicon baking matt.

In a large bowl, sift in flour and dry ingredients. Mix well with all the herbs and seasonings until ingredients are well-distributed.

Next, cut in vegan butter and cream cheese in chunks into the flour and herb mixture and integrate with a fork or pastry cutter. The mixture should eventually become “coarse” in consistency.

Once your butter and cheese pieces are no larger than the size of a pea and there is no loose flour, add the carrot shreds and mix in.

Finally, add the non-dairy milk and apple cider vinegar to the mixture and fold in with spatula. The “dough” gets fairly wet at this point. Initially, I thought, “I must have done something wrong!” — but the final project turned out well enough to convince me the wet stage is just fine.

Once the mixture looks like a dough, set it out on a clean and floured surface and pat out (with floured hands — remember, it’s sticky-wet!) the dough to 1-1/2″ thickness. Cut out your biscuits with a cookie cutter, sharp knife, or (in my case) round glass lip in the size and shape you like. I found that no matter how much flour I dusted, the dough still stuck to surface, cutter, hands, EVERYTHING! I admit it was a bit frustrating, but once I learned to embrace the goo, I was able to enjoy the tactile experience. I suggest you do the same.

Lay the biscuits out on the baking sheet and cook for 20-25 minutes at 425 degrees F. You will know the biscuits are done once they start to firm up and slightly brown around the edges. You’ll start to smell the delicious herby goodness when they start getting nice and golden. Yum! Once they are done, allow them to cool 10 minutes (if you have the patience) before eating.

I was pretty impressed with this biscuit. It is full of flavour, and nice and flaky, despite the wet dough. I encourage you to experiment with the seasoning blend to find your favourite flavours. I also encourage you to experiment with different vegan cheeses. I’ve made this recipe with cheese chunks instead of cream cheese and found it to be quite good as well. You can either use store-bought vegan cheeses (Daiya, Yoso, Earth Island brands are easy and tasty), or with your own homemade cheese sauces or bricks (recipes to come!).

Enjoy!