Healthy Gluten-Free Waffles
Craving some waffles but don’t want all the butter, refined sugar and bleached flour? Then make these Healthy Gluten-Free Waffles! They’re incredibly soft, moist, and sweet, you’d never know they’re all natural, sugar free, low carb, low fat, high fiber, high protein, and paleo too!
I got an email last month from Tamara asking me to healthify Belgium Liege Waffles.
I tried. I failed.
*sad face*
BUT I made these delicious Belgium Liege Waffle “wannabes” along the way. They are SO GOOD that I had to post the recipe. Sorry, Tamara, but I hope these waffles will do!
Sooooo soft.
Sooooo moist.
Sooooo sweet.
Sooooo… healthy?
YES!
Healthy Gluten-Free Waffles
Ingredients
- 1½ tsp Active Dry Yeast
- 1 cup Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk (room temp)
- 138g (½ cup + 1 tbs) Unsweetened Applesauce
- 1 Large Egg
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 2 tsp Natural Butter Flavor
- 1 tsp Liquid Stevia Extract
- 112g (1 cup) Coconut Flour
- 144g (¾ cup) Granulated Erythritol (divided)
- 1 tbs Homemade Metamucil
- 1 tsp Double-Acting Baking Powder
- ¼ tsp Salt
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together the yeast, almond milk and applesauce. Let sit 5 minutes.
- Whisk in the egg, vanilla extract, butter extract and stevia extract.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the coconut flour, ¼ cup of the erythritol, metamucil, baking powder and salt. Dump into the large bowl and fold together (fold dough for 5 minutes).
- Form the dough into a ball, cover with plastic wrap and let sit in a warm place for 1 hour (I used a warming drawer set to 90 degrees).
- Fold in the remaining ½ cup of erythritol and mix well.
- Divide the dough into 3 and shape into balls. Cover and let rise for 40 minutes in a warm place (I used the warming drawer again).
- Preheat your waffle iron to medium heat and spray with cooking spray. When iron is hot, press a dough ball in the center of the iron and shut to close (my waffle iron cooked the waffles in 5-7 minutes. I open the waffle maker a crack at around 4 minutes to let some heat out and check on the doneness of the waffles).
- Carefully remove the waffle from the iron (FYI, the waffles will be really delicate when they're hot in the waffle maker. I couldn't get the waffles out as a whole so I took them out as quarters). Spray the iron with cooking spray again and cook the rest of the waffle dough.
- Serve immediately with fresh fruit, mini dark chocolate chips, all natural whipped cream (I use Soyatoo Rice Whip) and/or pure maple syrup!
I’m pleasantly surprised! These super indulgent breakfast treats are actually nutritionally balanced with healthy fats, complex carbohydrates, fiber and protein… the complete opposite of what you’d find from boxed waffles sitting in the frozen aisle or waffles from fast-food restaurants like IHOP. My healthified waffles are just as soft and fluffy, moist and buttery, and rich and satisfying as typical unhealthy waffles just without all the bleached white flour, hydrogenated oils/trans fats and refined white sugar.
Just to prove to you guys how different two waffles (of equal deliciousness!) can be, I also made a nutrition label for IHOP’s Belgian Waffles for comparison. Compared to one IHOP’s waffle, one of my healthy waffles has:
- 150 less calories
- 14g less fat (plus 6.5g less saturated fat!)
- ZERO trans fats
- 15g more fiber
- 4g more protein
See? A nutritionally balanced breakfast, lunch, snack, dessert… and maybe dinner too? I meeeeeeeaan, why not? 😉
Seriously. Why not?
.
With love and good eats,
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– Jess
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Indulge − no strings attached!
You’re making quite a case for your homemade Metamucil. I never thought I’d be so motivated to make some… and then some waffles!
Haha, I was hoping flax was going to work but it didn’t bind the batter well enough. The Metamucil worked really well, strangely enough! 🙂
I love waffles, but have never made them at home. This looks fantastic!
I made these with the Vegg baking mix to make it vegan. While I only let the dough rise for one hour (I couldn’t wait!) these were the best waffles I ever made. So soft and sweet! I couldn’t taste the coconut flour. Magic!
I plan on making them again.
Maybe next time, I could leave the dough overnight in the fridge?
YAY YAY YAY I’m so glad the egg replacer worked! And I’m so happy you could skip the extra dough proofing time (that was hard for me too). I’ll definitely be skipping that torturous wait on my next batch 🙂
As for refrigerating the dough, I’m not sure if that will work… yeast gets deactivated by the cold. I would suggest proofing the dough for one hour at night, cover and refrigerate it overnight, then pop them in the waffle maker in the morning. Hopefully that works, good luck!!
-Jess
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Somebody said that they successfully used egg replacer to make these vegan. Do you think these would work made vegan but using real sugar? How would that substitution work? My kids are allergic to dairy, egg, wheat, soy, peanut, poultry, chickpeas, avocado, and bananas… they are so limited in other ways that we try not to avoid real sugar in occasional treats like this. Also, I have no idea where to get the funky sweeteners. It sure would be nice to have fluffy waffles for holiday breakfasts!
I haven’t tried this recipe using an egg replacer or real sugar, so I can’t be sure if it’ll work. But, if the egg replacer worked for someone else, I hope it works for you!
Erythritol and regular white sugar are interchangeable, so I’m sure the substitution will work out just fine 🙂
Also, as for buying erythritol, I link to the product I buy in the recipe. The ingredient should be underlined as a link.
I hope you like the waffles!!
-Jess
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The Carb count doesn’t show these waffles are low carb for 37 grams per servings. I’ve heard you can subtract the fiber if it’s 7 grams. This seems high in carbs to me still.
I definitely understand your point! However, every food (even low-carb foods) has naturally occurring carbohydrates in them, like almonds, edamame, broccoli, etc. Coconut flour is a low-carb food, yet it still contains 18g carbs per 1/4 cup.
When you look at the ingredient list, all of the ingredients except the applesauce are technically low-carb. If you are on a ketogenic diet and do not want any sugar whatsoever, simply replace the applesauce with another puree of some sort (like pumpkin puree or mashed carrot babyfood).
The yeast, the unsweetened almond milk, the eggs, coconut flour and erythritol are all low-carb. For a ketogenic recipe, use Alcohol-Free Vanilla Extract and a 1/2 tbs of Psyllium Husk Powder instead of the DIY Metamucil.
I hope this helps! 🙂
-Jess
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