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Making homemade Whole Wheat Cheese Crackers is so much easier and faster than you would think and this video will show you how! You can whip them up and even freeze a bunch so you have them around all the time.
While I’m super easy-going about Kenya and Chloe having cake at birthday parties or ordering things like french fries every now and then when we’re out to eat, I can’t help but cringe when they are offered goldfish as a snack on play dates or at camp. Of course there are many things that would be considered far worse for them than these little yellow bite-sized snacks, but goldfish kind of get under my skin.
Goldfish are one of those “easy” foods that most people keep in the pantry for their kids. And why not? They’re delicious. But they are also high in sodium, low in fiber and feature some unneeded empty ingredients like sugar. For what is such a simple food, making your own homemade version is so much better, especially when you use whole wheat flour, which ups the fiber content and is far more nutritious than refined.
I know what you might be thinking…”it takes longer to make goldfish than it does for me to buy them”. Well, you’d not only be surprised by how quick and easy these cheddar crackers are to make but also how much money you’ll save making your own. And the best part is that you can use cookie cutters to pop out these crackers in whatever shapes you think your kids will love. More special than goldfish? What more could you hope for at snack time!
Photo by Maren Caruso
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Whole Wheat Cheddar Crackers
Ingredients
- 2 cups cheddar cheese, grated
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 tablespoon spike salt-free seasoning (any salt free/herb seasoning will work)
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 F.
- Place the first 3 ingredients in a food processor and pulse to combine.
- Add the butter and pulse and until a ball forms.
- Roll out dough 1/4 inch thick on a floured or parchment-covered surface. Slice into crackers or cut out shapes with a cookie cutter.
- Bake for 15 minutes. Keep in mind, every oven is different and how thick the crackers are rolled out can affect the cook time. Keep an eye on your crackers so they don't burn just in case!
- Serve.
Hi….I just made them and they are great…thx
Has anyone made these gluten free?
I love your recipes and snacks for kids especially the goldfish, wheat thins, etc but I need to make them gluten free. It can be tricky finding the right substitute that will suit the recipe. Would you consider adding directions for how to make it gluten free? Thanks
You mention that making these vs. buying saves money and doesn’t take as much time as some people think. Another great point and probably the most important, is that Goldfish are full of ingredients that aren’t natural or food-based but are altered and can have really negative effects on our children’s brain. Some of the ingredients are actually designed to keep you wanting to eat them instead of feeling satisfied. Also, you can control how much sodium is going in since Goldfish have already a high amount. If you go the extra mile and give our children cleaner foods that what is on the shelves, go for it!
Great recipe
Jessica, I’m glad I read your post. I don’t have a food processor either and decided not to make this until I read your remarks. Thanks to you, I’ll give it a try. Thank you.
Took an 8-oz block of cheddar and grated it by hand on the smallest grate (arm workout!!). It turned out to be about 3 cups. I added 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour to compensate. Put in onion and garlic powder and paprika. Added 8 Tbsp of chilled butter instead of 6. Should have put in 9 though. Combined by hand since I have no processer (more of a workout!!) and tried to roll it real thin. No luck. Kept it thick (about 1/4 in.) and cut into med. squares with a knife. Baked for 12ish min and they came out perrrrrrrfect! I felt super awesome smelling these wholesome and delish crackers on my 18-month old’s breath! Will be making these again, but will switch my work arm to get an even muscle tone. 😉
The crackers are yum but there is a bitter after taste. Why would that be? I tried it with white whole wheat flour. Thanks
This is my second time making these so I wanted to chime in against the critics…both times these crackers have turned out delicious! I follow the recipe as is with the exception of using Whole Wheat Pastry flour and since I don’t have a salt-free seasoning on hand I just sprinkled in some all-purpse herb seasoning and some paprika. The bake time was spot on for me, so I’m wondering if those who had problems with burning maybe rolled out their crackers a lot thinner? Also, it does take longer than you expect to come together in the food processor, but it definitely does! And here is a trick that I love…if your kids don’t mind (mine doesn’t…he is just happy to get a cheese cracker!), skip cookie cutters and just use a pizza roller to cut out squares. So quick! Thanks, Catherine, for this great recipe.
Yeah, I had the same problem both times I tried it. I had to add about one more tablespoon of butter and let it soften a bit. Otherwise it was very, very crumbly.
I love the idea of these….unfortunately the recipe needs some work….there’s no way it ever would have formed a ball without water–much like a pie crust, unless the butter should have been soft to begin with, which wasn’t mentioned in the recipe. Then, the baking time is WAY off and I burnt the first batch which took me a long time to cut out with little animal cookie cutters. Ultimately, they needed closer to 7 minutes to get the desired color, but then they were chewy. We’ll see how my daughter receives them (I’m trying to replace Elmo crackers)….have had great results with all other weelicious recipes so I’m a bit surprised at this one.
These are ok, but definitely NOT goldfish. I’d rather buy real goldfish every once in a while than go through the trouble of making these again. One of my kids won’t even try them because of the way they smell.
Same here. I used Club House Signature Blends. It’s a salt-free vegetable and herb medley. Turned out bitter. Can’t get Spike in grocery stores here in Toronto.
I didn’t have Spike so I used Mrs. Dash Table Blend instead. They came out rather bitter and my kids won’t eat them. 🙁
These are delicious! I couldn’t get the ball to form in the food processor (maybe due to using shredded cheese?) but just mashed the powdery mix together with my hands and then rolled that out. It worked. I used fairly large cookie cutters because that is all I had, but will get some smaller ones so that next time I can get more crackers per batch. Really good! Thanks.
Is it ok to have so much butter?