Oat flour is:
Affordable Accessible (oatmeal is available in all grocery stores!) Nut-free Gluten-free (when using certified GF oats) Easy to make at home
It gives baked goods a light and tender crumb, and a hint of oatmeal flavor. It’s also a great “introductory flour” if you’re trying to sneak more whole grains into your baking.
How to Make It
How do you make oat flour? All you need is rolled oats and a blender or food processor. Just blend the oats until they look like a finely ground flour. If you have a high-speed blender, this should take about 30 seconds. If you use a food processor, you’ll probably need to process the oats for 1-2 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides a couple of times, until the flour looks very fine. When I use a food processor to make oat flour, I like to take the extra step of sifting the flour through a fine mesh sieve, to make sure there aren’t any larger chunks in my homemade oat flour. This will ensure that you have consistent measurements later.
Oat Flour Recipes to Try
Oat flour works best in recipes that call for it, but you can see my notes about using it as a substitute below. Here are some oat flour recipes to help you get started:
Oat Flour Cookies Healthy Lactation Cookies Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies (egg-free) Oat Flour Banana Bread Vegan Oat Flour Pancakes
Have extra oats you need to use up? You can also use those in recipes, instead of grinding them into flour first. Here are some of my favorite oatmeal recipes to try:
Oatmeal Banana Pancakes Banana Oatmeal Muffins Baked Pumpkin Oatmeal Zucchini Oatmeal Peanut Butter Overnight Oats Chocolate Overnight Oats
Using Oat Flour as a Substitute
Can you use oat flour instead of all-purpose flour in recipes? Oat flour can’t be swapped for all-purpose flour using a 1:1 ratio in measuring cups, but typically you can substitute it by weight. Note: Oat flour weighs less than wheat flour, cup for cup.
1 cup oat flour = 123 grams 1 cup all-purpose flour = 145 grams
The weights listed above are an average from weighing both flours on my scale at home. The weight of the flour in a cup will vary based on how you measure your flour, so it’s a little different each time. If you scoop the measuring cup into the bag and swipe the excess off the top for a level measurement, there will be more flour packed into the cup than if you spoon the flour into the cup for a level measurement. If a recipe offers a weight for the flour, always go by that, rather than the cup measurement alone. How much oat flour do you get from 1 cup of rolled oats? On average, I get slightly over 3/4 cup of oat flour from 1 cup of rolled oats. To make 1 full cup of oat flour, you’ll need to blend about 1 cup + 3 tablespoons of rolled oats. The easiest way to determine how much oats you need to blend? Use a food scale. In my kitchen, 1 cup + 3 tablespoons of rolled oats = roughly 125 grams, which is the same weight as 1 cup of oat flour. If you want to blend oats on an as-needed basis for recipes, using a food scale is your best bet. I try to include weights in my recipes for you already, so you can just measure out the weight of the oats that you need, blend them, then pour it directly into your mixing bowl for a fast flour that’s perfectly measured.
Formula for Replacing Cups of Flour
If you don’t keep a food scale on hand, here’s a formula you can use for replacing a cup of all-purpose flour with a similar weight of oat flour. This is my best guess after using oat flour as a substitute a LOT in recipes! To replace 1 cup of all-purpose flour, you’ll need to multiply that by 1.4 to get a similar weight of oat flour. For example, if a cookie recipe calls for 1 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour, you’ll need to multiply that by 1.4 to get the correct amount of oat flour to use. 1.25 cups x 1.4 = 1.75 cups of oat flour Make sense? I hope so! You can also take the guess-work out of it by using recipes that already call for oat flour. I’ve been testing quite a few lately, so you’ll get fool-proof results every time. What will you make with your oat flour? Let me know in the comments below!
