If you’ve seen a lot of recipes lately that call for almond flour or almond meal, you may be wondering what it is.  I know I was.  When I looked into low-carb diet recipes, I came across a lot of these types of recipes.  As it turns out, almond flour is typically used as a replacement for wheat flour or cornmeal, both high in carbohydrates.

Almond flour can be used as a coating for fish or chicken instead of flour or cornmeal.  However, almond flour is not a substitute for regular flour when used in bread that forms a real dough because you can’t knead it.  It is suitable, however for quick-breads like muffins and other “mix and pour” type  breads.

You can find almond flour or almond meal in health food stores or many larger grocery stores.  You can also make your own at home pretty simply.  To make almond flour, buy the blanched almonds without the skin and, starting with small amounts in your blender or food processor, pulse until the texture becomes like cornmeal.  If you use whole almonds or blanched almonds with the skins on, you’ll make almond meal.  Either way, the finished flour or meal will resemble cornmeal more than it will resembles regular wheat flour, and they can really be used interchangeably.  If you blend the almonds too long, you’ll end up with almond butter, which is good, too, so just set it aside and try again.

What to make with almond flour or meal?  I guess my favorite is coating fish and chicken.  The results are very different from your typical flour coating.  It has a nutty, of course, taste that you won’t have from wheat flour or cornmeal.  Be careful when you cook your fish or chicken though as the almond flour will tend to burn a bit faster.  I choose a lower oven setting when I’m oven frying with almond flour coatings.

Other than coating fish or chicken, or turning into a muffin recipe, what would you do with almond flour?  It seems pretty versatile, so I would love to hear your opinions about how to use this fun food!