The holiday season is no exception for your friends and family with a medical need to avoid gluten. With some simple switches in the kitchen and at the supermarket checkout, many of the traditional holiday foods can be made gluten-free!
If you have friends and family with Celiac disease, it’s important to prepare the foods in a kitchen that doesn’t have particles of gluten (from flour or other gluten-containing foods) in the air or on the kitchen surfaces or cooking equipment. Keep in mind particles of gluten can remain in the air for up to 24 hours and gluten residue can remain on kitchen equipment from previous use unless thoroughly cleaned.
With that said, here are some cooking and shopping tips to enjoy traditional holiday dishes while keeping them gluten-free.
Watch for these gluten-containing ingredients on ingredient labels and in recipes:
Wheat (bran, germ, gluten, malt, sprouts)
Flour (all types such as all-purpose, bread, cake, durum, graham, high gluten, pastry, stone ground, whole wheat, etc.)
Wheat germ or wheat starch
Wheat grass
Whole-wheat berries
Barley
Bran
Bread crumbs
Bulgur
Club wheat
Couscous
Cracker meal
Durum farina
Einkorn, emmer, seitan, or kamut (mostly relatives to wheat)
Modified food starch
Graham flour
Farina
Spelt
Semolina (refined durum wheat)
Oats that aren’t certified gluten free
Pasta
Matzoh and matzo meal
Rye
Triticale (combination of wheat and rye)
The following ingredients may contain wheat protein: flavoring, hydrolyzed protein, soy sauce, starch such as modified starch, vegetable starch, wheat starch, and surimi.
Here are substitutes for gluten-containing ingredients in recipes:
• Substitute gluten-free pastas for noodles called for in recipes. Made from a variety of grains including quinoa, corn, potato or rice, gluten-free pastas are widely available in stores.
• Substitute gluten-free bread for bread called for in holiday recipes such as bread pudding or strata.
• Eliminate the breadcrumbs in recipes like holiday casseroles or meat loaf and use gluten-free cracker crumbs or gluten free bread toasted and processed in a food processor.
• For holiday sauces and gravies, thicken the mixture with cornstarch, potato starch, or tapioca starch.
• Gluten free mixes are available for cakes, muffins, breads, pancakes, waffles and more from brands like Bob’s Red Mill, King Arthur, Pamela’s, and Betty Crocker.
• Instead of beer in recipes, substitute apple juice or gluten free broth.
• Instead of malt vinegar or generic vinegar called for in recipes, use gluten-free vinegars (apple cider vinegar, red or white wine vinegar, rice vinegar and balsamic vinegar)
• Instead of soy sauce, switch to gluten-free soy sauce.
• Look for Worcestershire sauce that is gluten-free such as Lea & Perrins.
• Choose salad dressings, soups and broths that are certified gluten free.
• Substitute gluten-free intact whole grains (brown rice, quinoa, buckwheat groats) for recipes that call for barley, wheat berries, kamut, etc…
