Skip to gluten free bread recipe
Skip to vegan gluten free bread recipe
When you’re trying to come up with a good party app, it needs to be easy for both you and your guests. That is, you need to be able to prep it in advance (especially if you’re making multiple dishes), and your guests need to be able to eat it one-handed. Just as importantly, it should taste really, reallygood.
That’s how we came up with these bruschetta dippers. Not only are they easy to make in advance, but they taste amazing and feed a lot of people. They are also super inclusive—depending on how you make them. In this case, we made them vegan and gluten-free but you could easily sub in or out parts of this recipe depending on how much easier you want to make this recipe and your own dietary restrictions (or lack thereof). We might not be vegan, but when we’re entertaining friends who follow a vegan diet the last thing we want to do is to give them a sad plate of raw veggies and call it a day. This recipe is safe for people with nut allergies, soy allergies, gluten allergies, corn allergies, dairy allergies, and both vegetarian and vegan diets—depending on which route you take with the ingredients.
The nice thing about these dippers is that they allow people to adjust the recipe slightly (like adding cheese, for non-vegans), but it also means that if you’re having a larger gathering you can have the bread and the bruschetta topping ready well in advance. Because your guests are the ones to put the components together, it means less work for you, and no soggy bread because you’re not leaving the bruschetta topping on it to soak through.
Of course, if you’re not dealing with dietary restrictions of any kind then you have more options with how you take this recipe. We made everything from scratch (which tasted amazing), but you could easily have some pre-made components if you wanted to—especially if you’re eating it like a dip like we did. You could serve this pre-topped on bread, too, if you were doing a smaller gathering.
The Bruschetta Topping
No matter how you make this topping, the key is to make it 24 hours or so in advance. Not only is this great when you’re ready to serve it because it’s already made, but the flavors meld together during that time to create something amazing. It still tastes great when it’s made fresh, but giving it even a few extra hours is worthwhile. This recipe contains balsamic vinegar (which a few of the people who ate and loved this recipe usually cannot stand), but when the ingredients in this topping have time to sit together you get the depth of flavor, rather than a harsh vinegar taste.
Now there’s no specific order in which you have to combine these ingredients. All you have to do is make sure that all the ingredients are mixed together well. Just be sure to put them all in a sealed container, bowl covered in plastic wrap, or even a zip-top bag to keep it all fresh.
- 3 cups diced tomatoes (plum tomatoes recommended, but not required); the skin need not be removed
- 2 Cloves of garlic, finely minced
- 1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
- 1 tsp. olive oil
- ¼ cup chopped fresh basil (substitute dried if necessary)
- 1/3 cup shredded pecorino cheese
- Salt & pepper to taste
Once you’ve got all the ingredients cut up and ready to go, all you have to do is combine them in a bowl and mix them through. The basil might take a little bit of work to mix through if you’re having trouble cutting it, but the stirring process (plus letting it rest for at least a few hours) will break up any pieces that don’t want to come apart.
As for the cheese, you can use any parmesan-type variety of cheese for this recipe, but we chose a sheep’s milk pecorino cheese because Isabelle cannot eat dairy made from cow’s milk. If you have issues with lactose intolerance or dairy sensitivities, then this might be a suitable substitute for you, too. It will have a similar taste to parmesan, so you won’t be missing out.
When you’re ready to serve, simply give it another stir through and let it warm up to room temperature so your guests can top their “dippers” themselves.
Now for the Vegan Version
This is the easiest substitute you’ll ever make in a recipe. Ready for it? Just don’t add the cheese. Or, leave the cheese on the side for people to sprinkle on so that vegans and cheese-lovers alike can be happy. You could substitute the cheese with a vegan option (like Daiya cheese or another variety) if you wanted everyone to have some of the same experience. With or without cheese, this bruschetta will taste great.
The Bread
Ever since we got our bread maker, we’ve been making our own gluten-free bread from scratch. This is a good investment if you’re a celiac because gluten-free bread is often expensive (especially if you have a corn allergy or a soy allergy and your options are limited). It’s a fair cost upfront, but you can buy gluten-free flour in bulk online and eventually the cost will make up for itself. Besides the economics of it all, fresh-baked bread is hard to beat.
We use the Zojirushi bread maker, which bakes loaves of bread in actual loaf shapes. Day-to-day this is practical for us because we like to be able to make sandwiches, but any shape of bread will work for this recipe because you’re going to be cutting it up anyway.
We recommend that if you plan to bake your own bread for this recipe, that you bake it the day before to make sure it has time to cool. It’s really hard to slice through warm bread, and you’re going to be toasting it anyway so it is not necessary that the bread is soft. If anything, you want the bread to firm up.
- ½ cup milk (we used coconut milk because of Isabelle’s dairy sensitivities, but you can use dairy milk or another non-dairy substitute)
- 3 large eggs, beaten
- 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 3 tbsp. honey
- 3 ¾ cups gluten-free flour (we use Pamela’s Gluten Free)
- 1 ½ tsp. salt
- ½ tbsp. Italian seasoning (or herbs of your choice)
- 1 tbsp. dry active yeast
All you have to do is put those ingredients in your bread maker in that order (i.e. liquids and then dry ingredients), hit the “gluten free” setting with medium crust control and you are good to go. Just press start and wait for the bread.
When the bread is done baking, give it time to cool down fully before you slice it. We use a bread slicer to get more even slices, and we tend to slice our bread on the narrowest option. For this recipe, you could cut it on medium if you wanted to.
Next, cut the bread up into smaller pieces to make the “dippers.” These pieces were not even in size, but they were around 1”-2” in either direction. This meant that we cut up each slice of bread into 3-4 pieces (depending on the slice), and we used an entire loaf. You can start with half a loaf or so.
After the pieces were cut, we laid them out on a baking sheet lined with foil and brushed both sides of the bread with olive oil. We baked them at 450° for about 5-7 minutes per side. Your best bet with this is to watch the bread and see how it’s responding, because some bread will burn fast. The second side will also tend to toast faster than the first.
When the bread is firm and toasted, and it’s a nice golden color, then remove it from the oven and let it cool before serving with the bruschetta.
Now for the Vegan Version
The vegan bread we made for this recipe was similar to the typical gluten-free bread that we make, in that we made it in our Zojirushi bread maker. The bread turned out fairly dense, but that actually worked out well with the dippers. The process you’ll follow for this version is exactly the same as our regular gluten-free bread, but with different ingredients.
INGREDIENTS
- ½ cup water
- ¼ cup apple sauce
- 2 tbsp. olive oil
- 4 cups gluten free flour
- 2 Tbsp sugar
- 1 ½ tsp salt
- ½ tbsp. Italian seasoning (or herbs of your choice)
- 2 tsp. dry active yeast
Other Substitutes
If you’re making this recipe and you don’t have food sensitivities or you don’t want to make bread, then you have some more options. You can use crackers for the “dippers,” or even buy your favorite variety of bread that meets your dietary restrictions (or lack thereof) and cut and toast however many slices you’d like. A French baguette would work well for this recipe, or even focaccia bread.