Plantains are a great “first food”…
What do I mean by that?
Well, as my children reach their long-awaited goal of wellness, we’re transitioning them from the GAPS diet to more starches and traditional foods. Plantains are delicious, well-liked, easy to digest, and they contain a friend to gut flora when eaten and prepared intentionally.
What is this gut friend? Resistant starch!
Resistant starch is a prebiotic (food for probiotics) which helps set the stage for a healthy colon.
My kids love plantain fries and pancakes — both of which are made from ripe plantains. But it is green plantains, when left in their raw state, that contain this component of resistant starch.
Once heated, green plantain’s resistant starch transforms and no longer offers the same health benefits. And once ripe, yellow or black plantains have significantly less resistant starch.
So, green plantains are the way to go! And yet, they are not palatable. Paleo health foodies put green plantains or plantain powder in their smoothies to try to mask the flavor and texture. Actually, plain dehydrated plantain slices are pretty good — we’ve done that…
But I wanted to make a green plantain treat, something really good as well as being really healthy.
So I made green plantain fruit leather and green plantain crackers! The lower temperatures used in dehydrating do not affect resistant starch. Use the recipe below for either fruit leather or crackers, depending on how long the puree is dehydrated and how much honey is used.
We like both but prefer the crackers. They contain less honey, but are also quite versatile. They can accompany either sweet or savory foods. Top them with meat and cheese for mini cracker sandwiches, dip them in homemade guacamole, or… use any broken pieces on top of ice cream!
Here is my boys’ lunch. They loved making open-faced sandwiches with their crackers, cheese and meat.
Green Plantain Crackers {with resistant starch}
Green plantains, when left in their raw state, contain a component of resistant starch. Resistant starch is a prebiotic (food for probiotics) which helps set the stage for a healthy colon. These Green Plantain Crackers area wonderful, healthy treat!
Makes about 50 crackers, depending on their size and thickness.
Ingredients
- 3 large green plantains
- 1 cup pure water
- 1/4 cup raw honey
- 1/4 cup lime juice fresh, variation: fresh lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons sustainably-sourced gelatin (certified glyphosate-free)
- traditional fat of choice, for greasing trays
Instructions
Preparation;
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Peel the green plantains by first cutting the ends off.
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Next, cut plantains in half lengthwise and widthwise.
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By inserting your thumb between the sticky peel and the fruit you can now pry the peel off each quarter.
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Cut each quarter into 3 to 4 chunks and place in blender.
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Add water and sprinkle gelatin evenly over its surface.
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Add honey and lime juice.
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Blend for 30 to 50 seconds, until the honey has fully dissolved and the plantains are smooth (think smoothie consistency).
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Dislodge and blend any pieces of plantain that get stuck down by the blade.
Dehydrate:
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For dehydrators, use the trays provided, greasing 2+ (this just depends on their size) with tallow, lard, coconut oil, or coconut oil spray. (For convection ovens, grease a large rectangular cookie sheet, ideally 12" by 18". If you prefer thicker crackers, use a slightly smaller sheet or multiple small trays.)
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Pour puree into greased trays, rotating the pan(s) to spread puree out evenly.
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1/8 to 1/4 inch thick is ideal.
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Dehydrate the crackers at 140 degrees (or lower) Fahrenheit, just until the puree becomes leathery and pliable.
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Use a long knife to cut desired cracker shapes, about 2" by 2" squares.
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By cutting the crackers at the pliable stage, cracking is avoided.
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If you wait to cut the crackers until they are crispy, some breaking will occur.
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Replace pan into dehydrator until crackers are crisp and crunchy.
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Serve or cool and store in a sealed container.
Recipe Notes
- To make fruit leather from this recipe, simply double the honey to 1/2 cup and remove puree from the dehydrator when it's dry or "tacky" to touch, yet still very pliable, and not yet crisp around the edges.
- The edges will dry out first so keep an eye on the perimeter to know when to remove.
Do you have a favorite source of resistant starch in your diet? I’d love to hear about it!
Interested in two variations? It’s amazing what the right spice blend will do! See these chips and crackers, (using the same Green Plantain Cracker base recipe), but made with taco seasoning or curry, excellent to serve with sprouted lentils or any Mexican or Indian dish, respectively.
Looking for more nourishing, gut-healing foods that your family will love to eat?
Be sure to check my cookbook: Eat Beautiful: Grain-Free, Sugar-Free and Loving It (softcover version as well).
It contains all the recipes I’ve perfected through my family’s years on a gut-healing diet.
My eBook and video package is currently 50% off. One of the bonus videos you’ll get explains the grain-free baking technique I use to make amazing panini sandwiches for our gut-healing cafe in Eugene, Oregon!
This post was featured in 82 Ways To Heal Your Gut, 60 Easy & Nourishing Picnic Recipes and 31 Lunchbox Recipes & Tips For Packing A Nourishing Lunch.
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These look wonderful! I’m wondering, what role does the gelatin play? Is it necessary for binding the plantain “dough”?
yep..i am wondering if they can be made without…..
I don’t think you’ll achieve the same finished result; but you may have some success. Plantains are quite starchy and the honey, too, will help to bind. It will be an experiment. 😉
These look like a wonderful alternative for my grain free family. We miss crackers! Alas, I do not have a dehydrator; is there a way to make them low and slow in the oven like you can when dehydrating fruit? A dehydrator is on my list for Christmas. 🙂
Yes, I haven’t tried this; but if you leave the door of the oven open to allow circulation and have it down at its lowest heat, it should work. Good luck! 🙂
Hi Maeve, yes, that’s right. Because the recipe is egg-free the gelatin serves to bind the dough. Thanks for the question.
i buy green only plantains. i love them in shakes, 1/3 of a plantain in each…reminiscient of a banana taste. i dont eat bananas anymore so its a great sub for me. my kids dont know theyre eating plantain n not banana wen i add a little stevia glycerite, like i do to my otherwise fruit-less shakes.
Hi Wardee
I live in Far North Queensland, Australia, and we have a local banana grower who makes flour from green bananas. It’s quite good to use, and I think I’ll have a try at making these crackers using it. Love your emails.
Veronica
Hi Wardee,
I have a question about the plantain crackers. If you do not have a dehydrator, Can you bake these in the oven and at what temperature and for how long?
Thank you,
Marlene
Hi Marlene, I do not think the recipe will work, in terms of baking, unless your oven temperature goes quite low; so it acts like a dehydrator. In this case, you would place your oven temperature to 150 or lower, if possible, and leave the door open about 3 inches to allow the air to circulate. Some people use this method; but obviously it does use a lot of energy. They dry in this manner, per the recipe, until they are crispy, many hours.
My oven only goes down to 170 and no lower. So, what do I do to make the crackers?
You can leave the oven door open at that temperature, if you want to; and this will allow air to circulate.
I have a question about green plantains and resistant starch that I haven’t found an answer to yet and wondered if you might know. I have read that white potatoes that have been boiled *then cooled* have resistant starch (whereas if you ate a hot potato it wouldn’t contain the resistant starch, if I understand correctly); I am wondering if green plantains are similar – if they are cooked and then cooled, would we get the benefits of resistant starch?
Hi Tara, thanks for the great question. What you said about potatoes is absolutely true. Plantains are a different category of resistant starch, or RS. With plantains, they need to be raw. This is why this recipe calls for dehydrating, protecting the RS. The greener the plantain, the more RS. When we cook plantains most of their RS is lost.
So it sounds like all those *cooked* green plantains I’ve been eating aren’t doing me any good. 🙁 Well, they’ve been tasty, anyway. A quick question about the recipe: is the lime/lemon mainly for taste, or is it to help prevent the plantains from turning brown, or some other reason? My son doesn’t do well with citrus (I’m not sure why), so I’m wondering if it can be left out or if something else can be used instead.
You can try omitting it and I believe the recipe will still turn out. I haven’t tried it. Perhaps replace the citrus juice with plain filtered water, so the consistency of the puree will be the same. (It’s there for balancing the flavor and to preserve the color.)
So if I use plantain Flour to make bread in the oven I don’t get the benefits of the resistant starch? Also I would like to know if we don’t cook the green plantain before or after dehydration isn’t that the same as eating it raw ?
I wasn’t sure how these would turn out in my old-school dehydrator (and with my lack of skills!) but I made them tonight and thought I would leave my comments in case they are helpful to someone else. First off, I was spreading the batter as thinly as possible on my dehydrator trays in an effort to get thin, crispy crackers, but I found out that it IS possible to spread it too thin. When I went to check on them a couple hours into the drying process, the edges had thinned out even more leaving just a bunch of crackly dried batter crumbs. It was after about 3 hours in my dehydrator at 135 degrees that I took them out to cut them, but I should have done it a bit earlier, as the edges were already too dry and just broke and crumbled when I took a knife to them. Now I’ve got them back in the dehydrator to let the insides get more crispy, and I expect it will take another 2-3 hours or so. Hope these things help anyone else attempting to make these!
About how long will they need to go in the dehydrator?
Can I substitute maple syrup for honey? Honey gives my daughter a stomach ache.
thank you!
Hi Pat, I haven’t made the recipe with maple syrup to be sure, but yes, I think it will work fine and well! 🙂
Hi Megan,
Is there something I can use in place of the honey? I am sugar-free. Thank you!
I’m off all sweeteners right now. Can these be made without the honey? If so would I need to add some other form of liquid to keep the consistency correct or could I just leave out the honey and use the rest of the recipe as is?
I can’t wait to try these. Could anyone let me know how sweet they are compared to other things? My daughter hates sweet things, but she loves to eat big chunks of raw green plantain (and also strings off banana peels) since forever (she’s almost 4). She also eats toilet paper, so there’s that. She loves tostones and plantain bread I make, but I wanted some RS for mama (since I’m not hardcore like her, chomping on raw green plantain halves).
My other question is if you would happen to know if the amylase in the raw honey digests some of the starch in the banana. I’m thinking it would and wondering if anyone else tried something else in its place.