Gluten-free Roux

[davidthomas8779]

I make great roux with wheat flour. Unfortunately, I can't cook with it any more and I can't get any kind of gluten free flour (rice, garbanzo, etc) to work and not taste grainy.

Has anyone successully made a gluten-free roux?

[Katherine]

Boxes of rice flour/sweet rice flour often have recipes for white sauce on them (just sub rice flour for wheat flour). The texture is a little different. Try it, it's a cheap experiment.

[foodie52]

I wonder if potato starch would work?

[davidthomas8779]

Potato starch has worked the best, but it is still a bit grainy. Rice flour had a nasty grainy texture (like bad paste). I guess there are no celiac cajuns

[markovitch]

fava bean flour and tapioca starch. As with most things GF, substitutions must be ratios and combinations of things. when i make roux i put inthe flour until it is still a bit watery, because if you over do the flour you'll get clumps, and i finish it off with tapioca starch.

complicated, i know, but it works for me. good luck!

Edited January 9, 2004 by markovitch (log)

[mudbug]

The following are gluten free:

lotus root flour

potato starch = potato flour = potato starch flour

Look here for others.

[ludja]

Buckwheat flour may work. Despite its name, I believe it is gluten free and the texture is similar to flour. It may be worth a try.

Edited January 10, 2004 by ludja (log)

[Mjx]

I just made a beautiful roux using rice starch (50/50 starch/butter, by weight), which is readily available at any shop that sells Asian cooking ingredients (even here, amazingly). For the first couple of minutes it looked as though it was going to be grainy, but it ended up being very well-behaved.

[HungryC]

The celiac Cajuns I know all use rice flour for roux-making.

[kayb]

Is there a difference in rice starch and rice flour? (newly diagnosed celiac is trying to learn all I can...)

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Kay - yes there is. Rice flour is the whole grain, milled. Rice starch is only the fecula, derived from either soaking or cooking the grain and then dried and collected. Rice starch is normally much much finer than rice flour.

As for the no-gluten roux, I've had excellent results with a 50-50 mixture of golden pea and quinua flours of at least 000 mesh, as well as plantain flour 50/50 with tapioca flour. Neither of these is grainy in the least, and both have engaging flavours (the pea/quinua is nutty, while the plantain/tapioca has a tropical flavour that marries well with cream).

[sharpknife]

I've had good luck with potato starch to make a light roux to thicken gravies. It's a bit funny when you use butter as it smells like mashed potatoes.

[Prabha]

I have used sweet rice flour, and don't remember any graininess. I have to admit that was a while ago.

[Mjx]

I've only noticed graininess with whole rice flour (it didn't really bother me much, though).

[sharpknife]

Could you get a good brick red roux using rice flour or starch? I can get the potato starch to a "blood orange" juice color.