Save this foolproof formula for making customizable and crispy crackers with your sourdough discard, no matter the amount.

Whether you’ve been baking sourdough bread for a long time or you’re just getting started, it won’t take long before you’re left with a giant container of sourdough discard*.

*What is sourdough discard? In order to maintain your sourdough starter, every time you “feed it” aka mix fresh flour and water into it, you need to discard about or more than half! If you’re doing that for days or weeks, you can quickly end up with quite a lot of discard.

What Can I Do With a Lot of Sourdough Discard?

While there are plenty of recipes out there for sourdough muffins, cookies, and pancakes, I get tired of filling my freezer up with sweet baked goods every couple of weeks. That’s where these sourdough crackers come in. They taste great and keep well in a sealed container.

The best part is that this formula allows you to use up exactly what you’ve got in the fridge, no matter the amount.

How to Serve These Crackers

These crackers are the perfect addition to a charcuterie board next to cheese and crackers, or they work to add a crunch to homemade Andalusian salmorejo.

How Does the Sourdough Cracker Formula Work?

Instead of fitting my discard into a recipe, I like to create an adaptable recipe based on how much discard I already have. The formula works based on how much sourdough discard you have on hand and adding in additional ingredients.

Sourdough Cracker Ingredients

For this recipe, we’ll need:

Sourdough Discard: 100% hydration.
Flour: Use your choice of flour, however, I would suggest starting with all-purpose wheat flour and incorporating only a small amount of other flour such as rye or semolina.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil: The higher quality of the oil the better. You could alternatively use avocado oil, butter, or coconut oil but that might leave too strong a flavor. I’ve only used olive oil but if you use another type, leave me a comment on how they turned out.
Salt: Fine table salt is perfect.
Spices: For convenience, I use dried, however, you could use fresh if you have that readily available. Some spices I use are garlic powder, thyme, oregano, rosemary, basil, lemon zest, or a blend like Italian seasonings, everything bagel seasoning mix, and Za’atar.
Seeds: These are optional, but I love adding sesame seeds. You could also add in chia, flax, sunflower, pumpkin (pepitas), or a blend.

The Baker’s Percentage Formula

Each ingredient is measured in grams for the best accuracy.

200% Sourdough Discard.

100% Flour. Sourdough Discard / 2 = Flour

25% Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO). Flour x .25 = EVOO

2.6% Salt. Flour x .026 = salt

Seasonings. For every 50g of flour, use 1 tsp of dried seasonings OR 1 tbsp of fresh herbs chopped. You can always adjust to taste if you prefer more or less!

Example

345g Sourdough Discard. I took all of the discard out of my fridge, placed it into a bowl and it measured out to be 345 grams.
172.5g Flour. Now that I know how much discard I have, I can measure out half that amount in flour.
43g EVOO. 25% of the amount of flour used in the recipe is what we need in amount of oil.
5g Salt. 2.6% of the amount of flour used in the recipe is what we need in amount of salt.
Seasonings. About 3.5 tsp of dried seasonings because I used a total of 172.5g of flour.
Seeds. I sprinkle them in according to preference.

What You’ll Need for this Recipe

Large Mixing Bowl
Kitchen Scale
Rolling Pin
Parchment Paper
Baking Sheet

Easy Sourdough Discard Cracker Recipe

Save this foolproof formula for making customizable crackers with your sourdough discard, flavorful flour of choice, smooth extra virgin olive oil, and savory seasonings.

Course Snack

Keyword crackers, extra virgin olive oil, sourdough discard, sourdough starter

Author Stephanie K

Ingredients

200 % Sourdough Discard
100 % Flour
25 % Extra Virgin Olive Oil plus more for brushing on top
2.6 % Salt
Seasonings For every 50g of flour, use 1 tsp of dried seasonings OR 1 tbsp of fresh herbs chopped.
Seeds optional

Instructions

Combine all of the ingredients together into a ball: sourdough discard, flour, EVOO, salt, seasonings and seeds (optional). When no more dry flour bits remain, knead the dough slightly for about 1-2 minutes, and if it is sticking to your fingers a lot, sprinkle in a tbsp more flour.
Then, place the dough in a sealed container or wrap in plastic wrap and let sit about 30 minutes. This can also be placed in the refrigerator and left for about 24 hours.
Preheat your oven to 350F or about 180C.
Liberally flour your work surface and dough. Cut the dough in half.
Working with one dough piece at a time, roll out your first half evenly to about a 1/16 of an inch.
Carefully transfer to a piece of parchment paper that has been cut to the size of your oven baking sheet.
Using a pizza cutter, knife, or fun cookie cutters score into desired shapes.
Brush on a light coat of extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle lightly with fine salt, seasoning of choice or cheese!
Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350F or 180C.
Let cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

Notes

Do you have to wait 30 minutes before rolling and baking? No, I’ve baked them straight after mixing and kneading with great results, however, to let the dough relax, I suggest leaving it 30 minutes for even more flavor.

Get creative with the ingredients. The sky is really the limit with these crackers!

While they are naturally vegan, you can choose to add shredded cheese such as Cheddar, Parmesan, Pepper Jack and more.

For even more flavor, use alternative flours. I suggest starting with a majority AP wheat flour and slowly working in other flours and adjust to your preference.

How long do these crackers last? In a sealed container, these homemade crackers can last about 1 month in your cabinet. They may be able to last longer, but I would say start checking for mold after 1 month.

What's Stephanie Baking?