Stars and Stripes Chips Platter - Gluten-Free, Vegan Patriotic Beet Crackers

I've been sitting on this patriotic 4th of July recipe for a whole year! I made these Stars and Stripes chips and crackers (and dip) for a Fourth party last year but waited until the last possible moment to make them (seriously... I was frantically mixing and baking all that morning!) so didn't have time to make and blog it in advance. Not that I would have bothered... I probably would have just taken the time to take nicer pictures... Then sat on them for a year!

To make my Red, White, and Blue Stars and Stripes Cracker Platter, I made white tortilla chips and red beet crackers, then added some store-bought blue corn chips.
The dip is basically a dairy-free herb dip mix we got, with garlic and assorted dried herbs, mixed with vegan cream cheese and mayonnaise. I don't have a recipe for that, as we buy the dip mix at the Farmer's Market. But my kids love my Pink Dip, which you could make with dairy or with a dairy substitute, or leave out the radishes if you want the dip to be white. (I was in a hurry that day and didn't have time to roast my radishes. Oh well.)

Stars and Stripes Beet Crackers

1 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
3 Tbsp water (plus more, as needed)
1 small beet, finely diced (roughly 1/4 cup, but a little more is okay.)
1 1/2 cup almond flour or sunflower seed flour (1 cup raw sunflower seeds ground in a food mill or coffee grinder should make 1 1/2 cups flour)
1/2 tsp granulated garlic powder
1 Tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary
1/2 tsp salt (plus more to sprinkle on top, if desired)
1 Tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
In a small skillet, heat the olive oil over low heat. When shimmering, add the water and diced beets. Cook for 5-8 minutes, stirring often, until the beets just start to get tender. Add more water a splash at a time as needed if the pan begins to dry out.

Meanwhile, in a food processor (or really good blender,) pulse almond flour, garlic powder, rosemary, 1/2 tsp salt and yeast until combined.

Drain the beets, reserving any liquid, and add to the food processor. Process 10-20 seconds to combine. Add 1 Tbsp of reserved beet liquid (or water, if there isn't enough,) and process until a rough dough forms. You may need to scrape the sides and pulse a few times.

On a large piece of parchment paper, form the dough into a roughly rectangular shape, then place another piece of parchment over the top before rolling dough out to roughly 1/8-inch thick.

Using a knife, cookie cutters, or pizza cutter, cut dough to desired shape. Using a thin spatula (preferably metal, as they're the thinnest,) transfer shapes to parchment-lined baking sheet. You can re-roll excess dough to make more shapes!
If you're just making squares or strips, you can use a pizza cutter to trim the edges and cut the lines, then transfer the bottom layer of parchment and cut dough straight to a cookie sheet (remove top layer of parchment.) You may need to cut the lines again immediately after baking - see next step.

Bake for 12-15 minutes at 350 degrees F until light brown around the edges and firm to the touch. *Turn oven off and let sit in oven for another 5 minutes to get crunchier.
*If you transferred the dough all together rather than separate shapes, remove pan from oven after the first 12-15 minutes, cut again with rotary cutter if needed, and separate crackers before returning pan to warm (but turned off) oven and let sit 5 minutes.

Remove pan from oven and allow crackers to cool.

Store in an airtight container.

Stars and Stripes Tortilla Crisps

3-4 gluten-free "flour" tortillas (corn works too, but may affect cooking time.)

Olive or coconut oil or spray

Sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Using cookie cutters, a knife, rotary cutter, or kitchen shears, cut tortillas to desired shapes. Place on parchment-lined baking tray.

Spray or brush oil onto cut chips, and sprinkle salt as desired. Optional: Flip chips and spray and salt other side as well.

Bake cut tortilla shapes at 350 degrees F for 10-15 minutes. Check chips every 2 minutes after the first 10. Smaller shapes will cook faster, so pull them out as they start to brown around the edges and get crispy.

For both recipes, I used a mini star cutter until I was ready to slap someone if I had to make one more stinking star, then switched to a rotary cutter to make the stripes. And while you could certainly bake them both together, I baked them in waves, so I could cut the tortillas while the beet crackers were cooking!

Once I got to the party, I arranged the "stripes" as best I could in alternating colors, and then scattered some tortilla stars on a pile of blue corn chips. I may have eaten about half of them in the process... Then kind I of dumped everything on when I got bored with that, and wandered off to have fun with my kids!

Tools of the Trade

[This post contains affiliate links.]