Sakara Seed Bread – It’s Awesome. You Should Try It.

I married into a family that seriously loves bread.  Like – very seriously.  When I first started cooking for my husband, it took him a while to accept that I didn’t add bread to every meal.  And look, I have nothing against bread in general. Bread of life, right?  The issue is that the vast majority of breads we buy at the store are packed full of sugar, vegetable oils, and very, very processed, refined flours.  Eating those things at every meal can’t be a winning strategy.  On the contrary, and to the extent possible, without being (too much of a) fanatic (I’m a little bit of one), I like to know that the majority of bites I’m taking add value, not subtract.  That is why I LOVE Sakara Seed Bread, and why I want to share it with you.

You may have heard of Sakara before.  It was founded by two women who wanted to promote clean, plant-based eating, meant to nourish the body and mind.  Sakara primarily offers meal-delivery programs, all of which are organic, gluten-free, and plant-based.  And delicious.  I tried one of the programs for a week, and my favorite aspect was the sheer variety of plants in my meals.  Everything was full of color and abundant in nutrients.  Bomb.  They also offer some other goodies (like granola and nutritional popcorn) and supplements, like chlorophyll drops, which are amazing for detoxification.  And in one of my prior posts, I highlighted Sakara’s Eat Clean, Play Dirty cookbook, because it’s full of flavorful, stunning, and highly nutritious (albeit sometimes involved) recipes. 

One recipe that is not highly involved, but still highly awesome, is the Sakara Seed Bread.  It completely replaces flour with gluten-free rolled oats, and adds in an array of seeds, plus olive oil and a touch of wildflower honey.  I love that the recipe isn’t shy on the olive oil (check out my prior post about the health benefits of olive oil here), and is also packed with flaxseed meal, which gives this bread a serious boost of healthy omega-3s.  And while the recipe doesn’t specify a nutritional breakdown, I did the calculations and found that a single loaf contains over 70 grams of protein and 65 grams of fiber.  If you break that down into, say, 10 slices per loaf, and you have a couple slices for breakfast, you’re already at about 14 grams of both protein and fiber for the day.  And that’s before adding anything else to breakfast!  Plus, the nuts and seeds are brimming with antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals, like B vitamins, magnesium, selenium, phosphorous, manganese, zinc, iron, potassium, calcium, copper, and vitamin E—to name a few!  These nutrients are vital to our health, but most Americans are severely deficient in multiple of them.  And while supplements can do just that—supplement—we should always be trying to get our nutrients from our food, which delivers them in the most bioavailable way.  Mother Nature is pretty brilliant that way.

Before we get to the recipe, I wanted to note a couple things I learned after I made this bread the first time.  First, the recipe is actually for three loaves to allow for refrigerating or freezing leftovers for future use.  I miss the occasional major “detail” (my husband would readily attest to this) and definitely did not notice this the first time I made this recipe (though I probably should have noticed the massive heap of ingredients, but hey).  Anyway, if you desire to make just a single loaf, keep this in mind.  On the flip side, storing two additional servings in the freezer for future weeks is also a great way to quickly whip up a loaf.  Second, consider using a deeper loaf pan.  I have a relatively shallow one, which makes a very short loaf, so we end up with “strips” of bread.  But it still tastes amazing!  Oh, and on the topic of taste, my kids love this bread, which makes it even more of a winner in my book.

Ok!  On to the recipe.  I’ve recreated it for you below, but in the event you end up snagging the full cookbook (linked above), check out page 187.

Bon Appétit!

Sakara Seed Bread (Three Loaves)