Homemade Nutritional Yeast Substitute

This Homemade Nutritional Yeast Substitute is both healthy & tasty. It’s made with only 2 healthy ingredients you already know: miso and sprouted chickpeas.

I have been trying to make nutritional yeast at home without success for a long time. After a lot of research, I realized there is no way for me to make this at home.

Making nutritional yeast as we buy it from stores requires a special lab that’s full of commercial equipment. There is also a scientific fact that ordinary people like me don’t know: it’s a very highly processed food, and shockingly, most brands are genetically modified!

The vitamin B-12 I thought occurs naturally in commercial nutritional yeast is actually the fortified type, and added in later. 

So, while trying not to consume any processed food, I was actually consuming a highly processed food every time I used nutritional yeast.

There are a few organic brands that are non-GMO, but the taste is different and doesn’t make food taste better–plus they still have to go through quite a process to make it.

After a few failures, I gave up and tried to figure out my own way to mimic the commercial nutritional yeast flavor.

The thing I love about nutritional yeast is the umami (savory) flavor. As I eat a lot of foods that have umami flavor such as soy sauce and miso, so I had an idea to try making Homemade Nutritional Yeast Substitute with these ingredients I know well.

This is how the Homemade Nutritional Yeast Substitute was created!

For this recipe, I only use miso and sprouted chickpeas. Miso is a fermented food that’s full of umami flavor. It makes anything taste great by adding a little bit. Sprouted chickpeas also have excellent flavor from the sprouting process. They are easier to digest and have just the right amount of fermentation flavor. 

You can use any kind of miso you prefer, but my preference is white chickpea miso. It makes this Homemade Nutritional Yeast Substitute look really close to the commercial ones. 

You can either bake them both on the lowest setting of your oven or dehydrate them. Low heat can keep the same nutrition in miso alive. I’m lucky that my oven can work as a dehydrator, so I use it instead of my dehydrator.

Combining these two ingredients together, I have a perfect Homemade Nutritional Yeast Substitute. I use it to replace anything that calls for commercial nutritional yeast. 

I can’t say it’s the same, but I can tell you that this Homemade Nutritional Yeast Substitute does taste great! It’s so good on pasta dishes, salad, porridge, soup etc., and most importantly, it’s so good to know what’s in there!

Ready to make Homemade Nutritional Yeast Substitute? Let me show you how.

Ingredients:

1. Chickpea miso. Note: I can’t give you the exact measurement, but just spread a thin layer of it on baking sheet and this is perfect to combine with the cooked chickpeas. If you use dehydrator trays, it probably takes about 3 trays–depend on the dehydrator size. Please use your judgement and adjust the amount accordingly.

1. 1 cup (128 g) of dried chickpeas (sprout and cook)

Instructions:

Note: In the video above, I didn’t show the part where I sprout and cook the chickpeas, but you can watch this video for that. 

1. After sprouting and cooking, let the chickpeas cool.
2. While waiting for the chickpeas to cool, spread a thin layer of miso on a baking mat. Note: I tried using parchment paper before but it’s a little bit harder to harvest when it’s done. However, you can definitely use it if you don’t have a baking mat.
3. Smash the chickpeas and spread a thin layer on a baking sheet. I find it’s easier to do this on parchment paper. The paper can be reused if you wipe it off each time after you’re done. I reuse the same paper a few times until it’s old, although a baking mat works too.
4. Bake or dehydrate them both. It takes a few hours to dry, so it’s better if you can do it at night. I do mine at night, and they are usually dry in the morning.
5. Combine them together. Grind them in a food processor to turn them into flakes first. You can use it as flakes, but if you want it fine–grind the flakes with a coffee grinder. Note: I have never grinded them in a coffee grinder straight after baking before. My coffee grinder is small and not powerful enough, but feel free to skip the food processor if you have a high speed grinder.
6. Use it according to your recipes.
   

   cooked sprouted chickpeas

   

   spread a thin layer of miso on a baking mat

   

   smash sprouted chickpeas on parchment paper

   

   combine the dried miso and sprouted chickpeas together

   

   use it like flakes

   

   or powder

Have you made Homemade Nutritional Yeast Substitute? Please share it with me–I’d to hear about it!