Knowledge Base > Char Nolan - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Char Nolan - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

This event was on Tuesday, March 11, 2025 at 11:00 am Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern

Join Chef Char Nolan in her virtual office as she welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to ask anything – from cooking techniques to cou… Read More.

Recorded

Question:

When and why should chia seeds be ground? Does grinding make the nutrients more bioavailable or increase chia seeds binding ability?

— Diane Dankert

Answer:

So here are my chia seeds, which I keep in my refrigerator in a jar. You should keep them in the fridge because they do have a natural oil in them. They could go rancid, you want them to stay fresh. Her question was, what's the deal with ground chia seeds? So sometimes they're called chia flour, and this is, I'm gonna just do this for you. And you can see this is what they look like when they're ground and they come out looking like a black flour. And then I'm going to show you the way difference. This is a chia seed egg that I made with the ground seeds, and it's solidified in less than 30 seconds. And here it is like an hour later and you can see that it would be the perfect egg for something that you were baking. And then here is a traditional chia seed. Uh, their consistencies are relatively similar. I have, however, have to say that the ground chia seed, I think is going to do a better job. Uh, it does not lose any of its nutritional properties. You know, it still is a great source of your omega threes. I will say this is, um, a grinder to a Vitamix. And this little one quart container, the blade in the bottom goes in the opposite direction to the big one behind me. So if you're going to make flour, like I like to make oat flour, or if you're going to make chia flour, uh, having this one quart grinding Vitamix container is probably going to be your best bet. You can buy it, uh, online at various various health food stores and things like that. So I think that for, um, for time's sake, because sometimes I feel as though I'm waiting forever for the chia or the fla seed meal to congeal to make its egg. This in terms of of time factor, this was just so much quicker. So also sometimes I hear if I'm making something using a white flour, I, I'll hear people say, what are those little seeds in there? So maybe using the chia flour or the ground flour of the chia might be, uh, the very best way to, uh, to go. So that was such a great question. I really appreciated it. So thank you so much for, um, for asking. And yes, you can add whole chia seeds, but I think if you do the ground method, you're going to see that your recipe will move along much quicker.
Char Nolan

Char Nolan

Chef Instructor

@char_nolan