Red Lentil Flour Noodles Recipe- GAPS/SCD Legal, Grain Free, Gluten Free Homemade Pasta

GAPS/SCD legal noodles with butternut
squash vegan "cheese" sauce

While I'm unsure of whether or not my family will do the GAPS diet in the end to heal our guts, I've been having lots of fun playing around, trying to make GAPS legal, frugal recipes that would be filling and nutritious, and ideally high in GAPS legal carbohydrates. This recipe was my attempts at making a GAPS/SCD legal pasta that is egg free. I'll admit that it's not the perfect pasta recipe- while it holds together beautifully when rolling out, once cooked, the noodles become pretty fragile and break apart into short small chunks instead of linguini or spaghetti. But despite being short, they taste good and have the right texture- with sauce, they're passable as regular noodles, definitely more passable than vegetable "noodles" made in a spiralizer or with a peeler.
I made these with red lentil flour, butternut squash, and flax, because I figured that that combination would have enough starches to hold it together, and would probably taste good as well. It has only the faintest legume taste to it- not very lentily at all.

I think this recipe would work best in lasagna, because then you don't have to worry about the noodles breaking apart while boiling, but I haven't tried it yet myself.

This works in a pasta maker, but don't try to roll it any thinner than a 1 or 2. It can also be made by hand with no machinery or special equipment other than a rolling pin and a knife or pizza cutter.

I make my own homemade red lentil flour in my grain grinder, but you can buy it ready made from Indian shops or over the internet. Red lentils are soft enough that you can also probably make red lentil flour in a coffee grinder or food processor, but no promises.

Red Lentil Flour Noodles Recipe- GAPS/SCD Legal, Grain Free, Gluten Free Homemade Pasta

Ingredients
5/8 cup ground flax seeds
1 cup roasted butternut squash, blended up
1/3 cup oil (coconut or palm oil to make it GAPS legal, or any other type of oil)
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 1/4 cups red lentil flour, plus more for dusting

Instructions:
1. Roast a whole butternut squash, unpeeled, in the oven. When soft, scoop out the flesh and blend up in a food processor or blender. Let this sit for half an hour or so, until liquids rise to the top. Pour this liquid off, reserving for future use if you want.

2. Mix 1 cup of the butternut squash blend with the ground flax seeds, red lentil flour, salt, and oil, adding the flour a little at a time until you get a good, workable dough. Once you have your good dough, let it sit for 15 minutes or so for the ground flax seed to "do its magic".



3. Flour your surface with red lentil flour, take chunks of the pasta dough, and roll it out thinly. If using a pasta maker, roll through the pasta maker on the thickest setting, possibly running it through a few times until it looks right, then running it through the 1 or 2 setting, but no thinner. Then run it through the spaghetti/linguini cutting part. If using a rolling pin, just roll out as thin as you can on a floured surface, and cut into small pieces. (There's no use cutting long strips of pasta, as it won't retain that shape once cooked, I discovered...



4. Bring salted water to a boil, add a drop of oil, then cook noodles for a few minutes, stirring as infrequently as possible, then straining and rinsing.



5. Serve with sauce or in soups or casseroles, or any way you like pasta best.



P.S. I haven't tried this with split pea or navy bean or green/brown lentil flour, but I assume those would work as well. I also suspect pumpkin or carrot or acorn squash puree would work in place of the butternut squash puree, but no promises.

Have you ever used or seen red lentil flour? Does this look like a recipe you'd try, or do you know someone on the GAPS or SCD diet that might appreciate this recipe? And don't those uncooked noodles look beautiful? Isn't it a shame that they broke apart so much once cooked?

I want to try making these as lasagna or stuffed manicotti- I'll let you know how they fare like that!