Chia seeds in everyday cooking

Chia is the seed of Salvia hispanica, a plant in the mint family native to Mexico and Central America. Dry, the seeds are small, hard and almost tasteless. Wet, they do the one trick that makes them worth keeping in the pantry: the outer layer swells into a clear gel that holds liquid and thickens whatever it is in.

That trick is the whole reason to buy them. Everything below is about using it well.

What is in the bag

Nutrition tables put dried chia at roughly 30 to 31 g of fat and around 34 g of dietary fibre per 100 g, which is a lot of both for a seed. The United States Department of Agriculture’s food composition database lists 30.7 g of fat and 34.4 g of fibre per 100 g, and New Zealand’s own figures sit in the New Zealand Food Composition Database. For cooking, the useful number is the serve. Most recipes use one or two tablespoons, about 10 to 25 g, so the fibre and fat you actually eat in a serve are modest.

Chia is sold in black, white and mixed bags. They behave the same way in the kitchen.

The soaking ratios we use

Chia gel is forgiving, but ratios matter if you want a predictable result. These are by volume, using ordinary measuring spoons and cups.

Pudding (1 : 4). Three tablespoons of chia to three-quarters of a cup of milk, plant milk or a mix of milk and plain yoghurt. Stir, wait five minutes, stir again, then chill for at least two hours or overnight. The second stir is the one people skip, and it is why their pudding has a solid puck at the bottom.

Overnight oats (1 : 6). A tablespoon of chia in a jar of oats and milk thickens it just enough that it does not go watery by morning.

Egg swap (1 : 3). One tablespoon of chia, ground if you can, mixed with three tablespoons of water and left for ten minutes, replaces one egg in many muffins, pancakes and fritters.

Where the egg swap works, and where it fails

Eggs do several jobs at once in baking. They bind, they add moisture, they set with heat and, when whipped, they trap air. Chia gel does the first two well. It binds a fritter, holds a muffin together and keeps a loaf moist.

It does not set the way egg protein does, and it cannot hold air. So:

• Good: muffins, banana bread, pancakes, crumbed fritters, veggie patties, oaty slices.
• Fair: brownies, which come out fudgier and slightly denser.
• Poor: sponge cakes, soufflés, meringues, custards and quiche. If a recipe depends on eggs rising or setting, chia will let you down.

Ground chia gives a smoother crumb. A spice grinder or a mortar and pestle does it in seconds, and grinding only what you need keeps the rest of the bag fresher.

Quick fridge jam

This is the most useful thing we do with chia, especially in feijoa season or when the berries at the farmers’ market are cheap and slightly too soft.

1. Warm two cups of chopped fruit in a pot with a splash of water until it collapses, about ten minutes.
2. Mash it, taste, and add a little sugar or honey only if it needs it.
3. Off the heat, stir in two tablespoons of chia.
4. Leave it ten minutes to thicken, stir, then jar it and refrigerate.

It is not a preserve. It has far less sugar than a set jam, so it keeps about a week in the fridge, not a year in the pantry. Treat it like stewed fruit. The Ministry for Primary Industries food storage guidance is the place to check on keeping times if you are unsure.

Other places it earns its spot

• Thickening a smoothie without adding banana.
• A spoonful in a dressing, where it helps emulsify and gives a slight cling to leaves.
• On top of bread dough before baking, instead of sesame.
• In crackers, where a high proportion of soaked chia binds seeds into a sheet that bakes crisp.

Working out what a spoonful costs

Chia is sold in everything from 200 g pouches to bulk bins, and the price per kilo varies a lot. The fair way to compare is cost per serve. A tablespoon of chia weighs about 10 to 12 g. If a 500 g bag costs $10, that is $2 per 100 g, and a tablespoon costs a little over 20 cents. If a 200 g pouch costs $8, it is $4 per 100 g, and the same tablespoon costs over 40 cents.

So buying the bigger bag, or from a bulk bin, roughly halves the cost of every spoonful in that example. The supermarket shelf ticket usually shows the unit price per 100 g or per kilo. Use that number, not the price on the bag.

The catch with buying in bulk is freshness. Chia keeps well dry, but its oil does go stale with heat and age. Buy an amount you will use in a few months, keep it in a sealed jar in a cool cupboard, and smell it before you use it. Stale chia smells like old paint or cardboard.

A normal portion

For most people a normal serve is one to two tablespoons. It is a seed, eaten a spoonful at a time, and the cooking guidance on Health New Zealand’s eating well page treats seeds as one part of an everyday mix, alongside nuts, vegetables, fruit and whole grains. If you are new to it, start small and drink water with it, because a lot of fibre arriving at once can be uncomfortable.

Chia is a good thickener and a handy egg swap for some bakes. Think of it like that and the bag will get used.

General information only — not medical or dietary advice. For advice about your own diet, see your GP or a NZ-registered dietitian.