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Freshly baked sourdough crackers with flaky sea salt pieces and rosemary, pile don a baking sheet. Zoomed in to show texture of the fully baked crackers
Sourdough Discard

Buttery Rosemary Sea Salt Sourdough Crackers

These are the most buttery, flavorful, crisp sourdough crackers you will ever have! Once you try these crackers you’ll never want to do anything else with your sourdough starter discard. Enjoy these crunchy, flaky crackers with cheese and fruit for a perfect snack.

Prep: 10 minutes
Cook: 25 minutes
Total: 24 hours 35 minutes
Jump to Recipe Rate Recipe
Recipe Index | Ferment | Sourdough Discard

Buttery Rosemary Sea Salt Sourdough Crackers

These are the most buttery, flavorful, crisp sourdough crackers you will ever have! Once you try these crackers you’ll never want to do anything else with your sourdough starter discard. Enjoy these crunchy, flaky crackers with cheese and fruit for a perfect snack.

Freshly baked sourdough crackers with flaky sea salt pieces and rosemary, pile don a baking sheet. Zoomed in to show texture of the fully baked crackers

Sourdough Discard Crackers

We consider these “sourdough discard” crackers because you use sourdough starter in the recipe, but we don’t use it for rising, and it is not necessary for the baking process. So the starter is considered “discarded” into the sourdough crackers recipe.

I use a stirred-down active, bubbly sourdough starter in these crackers. The starter adds such delicious flavor to these crackers, though.

It may not contribute to baking, but it gives the best tangy flavor. Jon and I think these crackers taste like high-class goldfish.

Sourdough Starter Crackers

You have options with these crackers. First, you can mix the dough, refrigerate the dough for an hour covered, then bake.

Alternatively, let the dough ferment in the fridge for 24-48 hours before rolling, cutting, and baking the crackers. A longer ferment can make these easier to digest, especially if you have sensitivities to non-sourdough gluten products.

Sourdough Crackers Recipe

This is such a simple recipe for sourdough crackers, and it’s best to weigh all your ingredients for the best crispiest texture. If rosemary isn’t your thing, here are some fun alternative mix-ins to try:

  • Parmesan cheese
  • Garlic and black pepper
  • Sesame seeds
  • Minced Jalapeno and shredded cheddar
one crispy baked sourdough cracker on a plate next to fresh rosemary. Light hits the cracker to show textured sea salt and rosemary baked into the dough.

How to Make Sourdough Crackers

You are probably wondering how to make crackers by now. First, you mix the dough. Next, you wrap the dough with reusable bees wrap or plastic wrap and refrigerate it.

Then all that is left is to roll, cut, and bake the crackers. When cutting the crackers, you need to poke them with a fork to ensure they don’t puff up in the oven.

These are butter crackers, so once they are baked and cooled, you should store them in an airtight container at room temperature, so they don’t stale. I keep mine in a big sealed weck jar.

More Sourdough Recipes to Try

  • Buttery Flaky Sourdough Biscuits From Scratch
  • Old Fashioned Peach Cobbler with Sourdough Biscuit Topping
  • Customizable Sourdough Focaccia Bread From Scratch
crisp, browned sourdough crackers with flaky sea salt sit in a pile on a white plate.
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Freshly baked sourdough crackers with flaky sea salt pieces and rosemary, pile don a baking sheet. Zoomed in to show texture of the fully baked crackers
Sourdough Discard

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star

5 from 12 reviews

Buttery Rosemary Sea Salt Sourdough Crackers

These are the most buttery, flavorful, crisp sourdough crackers you will ever have! Once you try these crackers, you’ll never want to do anything else with your sourdough starter discard. Enjoy these crunchy, flaky crackers with cheese and fruit for a perfect snack.

  • Prep: 10 minutes
  • Cook: 25 minutes
  • Total Time: 24 hours 35 minutes

Ingredients

  • 200 grams sourdough starter, stirred down
  • 120 grams all purpose flour
  • 5 grams sea salt
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 2 tablespoons fresh rosemary chopped, plus extra set aside
  • Olive oil, for brushing
  • Flake salt

Instructions

  1. Mix the sourdough starter, flour, salt, butter, and rosemary. Knead until a smooth dough forms.
  2. Shape the dough into a small slab. Wrap tightly with reusable bee’s wrap or plastic wrap.
  3. To bake immediately, refrigerate for 1 hour. For a longer ferment, refrigerate for 24 hours, then proceed to the next step.
  4. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
  5. Lightly flour a piece of parchment paper sized to fit your baking pan and the top of the dough. (You may want to split the dough and work in batches. I had to use two sheet pans to fit all the crackers)
  6. Place the dough onto the floured parchment and roll it about 1/16 inch thick.
  7. Transfer the dough and parchment together onto a baking sheet.
  8. Cut the dough into about 1-inch squares; I suggest using a pizza or cracker cutter.
  9. Poke each cracker a few times with a fork; this will keep them from puffing up.
  10. Lightly brush with extra virgin olive oil and then sprinkle the salt over the top of the crackers.
  11. Bake the crackers for 20 to 25 minutes until they start to crisp and brown around the edges. Midway through, rotate the baking sheets.
  12. When browned and crisped to your liking, remove the crackers from the oven and allow them to cool.
  13. Store crackers in an air-tight container at room temperature for about a week or two. I like to store them in a sealed glass weck jar.

Did you make this recipe?

Please leave a 5-star review below if you loved it! Tag @cultured.guru on Instagram

 

Nutrition information is auto-calculated and estimated as close as possible. We are not responsible for any errors. We have tested the recipe for accuracy, but your results may vary.

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Kaitlynn Fenley Author, Educator, Food Microbiologist
Kaitlynn is a food microbiologist and fermentation expert teaching people how to ferment foods and drinks at home.
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  1. Sarah
    08|14|2022

    Can these be made gluten-free?

    Reply
    1. Kaitlynn Fenley
      08|15|2022

      Maybe, but I’ve never made them with GF flour and a GF starter so I’m not sure.

      Reply
    2. Tiffany
      12|26|2023

      If you don’t need them 100% GF, I’ve used my normal starter/discard and almond flour. No gut issues thanks to the 24hr fermentation.

      Reply
  2. Sammy
    08|20|2022

    I made these twice this week! They are so delicious and totally easy to make. Thank you for such a great recipe! I will be the most popular person at the next charcuterie game night with my neighbors.

    Reply
    1. Kaitlynn Fenley
      08|20|2022

      I’m so happy that you enjoyed the crackers! I hope your neighbors enjoy them.

      Reply
  3. Laura
    08|20|2022

    AMAZING! Made these with my kiddos and they both had so much fun being apart of the process. AND— they also loved them! Already have another cracker dough ball fermenting overnight 🙂

    Reply
  4. Lauren Zumwalt
    08|21|2022

    So fantastic! This one checks all the boxes — quick, easy, very flavorful, and the instructions are excellent!

    Reply
  5. Millie
    10|20|2022

    These crackers were so good!! My mother-in-law took most of them home with her when I made them because she loved them so much! The tanginess from the starter is awesome and I imagine you could pretty much change up the flavor to whatever you want!

    Reply
  6. Saana
    10|28|2022

    Nom nom nom. I’m still looking for the optimal thickness and the baking time with my not-so-consistent oven but darn these crackers are delicious. Even if they get a bit darker from the edges or stay softer. Nom.

    Reply
  7. Elisabeth
    11|09|2022

    These crackers are so easy and taste delicious! Such a fun way to use up discard and everyone that tried them raved about them!

    Reply
  8. Heidi
    11|26|2022

    Can you substitute olive oil for the butter in this recipe?

    Reply
    1. Kaitlynn Fenley
      11|26|2022

      no, it needs to be a fat that is pretty much solid at room temperature. coconut oil could work.

      Reply
  9. carol clemans
    03|09|2023

    These crackers are delicious! Made one batch, brought them to my grandkids who ate them up! Brought the rest to work, where they were gobbled up immediately! I’m surprised how subtle a flavor rosemary adds to baking! Love it-thanks!

    Reply
  10. Leah Bleke
    03|13|2023

    These crackers are amazing! Love the sourdough flavor that comes through. We’ve made them with and without rosemary, just phenomenal! 🤌🏻

    Reply
  11. Tiffany
    12|26|2023

    Fantastic taste and easy to make! I love Simple Mills rosemary sea salt crackers and was looking for something that would allow me to replicate them. This is the recipe! I decided to make an AP batch and an almond flour batch. Needed to add more flour to the almond batch, but both turned out great.

    Reply
  12. Aimee
    08|15|2024

    I was on the hunt for a sourdough discard cracker recipe and this is hands down soooo good and love how detailed and simple the instructions are. I did half without rosemary for my littles and added rosemary to half during the kneading.

    Reply
    1. Kaitlynn Fenley
      08|15|2024

      I’m so glad you loved the recipe! Such a great snack for the kiddos!

      Reply
  13. Hannah
    09|05|2024

    I love these crackers. I am going to make them for my 10 month old tomorrow- these will be her first go at a cracker as well as her first wheat product. I’m excited!

    Reply
    1. Kaitlynn Fenley
      09|07|2024

      I love this! I hope your little one enjoyed them!

      Reply
  14. Ale
    12|13|2025

    I did it and they are DELICIOUS! and so easy to make

    Reply
    1. Kaitlynn Fenley
      12|15|2025

      Thanks for leaving a review! so glad you enjoyed the crackers!

      Reply

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A lot of people think vinegar kills all microbes b A lot of people think vinegar kills all microbes because shelf stable pickles do not contain microbes. But with shelf stable pickles, it’s the pasteurization/sterilization via hot water bath or pressure canning that makes shelf stable pickles free of microbes.

Hot hot hot acid in a pressurized environment does kill, well…most microbes. 

Think about “refrigerator pickle” recipes, though. They need to be stored in the refrigerator because vinegar alone doesn’t stop fermentation.

Fridge pickles are made without pasteurization/sterilization (canning) so they will wild ferment without refrigeration, and not necessarily in a good way because there’s not enough salt. 

All vinegar is made via fermentation too, and vinegar fermentation involves acetic acid bacteria, but also a ton of LAB, mainly Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, and Leuconostoc (the same genera you’d find in fermented veg.)  I linked a reference paper in my fermented mushroom recipe blog, so you all can read about the LAB involved in vinegar fermentation. 

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I will not ever wild lacto ferment just beets agai I will not ever wild lacto ferment just beets again lol. Mixing with cabbage for beet sauerkraut is the best though! 

“Lacto fermented beets” was the first ferment I tried to make after learning sauerkraut in college. My best friend Sidney came over and we used these gorgeous beets from the farmers market, with 2.5% salt, and some spices. Well, it ended up tasting like beet moonshine and it was just… not good.

But it was a conduit for learning. Those beets were my first lesson in how different sugars and growth in the rhizosphere vs the phyllosphere influences fermentation. 

Cabbage and the cabbage microbiome offer a lot to balance out beets in fermentation, and I think mixing into a sauerkraut is the only way to go for lacto fermenting beets! 

Try googlin’ “beet and red cabbage sauerkraut” and you’ll see my recipe, I’m Cultured Guru.
Squash is the secret ingredient! My Roasted Butte Squash is the secret ingredient!

My Roasted Butternut Squash Hot Sauce recipe is free on my website! I didn’t cook this one, so yes it’s still probiotic.

When lactic acid bacteria ferment the starches in winter squash, they naturally convert them into emulsifying compounds called exopolysaccharides. So when we blend our hot sauce after fermentation, there’s no watery separation in the bottle. Roasting the squash with the garlic for the recipes also adds such good flavor! 

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#hotsauce
Myth Busting: Yes, the SCOBY IS the pellicle! Plee Myth Busting: Yes, the SCOBY IS the pellicle! Pleeeease stop saying it’s not. 😌



Watch till the end, I show you how to grow one!



This is a little tidbit from what I teach in the Kombucha lesson in our Fermented Drinks Semester online course!

I also share this recipe FOR FREE just ✨GOOGLE✨ “cultured guru SCOBY” and you’ll see my full recipe with the perfect sugar to tea ratios for growing, feeding and maintaining a kombucha SCOBY.

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And the knife stays in the box. GOOGLE “sourdoug And the knife stays in the box. 

GOOGLE “sourdough king cake” my recipe is the first one! 👑☂️💚✨

If you’re like me and prefer from scratch, homemade everything, you’ll definitely want to try this king cake for Mardi Gras! I used organic naturally dyed sprinkles and all that jazz too. 

If you just search “sourdough king cake” on google you’ll see my recipe, it’s usually the first one. 

My main tips for making this:
✨use a very active starter or throw in some instant yeast with your starter
✨make sure the dough is actually proofed before shaping it. If it’s cold in your house it will take longer. 
✨please follow directions! You can cold ferment the dough in the fridge after it doubles in size and BEFORE filling and shaping.

🎵Song is Casanova by Rebirth Brass Band
Fermentation is a gift from the microbes of this e Fermentation is a gift from the microbes of this earth.

When we had a food business, I could never shake the feeling that fermentation is not meant to be sold to you from a fluorescently lit grocery shelf in an endless cycle of waste. Fermentation is meant to be cultivated in your home, with your hands, with intention and love in a sustainable, grateful practice of reciprocity and nourishment. 

This is the story of how we got here. 

After so many lessons learned, our small fermentation business is now value aligned, peaceful, fulfilling, and happy.  It often seems like the gut feelings (the microbes within us) guided us in the right direction. To teach. 

You can learn for free on our blog, or you can enroll in our online courses (we extended our new year sale!) Either way, with me as your teacher, you’ll learn to adopt a holistic perspective on the microbial ecosystems that influence our food, lives, and the planet.
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