Is filo gluten free? (2024)

FAQs

Is filo gluten-free? ›

The pastry used is the infamous leaf-thin filo pastry (aka phyllo, meaning leaf in Greek) which is usually sold ready-made with gluten. As it is a tricky pastry to make very thin without gluten, very few food manufacturers have come up with a gluten-free filo pastry.

The dough for filo is made with plain (all-purpose) flour, water, a small amount of olive oil, and traditionally with also few drops of white wine vinegar. The mix is kneaded to form a coherent and pliable dough that is left to rest before rolled out into very thin sheets with the aid of a long and thin rolling pin.

You can swap in puff pastry for phyllo dough in a pinch, and the other way around, but don't expect the same results. Here's the best way to use each of these flaky, versatile doughs.

Filo is a much drier dough that's stretched into paper-thin sheets, and it's layered with melted butter or oil much in the same way you layer sauce and noodles to make lasagna. Fewer layers plus distinct sheets of a dry dough equals less overall rise and a pastry that's more crunchy than puffy.

Even though there still isn't such a thing as gluten free filo pastry (the go-to wrapper for normal spring rolls) there is an authentic alternative that's naturally gluten free… Rice paper! (aka rice pancakes/spring roll wrappers) Of course, they're 100% gluten free.

Arrowroot starch works in these sorts of dishes, too. Some sauces are thickened by starting with a “roux” (a butter + flour mixture), traditionally made with wheat flour. White rice or sweet rice flour is a perfectly good substitute.

Filo or phyllo is an unleavened dough generally made with wheat flour which contains gluten.

Phyllo (also spelled filo), which means “leaf” in Greek, is tissue-thin sheets of dough that have very little fat. Many popular Greek dishes, such as baklava and spanakopita, are made with phyllo dough.

Phyllo dough is a type of pastry made from wheat flour. Phyllo is formed into ready-to-bake sheets. Once baked, these sheets puff up into multiple, compact, tissue paper thin, golden layers. Phyllo is flaky, dry and has a delicate buttery and nutty flavor.

There are two key elements to promoting the extensibility necessary in the dough: adding vinegar to the dough, which weakens some of the gluten bonding, making it less elastic; and ample resting. Of course, it takes practice, just like working with any kind of dough.

What pastry is the same as filo pastry? ›

Phyllo dough and puff pastry are both thin pastry crusts, but bakers typically make puff pastry with butter or shortening and use oil to make phyllo dough.

You can use filo pastry to make these spring rolls, if you can't get spring roll wrappers. While not exactly the same thing, they're close enough that it's totally worth making your own. Because when you make your own anything, it's always better than a store bought something.

Most say that it was derived from the Greeks; Homer's Odyssey, written around 800 BC, mentions thin breads sweetened with walnuts and honey.

Traditionally, filo dough is made from wheat flour, water and a small amount of oil or melted butter. Sometimes, a small amount of vinegar is added into the dough as well. It's first rolled out and then stretched by hand into very large, extremely thin sheets.

The Antoniou fillo pastry brand is a family owned Australian company making the finest quality pastry since 1960.

After all, the traditional process of making “regular” filo pastry from wheat flour relies pretty much exclusively on gluten when it comes to achieving its extreme, delicate thinness. In the absence of gluten, filo pastry seemed like an impossible (if awfully appealing) dream.

Phyllo (also spelled filo), which means “leaf” in Greek, is tissue-thin sheets of dough that have very little fat. Many popular Greek dishes, such as baklava and spanakopita, are made with phyllo dough.