What Is Wondra Flour? (2024)

FAQs

What Is Wondra Flour? ›

Wondra flour is wheat flour that has been pre-cooked and dried. If you think of instant oatmeal (oatmeal that's par-boiled and dried for faster cooking), Wondra is the flour equivalent.

Unlike other types of wheat flour, Wondra flour has been pre-steamed and dried, going through a process called pregelatinization, which creates a super fine powder and prevents lumps from forming when mixed with liquids or used in batters for certain baked goods. Instead, it instantly dissolves like magic.

Substitutions. Make a Wondra flour substitute by mixing 2 cups of all-purpose flour with 1 teaspoon of corn starch, sifting through twice.

This “instant flour” is derived from a particular wheat cultivated for its starchy structure and then finely milled. You can use Wondra as you would cornstarch or flour, but you'll need half as much: Use 1 1/2 teaspoons of Wondra for every tablespoon of cornstarch in your recipe.

But if you don't have any in the pantry, or can't find any in the store, there are other flours you can use in its place. Bread flour and cake flour—on their own or mixed together—can substitute for all-purpose.

1. Stored according to GMPs at <80F and 70% R.H., the shelf life is 9 months from the date of manufacture. 2. To preserve quality, dry storage at room temperature with regular inspection and rotation is recommended.

Wondra Flour Substitute

You can create a Wondra or instant flour substitute by combining 2 cups of flour with 1 teaspoon of cornstarch. Mix the ingredients and sift through twice to aerate and loosen the flour. If you aren't using your substitute immediately, store it in a cool, dark place for future use.

Chef Eric Ripert uses it at Le Bernadin for a bevy of applications, from monkfish to seabass to soft-shelled crab. And back to Jacques Pépin, he uses Wondra to fry cubes of chicken breast in order to get a result that's both golden and crispy.

It does not fit into the standard flour categories—all-purpose, bread, cake, self-rising. What sets Wondra apart is that it's pre-cooked flour.

Just like cornstarch or all-purpose flour, Wondra is great for thickening a gravy, like this Easy Turkey Gravy or a light pan sauce. The wonderful thing about Wondra is that it won't leave raw lumps in your gravy, and it doesn't need to be whisked with liquid before adding to the pot.

Is Wondra flour good for frying? ›

Adams said Wondra is low in protein when compared to regular all-purpose flour. If a coating has a lot of protein, it'll darken and burn more easily. Since Wondra doesn't have that, we can fry this chicken as hot and long as needed, to drive out water from the surface, which helps keep it crispy long-term.

Even if you just dump a pile of Wondra into buttered broth and stir, you'll probably come out with a pretty decent gravy. Thanks to its light, silky texture, this flour is also seriously forgiving. If you don't stir in quite enough at the beginning, it's easy enough to add some later to bulk up your sauce.

The can says instant flour but as anyone who has ever had a powerful late-night brownie craving and an empty all-purpose flour canister can attest—unlike cake flour or pastry flour or bread flour, Wondra is not interchangeable with other flours, and your brownies will likely be less than dreamy.

Wondra flour is a very fine, pre-cooked instant flour that was invented in the early 1960s (it's still packaged in a wonderfully vintage technicolor blue canister), and it can brilliantly be added directly to gravies and sauces to thicken them.

Gold Medal Wondra Quick-Mixing Flour, All-Purpose (0.25 cup) contains 23g total carbs, 23g net carbs, 0g fat, 3g protein, and 100 calories.

Elevated Nutrition: Commercial mills remove 30 percent of the wheat kernel, removing the most nutritious part of the grain to make white flour. Milling your own flour not only ensures that your flour is as nutritious as it can be, but it also has a wonderful taste that is lost to commercially made whole-grain flour.