The Recipe to Bob’s Red Mill’s Supreme Recipes

Somehow, over the course of the last few years, without my noticing it happening, I kicked off worshipping at the altar of Bob’s Red Mill. A recent scan of my kitchen disclosed just shy of a dozen zipper-topped plastic bags filled with the starchy sundries made by the Oregon-based natural-foods firm.

And yet it only represents a fraction of the firm’s staggering lineup of 400-plus products. On the back of each of these packages that fill my home, whether it’s black turtle beans or pea protein powder, is a recipe, and sometimes two or three, printed in tiny font.

When I need a reminder of the ideal water-to-grain ratio for polenta, Bob has my back. The recipe on the back of a 28-ounce package of adzuki beans, for example, highlights a red bean cake traditionally served for Chinese New Year. Hiding behind the quaint, old-timey veneer of the business’s branding, there’s sesame matcha shortbread, orange cardamom brioche, freekeh pilaf with apricots and almonds, and quinoa sliders.

And there are gluten-free takes on just about every classic baked good, from English muffins to cinnamon rolls. (The site’s gluten-free pumpkin bread , which I found by chance in a Google search last year, has since become my go-to). Hiding behind the quaint, old-timey veneer of the firm’s branding, there’s sesame matcha shortbread, orange cardamom brioche, freekeh pilaf with apricots and almonds, and quinoa sliders.

It turns out that the yeoman’s work of developing and testing all of these recipes falls not to a 12-person corporate test kitchen that you might envision, but rather to one woman, Sarah House. Today, she heads up the test kitchen at Bob’s Red Mill’s headquarters in Milwaukie, Oregon.

Before House was hired, recipe development for the firm was scattered and ad hoc. So over the past two years, along with a package redesign, House states, “We worked our way through the entire recipe catalog to give things a nice refresh.” This recipe catalog goes back to 1978, when the firm was founded by an actual Bob—the now 91-year-old Bob Moore, whose face (bespectacled and kind) appears on every package.

Back in the 1960s, Moore’s wife, Charlee, turned their family on to the era’s natural-foods revival. He got under way researching mills and acquiring giant 19th-century millstones with the zeal of someone in slightly over his head. “That ultimately led to the international operation you see today,” he states.

Thanks to the ever-expanding inventory of products, House sometimes finds herself working with an component that she didn’t encounter in culinary school. But the business, and its ethos, has managed to change with the tides, from the 10-grain breads of the ’80s to the paleo rush of today. Bob’s Red Mill currently offers more than 100 certified gluten-free products, including flours made from almonds, cassava, coconut, quinoa, and hazelnuts.

Thanks to the ever-expanding inventory of products, House sometimes finds herself working with an component that she didn’t encounter in culinary school. Starchy cassava root was a recent example. “With cassava, we did a lot of research on Brazilian cuisine. Grain-free baking sites,” she said. “And then there was lots of testing to get to know the ingredient: the flavor, how it absorbs liquid, how it interacts with sweeteners and eggs.” Every recipe is tested at least two times—and often more—before getting the greenlight for package or website publication.

Still, House states, it more closely resembles a home kitchen than a culinary laboratory. “Our main consumers are home cooks. Bakers, so we keep things true to their experience.” Just as in any home kitchen, things don’t always go seamlessly. “I have been working on a grain-free, yeasted sandwich bread, and I still haven’t found one I’m satisfied with,” House explains.