You want to make a sauce or gravy or thicken a soup or stew. Use to you would just grab a couple tablespoons of flour, traditional wheat flour. Since going gluten free you may have turned to cornstarch since the rice flour and other gluten free flours are much on making a roux.
Now, you have progressed your diet to avoiding grains which would include cornstarch. The first suggestion made is always arrowroot but not all of us are pleased with the gelatinous texture you can end up with when using arrowroot. For this reason we wanted to look at Tapioca Starch.
What is tapioca starch?
A: Tapioca is made by extracting the starch from the roots of the Cassava plant.
What is arrowroot?
A: Arrowroot is made from the roots of a plant called the Maranta Arundinacea.
Both Arrowroot and Tapioca are gluten free and fine to use.
Some things to know:
Most people agree that arrowroot works well to make things like glazes and as a thickener for fruit desserts but can turn slimy and weird when trying to thicken a meat sauce or anything with dairy. Arrowroot seems to be the better choice for acidic liquids.
I have read in multiple sites that your best practice with arrowroot is to add it at the very end of cooking.
Tapioca on the other hand is my goto starch/flour for thickening gravy and savory meat sauces. If you avoid gluten but not dairy, tapioca is your goto thickener.
Both tapioca and arrowroot use the same principle to avoid lumps: always mix with a bit of cold water first before adding slowly to your hot mixture.
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