Wondering what to do with shredded wheat cereal? This guide covers how to pick it, cook it, store it, and swap it, plus 11 recipes to put it to work.

What is shredded wheat cereal?

Shredded wheat cereal is whole-wheat that's been cooked, pressed into thin strands, then baked into a dense, pillow-shaped biscuit. The classic version is nothing but wheat: no sugar and no salt, unlike the sweetened cereals around it.

It comes in a few forms. Big rectangular biscuits go in a milk bowl, while smaller bite-size squares and very fine spoon-size strands are the same plain baked wheat in a different shape.

Eaten dry it's crunchy and faintly nutty. Add milk and it softens fast into a porridge-like mush, and that split personality, crisp when dry but binding when wet, is what makes it handy in the kitchen.

Cooking and Baking With Shredded Wheat

The plain, unsweetened biscuits are a blank slate, which is why they turn up in so many recipes beyond the breakfast bowl. Crush them and you get a coarse whole-wheat crumb that tops a crumble or binds a cookie.

Crushed into a crumble topping, shredded wheat gives fruit desserts a rustic, oaty crunch without the sugar of granola. Quicky Crumble uses it exactly that way, scattered over fruit so it crisps in the oven.

In no-bake and drop cookies the crushed biscuits add chew and bulk. Shredded Wheat Cookies folds them straight into the dough for a hearty, craggy texture, and they do the same job in Peanut Butter-Raisin Bars and the coconut-and-cereal Sorry Cake.

Bite-size squares hold their shape in a snack mix, where they soak up butter and seasoning while staying crunchy. Amazing Party Mix tosses them with nuts and pretzels for a baked, savory snack.

You can also crush the biscuits into a quick whole-wheat crumb for breading fish or topping a casserole. Or simmer the strands into a fast hot cereal when you want porridge and have no rolled oats on hand.

Pairing and Common Mistakes

Shredded wheat pairs naturally with honey and cinnamon, with dried fruit and nuts, and with warm milk, all the things that wake up its plain, wheaty base. Because it brings no sweetness of its own, it lets you control exactly how sweet the finished dish is.

The biggest mistake is letting it sit in liquid too long. Shredded wheat drinks up milk and softens quickly, so a bowl left standing turns to paste.

In a milk bowl, eat it promptly. In baking, add it near the end if you want it to keep some crunch.

The second mistake is reaching for a frosted or sweetened box when a recipe wants plain. Frosted shredded wheat carries a sugar glaze, so it throws off both the sweetness and the crispness of a savory mix or a controlled-sugar bake.

For cooking, always start with the plain, unsweetened biscuits. A third thing to watch is crushing.

For a fine crumb, seal the biscuits in a bag and roll over them, or pulse them in a food processor. Left in big shards they won't bind or coat evenly.

Substitutes

For a crunchy topping or a cookie mix-in, bran flakes or crisp rice cereal stand in well, though each is lighter and most boxed versions add a little sugar and salt. Plain bran cereal is the closest in fiber and wheaty flavor.

For breading or a casserole topping, dry whole-wheat breadcrumbs or crushed melba toast give a similar coarse, toasty crumb. For a hot-cereal use, rolled oats or wheat flakes cook into the same kind of porridge.

If you specifically want the no-sugar, whole-grain quality, look for any unsweetened whole-wheat or bran cereal rather than a sugared flake, so you keep control of the sweetness yourself.

Buying and Storing Shredded Wheat

In the cereal aisle you'll find both plain and frosted versions, in the big-biscuit shape and the smaller bite-size and spoon-size ones. For cooking and baking, choose the plain, unsweetened biscuits and check the label: real shredded wheat lists little more than whole wheat.

Store the box the way you'd store any cereal, in a cool, dry cupboard, tightly closed. Humidity is the enemy: once the biscuits absorb moisture from the air they go soft and stale, and no amount of storage brings the crunch back.

An opened box keeps best in an airtight container or with the inner bag rolled down and clipped. Plain shredded wheat is low in fat and keeps well, so unopened it stays good for many months, up to the printed date.

If a biscuit has lost its snap, a few minutes in a low oven can crisp it back up before you crush it for a recipe.

Quick facts

In Chinese

碎小麦谷物

British (UK) term

Shredded wheat cereal

en français

céréales de blé déchiqueté

en español

cereal de trigo triturado

Recipes using shredded wheat cereal

There are 11 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 11 recipes