Traditional white flour pancakes are a cherished but less than healthy breakfast food. Have a nutritious morning with oatmeal pancakes and their many variations.
This oatmeal pancake recipe is based on one from a classic milk cookbook, but it lends itself easily to healthier and vegan variations. Soy milk can be substituted for dairy milk, and egg replacer can be substituted for chicken eggs without compromising flavour or texture. Health conscious cooks can make this recipe low fat by reducing the butter by half and adding a touch of unsweetened applesauce.
Though this recipe uses large flake or quick oats and whole wheat flour, the kids will never notice their pancakes have had a healthy makeover. Oatmeal pancakes are just mildly sweet, which lends them to all sorts of inventive toppings and flavourings. See below for a selection of these additions.
Original Vegetarian Oatmeal Pancakes Recipe
Serves 3-4 for breakfast
Ingredients:
- 1 ½ cups rolled oats
- 2 cups milk or soy milk
- ½ cup whole wheat flour
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp. each brown sugar and baking powder
- 1 tsp. salt
- ½ tsp. cinnamon
- 1 ½ tsp. vanilla extract (optional)
- 2 eggs, beaten
- ¼ cup butter, melted
To make low-fat pancakes:
- Substitute 4 egg whites for whole eggs
- Substitute half or all the butter with unsweetened applesauce
- Serve with low-sugar maple-flavoured syrup, low-sugar jam, or applesauce
To make vegan pancakes:
- Substitute non-dairy milk, such as soy, for the cow’s milk
- Substitute vegan powdered egg replacer for the whole eggs
- Substitute vegan margarine or applesauce for the melted butter
- Use raw sugar instead of brown sugar
Directions:
- In a large bowl, blend together oats and milk and let stand 5 minutes.
- In a medium bowl, stir together white flour, whole wheat flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.
- To the oat mixture, add the eggs, butter, and the large bowl of dry ingredients.
- To make pancakes, use approximately ¼ cup batter per pancake. Cook over medium-high heat on a grill or lightly-oiled frying pan.
- Serve with applesauce or maple syrup.
Fun variations:
- Fold in 1 cup frozen blueberries at step three. Fresh berries are extremely fragile and usually break when being mixed into a batter.
- Add 1 cup chocolate chips at step three.
- Serve with a mound of fresh fruit
- While it’s still hot, spread each pancake with natural peanut butter and let it melt and get oozy. Top with sliced bananas and a drizzle of real maple syrup.
- For a high protein treat, top each pancake with a dollop of cottage cheese and honey.
- Bring leftovers as a bagged lunch. Or, make a sandwich using pancakes. Try peanut butter and jam or almond butter and grated carrot.
- Kids can roll up pancakes with their hands and dip into syrup.
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