Easy Healthy Pancakes {keto, paleo, AIP, vegan}

Are you looking for easy, yet healthy pancakes to make?

And when I say easy, I mean SUPER EASY.

So simple that there are only 3 ingredients required!!

And they taste GREAT!

Even my toddler loves this recipe!

I was inspired to try this recipe after reading my daughter the story Pancakes, Pancakes!.

For those of you that haven’t read the book, the premise is that a boy named Jack wakes up and wants a pancake for breakfast.

Jack’s mother says she is busy and that Jack will have to help gather the ingredients.

Jack proceeds to take grain to a miller to get flour, grab an egg from the chicken house, milk the cow for milk and also use the cream to make butter (to fry the pancake in) and then retrieve strawberry jam from the cellar to use as a topping on the pancake.

My daughter has very much been into pretend play and so we pretended to mix up the ingredients and make some pancakes.

But then I had a thought (dangerous I know!).

What if we actually made pancakes like Jack, using just flour, milk, and eggs along with a fat in which to fry our pancakes?

Well, my daughter thought this was the best idea EVER!

So we proceeded to the kitchen to try our “Jack experiment”.

In my mind I was thinking, can you really make pancakes with just those 3 ingredients?

What will they taste like?

Let me tell you, our experiment turned out great, and we ate almost the entire batch of pancakes in one sitting!

So let me share with you this very SIMPLE and EASY pancake recipe!

And if you have kids, see if your library has the Pancakes, Pancakes! book and have a pretend play morning reenacting the book!

Have Your Own Easy, Healthy Pancake Test Kitchen

Now in the Pancakes, Pancakes! book, Jack used regular white flour, milk from a cow, and an egg.

Since we normally eat a more keto/paleo diet, we substituted some of the ingredients.

Instead of white flour, we used coconut flour.

And instead of cow’s milk, we used coconut milk.

If you aren’t trying to avoid gluten and dairy, you could try your own kitchen experiment with regular flour and milk!

And if you do use alternative flours and milks, you could absolutely try other combinations!

Other paleo flour options include: almond flour, cassava flour, tigernut flour, green banana flour, and sweet potato flour.

Alternative milk options include: almond milk, hemp milk, cashew milk, and hazelnut milk.

Since each of these flours and milks have different properties, it’s hard to say what quantity of ingredients you would need, but why not try your own kitchen experiment!

And see below for options to substitute the eggs in the recipe too.

With just 3 ingredients, it’s hard to really go wrong here!

You are looking to create a batter that is thick enough that it doesn’t ooze all over the frying pan, but moist enough that you can still spread it out to form a pancake!

The batter is too thick to pour, so this is more of a consistency where you use a spoon to scoop the batter out and then spread it into a pancake shape.

See my tips below on how to cook these pancakes!

What Makes These Easy Pancakes Healthy?

So the only ingredients are coconut flour, coconut milk, and a couple of eggs right?

How could something so simple be healthy?

Let’s take a look at each ingredient to see why they are part of a healthy diet!

Ingredient #1 for Easy Healthy Pancakes – Coconut Flour!

Not only am I a huge fan of coconut flour since I am allergic to tree nuts, but it also has a lot of other health benefits!

Coconut flour is a commonly used flour in keto baking because of its low net carb value.

In 2 Tablespoons of coconut flour, there are 9 grams of carbohydrates and 5 grams of fiber (read full nutrient profile here).

That’s really low net carbs thanks to all that fiber!

In fact, coconut flour has the highest fiber content of any flour!

And all that fiber benefits everyone!

The high fiber content helps stabilize blood sugar, promotes good digestion, helps lower cholesterol, and keeps you fuller for longer, which promotes weight loss (source here).

Coconut flour is also high in lauric acid, which can help fight certain infections, ward off certain forms of acne, and support your cardiovascular system (source here).

This 2017 study from Cell Death Discovery also found that lauric acid helps the body kill certain cancer cells!

So even if you aren’t concerned about eating low-carb, there are still a lot of other great things about coconut flour to make you consider adding it into your diet!

Ingredient #2 for Easy Healthy Pancakes – Coconut Milk!

Not surprisingly, coconut milk benefits are very similar to the benefits of coconut flour.

Like coconut flour, coconut milk contains lauric acid, which as mentioned above can help ward off infections and kill cancer cells.

Coconut milk also contains medium chain triglycerides, or MCTs, which can help with cognitive function and improve your memory (coconut oil is full of them too!).

Other nutrients found in coconut milk include manganese (87% of the recommended daily value in one cup of coconut milk!), iron , magnesium, and potassium (source here).

For this recipe, I use canned, full-fat coconut milk.

If you use coconut milk that doesn’t have the cream (that would include most boxed coconut milk), start with a half cup of coconut milk and add coconut milk until your batter is the right consistency (pour-able but not runny).

Ingredient #3 for Easy Healthy Pancakes – Eggs!

And our third and final ingredient, eggs!

Now for some folks, eggs really aren’t healthy for you because you have a food allergy or food intolerance to them.

So you might have to use an egg substitute (see next section for substitutions!).

But for those who do not have a reaction or intolerance to eggs, eggs have a host of nutrients and health benefits!

Egg yolks made the Heathline top ten most nutrient dense foods list, which also mentions how whole eggs are so nutritious that they are sometimes referred to as “nature’s multivitamin”.

Loaded with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, eggs are very healthy!

Most notable is that eggs are an excellent source of choline, which helps build cell membranes and other cellular functions.

Eggs also contain the antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin, which are powerful antioxidants that collect in the retina of the eye and help protect your eyes from age-related macular degeneration and cataracts (source here).

Egg Substitutions for Easy Healthy Pancakes

Even if you don’t eat eggs, you can still make these simple pancakes!

Mashed ripe bananas, applesauce, and “gelatin eggs” are all suitable egg replacements in pancakes.

BUT YOU WILL HAVE TO ADD ANOTHER FLOUR IF YOU USE AN EGG SUBSTITUTION (see next section on Important Notes and Tips)!

All of these substitutes are great for those following the AIP diet or if you are avoiding eggs for other reasons.

If you eat a vegan diet, try the mashed ripe banana or the applesauce.

I had the most success with using the applesauce substitution.

Although I liked the taste of the pancakes best when I used a little applesauce and a little mashed banana for the egg substitution!

So again, these are like test kitchen pancakes – play around with the batter and find what you like best!

Banana Substitution

To substitute with mashed ripe bananas, use 1 mashed banana (or 1/2 mashed ripe banana per egg).

I also found it easiest to use a blender to puree the banana so that it incorporates better into the batter.

The bananas will add a lot of moisture, so start with just 2/3 cup of full-fat coconut milk.

Add more coconut milk, by the tablespoon, if the batter is too thick.

Applesauce Substitution

If you want to use applesauce, use 4 Tablespoons of applesauce (or 2 Tablespoons of applesauce per egg).

Feel free to use homemade applesauce that has the skin blended up in it or store-bought applesauce.

I did my test batches with homemade applesauce that left the skin on the apples and it worked fine!

As with the banana substitution, applesauce will add a lot of moisture to the batter, so start with just 2/3 cup of full-fat coconut milk.

Add more coconut milk, by the tablespoon, if the batter is too thick.

For example, when I made the batter below, I was using a new brand of coconut flour and I had to add 1 CUP of coconut milk for the batter to be thin enough for me to spread it out on my griddle.

Here is a picture of my batter consistency when I made it with the applesauce.

Gelatin Egg Substitution

To use gelatin eggs, follow these directions from The Curious Coconut.

Use the 1:3 ratio of gelatin to water since we are just replacing two eggs.

Other Egg Substitutions

Another common egg substitution includes “flax eggs”, but I personally can’t recommend that you do that.

There is conflicting evidence on whether flax seeds are actually healthy.

To read more on this topic, check out this article by health coach Maria Emmerich.

Just something to think about!

Important Notes and Tips For Substituting the Eggs

PLEASE NOTE: If you use the bananas or applesauce to substitute the eggs, you cannot use all coconut flour!

The pancakes will not hold together without the addition of a flour that has more “binding” power.

I found that by adding 1 TABLESPOON of cassava flour, it helps the pancakes hold together if you are using a nonstick griddle and 2-3 TABLESPOONS if you are cooking them in a frying pan.

Please note that every brand of cassava flour is different.

I used Bob’s Red Mill for my test batches.

If you use a different brand, make just one pancake to start and make sure your batter will hold together!

If it doesn’t, add more cassava flour with a bit more coconut milk.

You could also try adding arrowroot or tapioca flour, but cassava flour worked the best for me.

Please also keep in mind that without eggs, these pancakes will not be “fluffy” like the pictures.

They basically cook into flat silver dollar pancakes.

Here is a picture of my egg-free batch.

Cooking Egg-free Pancakes

You are essentially “drying” out the batter since there isn’t anything rising or cooking in the pancakes.

It took me up to 10 minutes on my ceramic griddle at 300 degrees to get the egg free pancakes to “cook” (aka dry out).

Here you can see my pancakes “drying” or cooking on my ceramic griddle.

Please note that the egg free versions cook BEST with a griddle, BUT you can cook them in a skillet if necessary, you will just have to add some extra cassava flour to help them stay together.

Be sure to add some fresh coconut oil in between each pancake since the pancakes will soak up some of the moisture when they are cooking.

You will also have to keep the pan temperature on the lowest setting possible for the egg-free pancakes so that they don’t burn.

This is a picture of the pancakes without eggs cooking in a skillet.

Other Variations of Egg-free Pancakes

There are other AIP or vegan recipes that use all sorts of rising agents to help make their pancakes “fluffier.”

My intent with this recipe was to keep it to the minimal amount of ingredients.

Feel free to play around with baking soda, cream of tartar, and apple cider vinegar if you want more fluff.

But for a simple, egg-free pancake, this recipe will hold together with the addition of the cassava flour.

Tips For How To Cook These Easy Healthy Pancakes

While the recipe is not complicated, there are a few tips I want to share with you for making perfect coconut flour pancakes.

So, here is my method!

Mix up the batter.

Grab a small spoon from your kitchen set.

Scoop up a spoonful of batter.

The batter should be thick enough that it will pile high on the spoon.

But you don’t want it so thick that you can’t spread it out!

If your batter will not stay on the spoon, wait a couple of minutes and then check it again.

Coconut flour has a sneaky way of absorbing liquid.

You will be convinced that you need to add more flour and then 5 minutes later you are wondering where all of the liquid went!

So, after a couple of minutes, if it still does not pile up on the spoon, it is too thin and you should add a Tablespoon more of coconut flour.

Stir in the additional flour and wait again.

Once your batter is the right consistency, go ahead and warm up the coconut oil if you are using a pan, or warm up your griddle!

Then take the small spoon with a dollop of batter on top and add it to the pan.

NOW use that spoon (or swirl your finger) to spread the pancake out into a thin layer.

Since coconut flour pancakes work better with a thicker batter, the batter isn’t going to naturally spread out on its own.

Take the time to spread out the batter so that the pancake is cooked through and not too wet in the middle.

This is the secret to making coconut flour pancakes that are flip-able and do not make a mess everywhere!

Please note this is a picture of the pancakes WITH eggs.

Mix-In Ideas for Easy Healthy Pancakes

One of our favorite things to do with pancakes is add fun “mix-ins”.

This means that while the pancakes are cooking on their first side, we add a few “mix-ins” to the uncooked side so that it cooks into the pancake once you flip it over.

There are tons of fun additions and this is something your children can help you with to add to the excitement of making the pancakes!

Here is a list of mix-ins that you can try:

• Blueberries (fresh or frozen)
• Sliced Strawberries
• Sliced Bananas
• Small Chunks of Pineapple
• Chocolate Chips
• Nuts
• Shredded Coconut

And you can do a combination of these for extra flavors like chocolate strawberry!

Our family favorites are blueberries and chocolate chips (I love topping chocolate chip pancakes with nut-butter for a Reese’s taste!).

What mix-ins does your family like the best? Share in the comments below!

Fun Toppings for Easy Healthy Pancakes

Once your pancakes are done, you can add other fun toppings to make new flavors!

Most people only think of sugar laden syrup, but there are lots of sugar-free options as well!

Some of our favorite toppings include:

• BUTTER! There’s something about warm, melty butter on pancakes that ROCKS!
• Applesauce – this has been my favorite pancake topping since I was a child!
• Homemade Berry Compote (especially if you make these with blueberries in them – YUM!)
• Additional Chocolate Chips
• Chocolate Sauce – melt 1/2 cup chocolate chips with 2 Tablespoons of coconut oil or butter
• Nut-Butter – if it’s too thick, warm the nut butter in a pan with a Tablespoon of coconut oil or butter so that it’s a syrup consistency

What does your family love to top their pancakes with? Share in the comments below!

Now that you have made your easy healthy pancakes and have mix-ins and fun toppings, ENJOY!!!

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