Everybody loves pancakes, especially for breakfast. And if you’re serious about your nutrition, you should love protein too.
So why don’t we marry the two things we love and make delicious protein pancakes?
With a few ingredient tweaks, you’ll be able to enjoy pancakes without the guilt while meeting your protein goals.
That sounds like a win-win situation to me!
But first, let’s break traditional pancake ingredients down and see what we can swap it for:
1. Flour: Swap with oat flour, protein powder and baking soda
The foundation of fluffy pancakes is flour. Unfortunately, flour is dense in carbs and low in protein. A 1/4 cup of flour only gets you 3g of protein.
Try swapping flour with a 50/50 mix of oat flour and protein powder. A single scoop of protein powder will already give you around 25g of protein with minimal carbs.
The best part is your pancake will take on the flavour of your protein powder! I like mine chocolate-flavoured, but you can also use any flavour that you like.
One thing to note though is that protein powder is dense, so it may make your pancake heavy and less fluffy. That’s why I suggest adding in a bit of baking soda or baking powder to fluff things up!
2. Sugar: Swap with mashed bananas
If you like your pancakes sweet, consider swapping out the sugar with mashed bananas.
While still containing natural sugar, banana is a much better option than granulated sugar, as it has more micronutrients such as potassium and fibre.
A quick tip is to use ripe bananas, as they’re easier to mash and are usually sweeter than the younger ones.
3. Eggs: Swap with egg whites
While eggs are a healthy source of fat and protein, using only egg whites can significantly lower the amount of calories.
A whole egg has around 70 calories, while a 1/4 cup of egg whites is only 30 calories, with both having similar amounts of protein.
Although minimal, it can still be a game changer if you’re opting for a low-fat, high-protein diet.
4. Maple syrup: Swap with fruits and yogurt
Probably my favourite part of eating pancakes is customising my toppings. Instead of butter and maple syrup, opt for fruits and Greek yoghurt!
It’ll still be sweet with the fruits, and the Greek yoghurt will keep things creamy while packing a protein punch!
Figure out what you like
Do you need to make all these swaps at once? Absolutely not!
You might not end up liking some of these swaps, so get experimental. Find one that works for you and stick to it. One change is better than no change.
I hope this post inspires you to try to make your own protein pancake.
Here’s the video that inspired me to experiment with protein pancakes. I recommend using her recipe as a base and experiment from there!