Perfect Banana Pancakes
These healthy banana pancakes are a perfect breakfast recipe to use up brown bananas that have been hanging around on your counter for too long.
Banana pancakes, where have you been all my life? I’m not sure why it took me so long to actually make these. I’ve thought about it every time I’ve listened to the popular Jack Johnson song for the past decade, but somehow I never got around to it.
Well folks, I finally did it this week, and I’m never looking back. I now understand why the man wrote a song about breakfast food. I thought I liked pancakes before, but banana pancakes? They just take it to a whole new level.
It all started with a recipe I found over at Once Upon a Chef that looked promising. I experimented with it several times over the course of a week (I told you I like these pancakes a lot) to perfect it. I tried adding more banana because I wanted the banana flavoring to be clearly present, but I ended up going back to just using one because I didn’t want to sacrifice the fluffy texture of my favorite pancakes. I also increased the vanilla and added cinnamon because…well, it’s wonderful…and I wanted to pull in more of the flavor of banana bread. It was a really good choice.
As I usually do with pancakes and waffles, I also replaced 1/4 cup of the flour with ground flax seed, so I used 1 1/4 cups flour and 1/4 cup ground flax seed. You can just use the 1 1/2 cups flour called for in the recipe, but I really like the added subtle nutty flavor and health benefits of flax. See note below.
All my experimenting has yielded what I consider to be perfection in the form of a pancake. They will most certainly be making regular appearances at our breakfast table from now on whenever I have brown bananas that need to be used.
ENJOY!
Perfect Banana Pancakes
These healthy banana pancakes are a perfect breakfast recipe to use up brown bananas that have been hanging around on your counter for too long.
Ingredients
- 1-1/2 cups all purpose flour (*see note)
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 over-ripe banana, peeled (the browner, the better)
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
- In a separate small bowl, mash your banana, then add milk, eggs, cinnamon, vanilla, and melted butter. Stir to combine.
- Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients with a rubber spatula, being careful not to overmix.
- Heat an electric griddle or a pan on the stove over medium heat. Pour batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto the pan and cook until bubbles begin to appear and pop on the surface (about 2 minutes). Flip pancakes carefully, and cook an additional minute or two, until both sides are golden brown.
- Serve immediately while warm (or keep warm in the oven) with your favorite toppings–syrup, fruit, nuts, whipped cream, etc.
Notes
I almost always substitute 1/4 cup of ground flax seed for 1/4 cup of the flour in my recipes for waffles and pancakes. Ground flax seed is a great source of Omega-3 fatty acids, lignans, and fiber. It’s an easy way to boost the health factor of these recipes.
To make school mornings super easy, you can also make these pancakes using my FAVORITE homemade pancake mix.
Source: Adapted from Once Upon a Chef, originally from Williams-Sonoma The Kid’s Cookbook.
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Uhh, these look AMAZING. We love making pancakes on the weekends, so I need to check these out!
One of my fave things is having big Saturday morning breakfasts. It just starts the weekend off right.
These look so good! I love the tip about subbing in the flax seed meal! I’m going to have to try to convert these and use a gluten free flour, but I don’t think that should be to difficult. Yum!!
I haven’t tried them gluten free, Rebekah, but let me know how it goes!
YUM! And who doesn’t love that Jack Johnson song?! It’s so happy!
Jack Johnson is my happy music for when I’m stressed. There’s something about his Hawaiian infused tunes that just makes life seem to move a little slower and smoother. 🙂
I’ll have to try this one! Looks yummy! And now I’ll have that song by Jack Johnson stuck in my head today!
At least Jack Johnson is happy music. Hopefully it doesn’t drive you crazy. 🙂
These look so good…and perfect timing! We have a few brown bananas ready to be used!
Hooray for brown bananas. Hope you love them, Emily!
I have always loved making breakfast! It’s one of my favorite meals for sure! This recipe sounds delicious!
Yeah, I could eat breakfast all day long. Yumm!
OOOHH…these will be perfect for Sunday morning! I have some bananas that are ready and waiting! The kids will love this!
I love a good weekend breakfast, and it makes me happy how many people have said they have brown bananas on their counters. Love how similar we all are in such simple ways.
I smell a pinterest share! This recipe looks wonderful. May give it a whirl tomorrow. 🙂
Thanks, Adriana. We’ve been loving it lately!
I have over ripe bananas in my kitchen right now! So I think I’ll need to make these tomorrow. 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
Thank YOU, Madi. I hope you enjoy them!
Oh my goodness, banana pancakes sound perfect right now! And thanks for the tip about the ground flax seed.
Made these this morning minus the flax. Both my toddler and hubby gobbled them up! Will be making again! I am also thinking about making a big batch and freezing to whip out on busy mornings.
I’m so glad your family liked them!
These pancakes are absolutely Devine! I made switched out the sugar for light brown sugar, the butter for dairy and soy free coconut butter and the milk for almond milk. I printed out the recipe and I’ll add it to my book!
I’m so glad you were able to adapt these to meet your needs and that they turned out well!