I’ve cracked the code for the fluffiest vegan pancakes ever, with no bananas! They require basic pantry ingredients, one-bowl, and minimal time (i.e. totally doable for a weekday). 

Pancakes are among my top five favourite foods. Other favourites include watermelon, nut butter, bread, and ice cream. God bless the individual who made eating cake for breakfast socially acceptable; I am forever indebted to you.

The best part of having days off school are slow mornings. I’m an early riser so the serene AM hours are my most productive times. I’ll get my sweat on, tick off items on my to-do list, and cook myself a proper breakfast. Sometimes it’s a fancy smoothie bowl, other times it’s a stack of waffles, but most often it’s a pile of pancakes covered in fruit, nut butter, and yogurt. Fun fact: I never thought of eating my pancakes with a dollop of yogurt until I watched a Jaimie Oliver video. Ingenious! Of the non-dairy yogurts I’ve tried, I like the plain almond one. I’d like to try the Silk coconut one; if you’ve tried it, let us know what you think of it in the comments!

There’s something rejuvenating about sitting at the dinner table digging into a plate of the fluffiest vegan pancakes whilst admiring the white winter landscape, or whatever scenery is outside your window. Oh the sweet taste of accomplishment… or maybe it’s the maple syrup. Vancouver got covered in another thick layer of snow last weekend. It’s been a crazy winter of cold temperatures and snowstorms; our version of crazy of course. Keep in mind we had to import snow for the 2010 winter Olympics (i.e. we don’t get much snow). The undisturbed backyard and quiet weekend morning set me in the mood to test another vegan pancake recipe.

For the longest time, my go-to recipe has been this coconut flour one. Each pancake cooks up tall like a good cake layer should. But since I’ve stopped buying eggs, I have been on a mission for the fluffiest vegan pancakes. I’ve tried banana-based ones, ones with chia eggs, ones with gluten and ones without. But in the end, simplicity won. No waiting for bananas to ripen, no grinding chia seeds, no complicated flour blends, no excess bowls and dish-washing.

This recipe is a gluten-reduced version of Ceara’s vegan pancake recipe with more whole grains, fibre, and protein. It can be made gluten free by substituting the all purpose flour with more oat flour or a gluten free all purpose flour. A lot of people add tons of baking powder into their pancake batter in hopes of getting it to rise, but too much of it makes the pancakes taste metallic. The trick to getting the optimal fluff factor is to activate the baking powder with an acid; this is why classic buttermilk (acidic!) pancakes are super tall ‘n fluffy. In our vegan pancake recipe, we add a bit of apple cider vinegar to sour the almond milk. Lemon juice would work just as well!

A tall stack of the fluffiest vegan pancakes can be yours in just a handful of minutes! Weekday brunch? Holla! Feel free to add 1/2 cup of blueberries or chocolate chips and a sprinkle of cinnamon to the batter to jazz it up.