These 2 Pantry Staples Can Make Your Homemade Pancakes Tastier and More Guilt-Free
Nothing beats a stack of pancakes for a yummy weekend breakfast. Cooking them from scratch means you can make some small ingredient tweaks to make them healthier and more delicious. If you’re like me and enjoy guilt-free versions of classic dishes, then it’s worth giving British chef Jamie Oliver’s go-to recipe for pancakes a try. What’s great is he cleverly swaps all-purpose flour for oats and cottage cheese in the batter to give these pancakes a protein boost!
Cottage cheese and oats might not be the first ingredients that come to mind when you think of a pancake recipe. However, they’re each packed with protein. And research has shown that eating protein-rich foods during the most important meal of the day can help you lose weight and prevent muscle loss as you age. A half cup of full-fat plain cottage cheese contains 12 grams of protein and has the same appetite-pleasing effect as eggs. One cup of rolled oats contains about 26 grams of protein. Together that’s a total of 38 grams of protein. This is more than one cup of all-purpose flour, which has around 13 grams of protein. As you can tell, oats and cottage cheese are the clear winners when it comes to making your pancakes more filling and tasty.
Oliver put this recipe on his website and I couldn’t resist trying it as someone who loves pancakes. I combined one cup of rolled oats, 1/2 cup of cottage cheese, two large eggs, one banana, 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder, and three tablespoons of almond milk in a blender until it resembled a thick batter.
After blending the batter, I greased a non-stick skillet with one tablespoon of vegetable oil and placed it over medium heat. I poured 1/4 cup of the batter into the heated pan and let it cook on one side for three minutes until golden brown. The pancake was flipped and cooked for another three minutes before being transferred to a plate.
I repeated these steps with the remaining batter, which yielded 14 pancakes total. When the pancakes were ready to serve, I sprinkled some of them with blueberries and a drizzle of maple syrup before digging in.
These pancakes were delicious because the banana added natural sweetness. The oats and almond milk complement that by adding a nutty flavor. They weren’t as thick as other homemade pancakes I’ve made in the past. However, I loved it because I could actually eat several of them without feeling overly full. Plus, the batter came together in less than a minute and only called for six ingredients. All things considered, I’ll definitely be making them again soon!
Easy ingredient swaps like this make treats such as pancakes more guilt-free. You can also whip up savory pancakes using chickpeas to help boost your mood, sharpen memory, and strengthen bones!
