Protein pancakes made with proper techniques, no refined sugar, no mashed banana, low GI index and still down right delicious. Let’s get straight into it shall we…
What Are These Pancakes About?
So you’re looking for a good protein pancake recipe? Well, you’ve come to the right place. As I write this post, I’ve just finished a good chest and triceps workout, and I’m craving a big hearty stack of these right now. Too right as well, a triple layer stack of pancakes (more than enough for one person) is roughly 545 Kcals and about 33g of protein with 12g of fat. Not bad for a post workout feed. These pancakes are thick and fluffy, and just what I expect you’re looking for after trying some awful renditions of this particular dish – trust me, these will make you grin from ear to ear.
I’m not saying these are the most healthiest pancakes to ever grace a food blog, in fact I’m sure there are far more healthy recipes out there. But this one has that hard to find balance of nutrition and taste – something which often lacks in most recipes. This is gained by using a good quality vanilla protein. It must already taste good before you use it, because this is what will give it sweetness and flavour, we always use Optimum Nutrition (not sponsored) because for the money it tastes the best, has the best nutrients and is not too expensive – see here on amazon, 900g for £22 (as of Oct 2020). From here you can flavour the pancakes with anything you want – chocolate, cinnamon.. anything! Vanilla is your blank canvas.
To make them extra fluffy we are going to utilise a French cooking technique which I use in my Ultimate Pancake recipe. This is, to whip the egg whites into stiff peaks but unlike my Ultimate recipe we don’t make a meringue by adding sugar to the whites, our goal here is to create a dish that is a healthier option – think of it as guilt free. So, we whip our egg whites into stiff peaks and simply fold this into our pancake batter, albeit very carefully, and that’s it – ready to cook.
Top Tips for cooking the best oats protein pancakes
- Egg Whites – The not so secret to making these pancakes light and fluffy – whipped egg whites. Now, to the beginner cook this may sound daunting, be I can assure you it’s really quite simple. All you need is a whisk, a bowl and a strong arm (but a hand mixer will cut your time down massively). I will break down exactly how to do this within the recipe card. As said before, we really need to sort out a video for this… Add the egg white mixture in last, and fold it in carefully. Use the technique whereby you spoon in half the meringue mixture to the batter and then fold the spoon through the batter under the meringue and fold the batter over the top of the meringue.
- Wet & Dry Ingredients – Combine the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients in separate bowls. Reserve the Egg whites in a third.
- The making of the batter – When making the batter (excluding the whites) use a whisk to combine, but try not to overwork it. What I mean is, don’t use a hand mixer and mix the hell out of it – all we need to do is combine the wet and dry ingredients until it’s smooth. Just go easy on it – patience is key. The more it’s overworked the less fluffy it will become. As soon as it’s smooth, stop.
- Heat and cooking temp – Have your pan on a medium heat – we don’t want it too hot. For our current kitchen we are using a halogen hob and put it on level 6. If your pancake comes out too brown on the top just adjust the heat for the next ones – turn it down by 1 level, or a small twist of the gas and take the pan off the heat to cool a little before going ahead, about 10 seconds should do it.
- Greasing the pan – It’s essential you have a good non-stick pan here. I find Tefal have the best value for money (not sponsored) at about £25 (as of Oct 2020). The “grease” used is a 1Kcal cooking spray, and that’s all you need. This provides enough grease to prevent sticking and to generate a a bit of a crust. It also stops the pancake from being greasy. No need to add a knob of butter in the pan for each pancake. A couple sprays will do the job.
- Keeping Pancakes Warm – whilst cooking them, pre heat a grill on a low heat, place the cooked pancakes on a plate and loosely cover with foil and place under the grill – put the tray in the grill as low down as possible, we don’t want them to actually cook.
- When pouring the batter into the hot pan, use a normal sized ladle and fill it almost to the top. Spoon the batter straight into the pan and let the ladle create the pancake circle – give it a helping hand by drizzling the batter where needed to ensure perfect circles. Do not use the ladle to spread the batter directly, it will lose the height. Let gravity do the work.
Now we come onto the topic of toppings! You could go classic, and just have some sort of syrup/honey based drizzle and it would be perfect – I recommend Sweet Freedom Fruit Syrup, it’s 13 Kcals per teaspoon. You could go one step further and sprinkle over some dark chocolate chips, maybe a drizzle of Peanut Butter instead of (or as well as, if you’re a nutter) the syrup. Or, you could go all out fitspo health nut like me and top with thinly sliced strawberries, perfectly sweet blueberries and juicy blackberries (which were in season when I shot this), plus a spoon of Fage Total (2% or 5% for me) yoghurt for good measure and finally a drizzle of the aforementioned fruit syrup. It’s totally up to you – obviously if keeping Kcals low is a must for you, then I suggest the Fruit Syrup.
Let’s jump into the recipe shall we…
The BEST Oaty Protein Pancakes
Equipment
- Frying Pan
- Two large bowls – ideally glass or stainless steel.
- Whisk / Hand Mixer
- Spatula
- Small bowl – ideally glass or stainless steel. Normal serving bowls could get scratched.
- Food Processor – for the oats.
Ingredients
- 175 g Thick rolled oats (oat powder will work too, so would flour)
- 4 tsp Baking Powder
- 25 g Vanilla Whey Protein Powder
- 2 Egg Whites (medium sized eggs)
- 2 tsp Low Calorie Syrup (Can omit this is you want it less sweet)
- 50 g Thick Greek Yoghurt (Fage Total 2% is a good choice)
- 280 ml Milk of choice (Semi skimmed is used for nutritional values)
- 0.5 tsp Salt
Instructions
Dry Ingredients
- Turn your oats into a fine powder. Using a food processor blitz these as fine as you can. The finer the oats, the smoother the batter. If you have oat flour you can skip this part. Or if you dont have a food processor jsut use wholegrain flour.
- To the oat flour, add the baking powder and the whey protein powder and salt. Combine well.
Wet Ingredients
- Measure out the milk in a jug. To this jug add the syrup.
- Put the jug with the milk and syrup conents onto a set of scales, set the scales to zero. Add the Greek Yoghurt to the correct weight, combine into the milk.
Eggs
- In a mixing bowl, add the egg whites – the fresher the better. Mix/whisk until stiff peaks form. This is done when you pull the whisk out of the eggs, the peak that you're left with is stable and retains its shape without toppling over. If you're daring turn it upside down, it should not come out of the bowl.
Mixing Dry and Wet
- Time to combine the wet with the dry. In the dry ingredient bowl, make a small well in the middle. Add about 1/3 of your wet ingredients and combine to form a paste. Add another 1/3 and combine further. Add the last 1/3 and ensure you have a nice batter – thick but pourable.
Combine the eggs to the batter
- Fold in the egg white 1/2 at a time. Take a rubber spatula or wooden spoon and carefully fold this into the panake batter. Do this by running the spoon/spautla under the whites, and then dump the batter for the top. Repeat this several times until the whites are combined. Do this again for the remaining 1/2 – it's worth it.
Cooking the pancakes
- Get a pan on a medium heat – roughly level 6 on Halogen. Get to know your hob, make sure you know your heat. It will take some practice and the chances are, you won't ge tthe first one right. Learn from it and adjust the heat for the next one to get it right. You may need to modualte the heat throughout the cooking process – it's not an exact science.
- Spray you 1Kcal cooking spray a few times in the pan
- Using a ladle, spoon the batter into the pan, using the ladel to pour it into a circle. Do not use the ladle to touch the batter in the pan, we don't want to knock the air out of it.
- Cook the pancake until craters form on the top and the edges start to cook slightly.
- Flip the pancake onto the crater filled side and cook for maximum of 10 seconds.
- Repeat this process from point 2 downwards. It's best to cook these 1 at a time.
Serving
- Serve stacked on top of each other. Keep them warm topped with foil and placed under a grill on a low heat.
- Once all the pancakes are cooked, you can plate up and decorate. Prepare all you deorations before the cooking process, but after the batter has been made.
- Top with you desired toppings, drizzle with syrup and serve right away!
