Blueberry Beet Pancakes (Vegan)
Accented with blueberries, boosted to a hot pink color with beet juice, these vegan oatmeal pancakes are a great way to start the morning.
Pink pancakes for the win! This recipe is a riff on a much-loved vegan oatmeal pancake I cook regularly. These charmers are accented with blueberries and boosted with beet juice. The beet juice is what makes the pancakes the beautiful pink color you see. These pancakes are hearty, substantial, delicious, and kid-friendly - especially when you dust them with cinnamon-sugar straight out of the pan, churro style.
Blueberry Beet Pancakes: How To Make them Pink
To achieve the intense pink color in these pancakes, use fresh beet juice. If you have a juicer on hand, it’s the way to go. And if you need a lesson in juicing, I've juiced it all at one point or another - there are a bunch of pointers on that page. If you're out of luck on the juicer front, don’t worry, you can play around with other colors and concentrated juices you might have access to. Wayne has a carrot-turmeric juice he likes to buy on occasion, and that's a great alternative. And don’t worry if you’re not a beet fan, while the color is strong the flavor is much less intense.
Make Ahead?
Once you have the batter made, you can refrigerate it for up to a few days. The resulting pancakes aren't quite as good as when you cook them immediately, but they are pretty fantastic for a quick mid-week breakfast.
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Blueberry Beet Pancakes
I like to use wild blue berries when I have them, although conventional blue berries are also great! If you have a juice, use it to freshly juice a beet for this recipe.
- 2 1/2 tablespoons ground flax seeds
- 1/4 cup beet juice
- 2 1/4 cups almond milk
- 1 1/2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 1/2 cups / 6 ounces whole wheat pastry flour
- 1/3 cup / 1 1/2 ounces quick-cooking oatmeal
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch or rice flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3 tablespoons natural cane sugar or fine coconut sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup blueberries, frozen is ok
- oil for cooking
- optional add-ins (recommended!): 1/3 cup toasted, chopped walnuts
- to serve (any/all of the following): cinnamon sugar and/or smashed berries
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Combine the ground flax seeds with the beet juice and 1/4 cup of hot water in a small bowl, set aside until it thickens, 5 - 10 minutes.
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In a medium bowl combine the almond milk with vinegar, set aside. In a large bowl, combine the flour, oatmeal, cornstarch, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Add the almond milk mixture to the dry ingredients, and then the flax mixture. Stir all the ingredients until they are just combined. Don't worry if the batter is a bit lumpy, you don't want to over mix. Gently fold in the blueberries.
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Heat a well-seasoned cast iron pan, or a non-stick skillet to medium heat. If a drop of water dropped onto the pan starts to dance, you're in the ballpark. Rub the pan with a hint of oil, and pour about 1/3 of a cup of batter into the skillet. Wait until the pancake bottom is deep golden in color, then flip with a spatula and cook the other side until golden and cooked through. Repeat with the remaining batter. Serve with a sprinkling of sugar, or smashed berries.
Makes about 12 large pancakes.
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Comments
Fun idea and they turned out tasty but not pink unfortunately. I used a beet-strawberry juice from Trader Joe’s that I think wasn’t potent enough to dye the batter pink, and once I added the blueberries (I used wild frozen ones), they just dyed the batter more of a blue/purple anyway. I also had to add a couple more tablespoons of flour to get the right consistency, it was too runny for me as written. Kid approved though!
Hi, I live in Asia, and item like ground flax seeds is very hard to get, and expensive. Likewise, almond milk. As I am not a vegan, nor vegetarian, and considering the scarcity of the items mentioned above, what are my options? The flax seed, would that function more like a thickener? Would cornstarch or flour help? Can you use fresh milk instead of almond? Or maybe unsweetened soy milk?
Hi Tricia – essentially the flax/beet juice mixture functions as an egg substitute – so “flax eggs”…You could try one or two real eggs. And you can use any milk you like, dairy, nut milk, soy milk, whatever. Just try to keep the liquid to dry ratio in the same ballpark. Hope this helps!
What a great idea! Also nice for those who like to “color” their food for Valentine’s Day, etc., for kids. I also liked your “dyeing” your rice noodles with tumeric for your recent version of Pad Thai. Why not? One person’s “gilding the lily” is another person’s “enhanced aesthetics”….
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