Delicious, nutritious, and naturally gluten free pancakes using oat flour!

My desire for a high fiber breakfast mixed with my love for pancakes prompted me to come up with the best gluten free oat flour pancake recipe out there!

Pancakes are my favorite breakfast food, but they can lack the fiber that fills me up in the morning. So, I decided to combine the benefits of oatmeal with the great taste of pancakes.

These pancakes are spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg for a bold and comforting flavor. You can omit these spices if you do not like the cinnamon taste.

Is oat flour gluten free?

Oat flour is only gluten free when made from certified gluten free oats. When buying oat flour, look for the GF label. If you are making your own, make sure the oats are labeled gluten free.

How to make oat flour

To make your own oat flour, simple blend your gluten free oats into a fine powder. You can use a food processor or any blender.

The oats will grind up pretty quickly, so they will look fully blended almost instantly. But don’t stop there! Make sure you continue blending for a few minutes until the flour looks super fine and powdery. The less blended the oats, the more grainy your recipe will taste. The first time I made oat flour, it ended up being incredibly grainy. I thought they were done blending in less than a minute. The next time I made oat flour, I kept blending for longer than I thought would do. The flour came out perfectly and noticeably more powdery in texture.

Ingredients explained

Oat Flour: This one is obvious if you have read the text above. Blending oats into a flour is the perfect way to make baked goods and breakfast without all the additives of traditional gluten free all purpose flour.

Almond milk: Milk is a necessary ingredient for these pancakes, and my favorite to use is almond. You can totally use regular milk or another plant based milk to modify this recipe to your taste. Regular milk will most likely make the batter richer too. If you are not a fan of dairy, do not worry. Plant based milk does just fine here.

Eggs: Eggs are the perfect binder for pancakes and this recipe calls for 2, which I decided is the perfect amount for these.

Sugar: It is common for pancake batter to have a bit of added sugar. It adds a slight, almost undetectable sweetness. Even though the taste is mild, the sweetness is really good to add to any pancake recipe. When making pancakes, I like to use this opportunity to use a good type of sugar. I like coconut sugar, but natural maple syrup will work just as well. Maple syrup will seriously enhance the flavor too.

Butter: Butter in this recipe adds some rich moisture and that perfect buttery flavor that totally compliments pancakes. Oil is a good alternative to keep the moisture.

Vanilla: Always a necessary flavor enhancer in baking recipes. Also pairs perfectly with the cinnamon flavor.

Baking Powder: You always need a rising agent in a pancake recipe. The reason I decided to use baking powder instead of baking soda is simple. There is no real acidic ingredient in this recipe. When using baking soda, it is important to have some type of acid in the recipe. Baking powder has other ingredients that make this a non issue.

Salt: I did not include a specific measurement for the salt in this recipe. Just a pinch is necessary for taste, like most recipes call for. This is one of those slight touches to enhance a recipe. If you don’t want to eat added salt, feel free to omit this ingredient.

Cinnamon and Nutmeg: Cinnamon is the perfect spice to add to pancakes to enhance the flavor and nutmeg pairs so well. These spices are really optional, but highly recommended!

Healthy ingredient swaps

As you know, oats are the main attraction of this pancake recipe. However, if you wanted to spruce up these pancakes and make them even more nutritious, I have some recommendations of ingredient substitutions that will work well with this recipe.

Sugar: This recipe calls for two tablespoon of sugar. I personally like to use coconut sugar for its additional vitamins, antioxidants, and fiber. Another healthy alternative would be maple syrup.

Butter: If you want to do without butter, simply substitute for an equal amount of olive oil. Don’t panic about the strong aroma and taste of this oil! You are only using a small amount and I have tried it in this recipe and the results were perfect!

Eggs: You can easily make this recipe completely plant based by using a flax egg or even a whole banana. The banana flavor will pair perfectly with the pancakes, and particularly the cinnamon this recipe calls for.

Recipe notes

This is one of the easiest recipes because you just mix all the ingredients in a bowl together. Like other pancake recipes, mix until fully combined. Over mixing is not as much of an issue with these oat flour pancakes as it would be with regular pancakes.

These pancakes are on the thin side, but that is just what I think taste the best. You can thicken up the batter by cutting the milk measurement in half. If you want a more airy batter, whisk the eggs and sugar together for a few minutes before adding the rest of the ingredients. As long as your pan is hot enough, the thin batter will not disperse into a paper thin, crepe like pancake. They do fluff up a bit while cooking too. So keep in mind that they will end up thicker than they look when first poured onto the pan.

While cooking pancakes, you probably always look for the popped bubbles as an indicator that they are ready to flip. These particular pancakes will have some bubbles, but not nearly as many as you may expect. That is why you want to observe the difference in the batter after a few minutes of cooking to see if they are ready.

Instead of a bunch of popped bubbles, the batter will look darker and more solid when ready to flip. Here are some photos to further explain:

As you can see, not many bubbles form. But you can see that some do in fact form and pop just like other pancakes do.

This recipe will make about 10 three inch pancakes. Simply double or tripe the recipe to feed more people!

If you made your own oat flour and your pancakes come out tasting grainy, make sure to blend the oats for longer next time. The oat flour should be super fine just like traditional flour.

Make sure to butter or oil the pan in between each batch you pour onto the pan. The previous pancakes may absorb all the non stick properties of the oil/ butter.

Keep an eye on the heat of the pan throughout cooking. You want the pan to be pretty hot, but you may have to toggle the heat multiple times while cooking. You want to keep the heat on, but turn it down periodically to stop the pan from continually increasing in temperature.