This is a green take on this yummy Basic Banana Pancakes Recipe. It's also completely plant-based, basically whole-food, oil/fat-free, refined sugar-free and gluten-free.
I'm using spinach and spirulina for both the additional nutrients and the color. I can assure you, you cannot even feel either one of those ingredients, so if you're struggling with squeezing leafy greens in your diet or your kids won't eat enough of them in a day, this could be a fantastic way of incorporating them into your meal.
As you will be consuming spinach (and spirulina and oats) here, I do recommend serving your pancakes with some source of vitamin C for better iron absorption. Here I'd go for either adding some berries into the batter and making blueberry pancakes, or if you don't want to pollute the green color, I'd make sure to have them with a few berries, sprinkle some lemon juice on top of them or you could try to look for a 100% fruit jam/jelly with no added sugar, but with added vitamin C (it needs to be added as it gets destroyed when heated up).
Just make sure you're not trying to eat "even healthier" and have the pancakes with a ton of fruit- this would not be the best option for your gut as raw fruit should really be consumed separately and on an empty stomach. For most people it should be fine to have a few berries with such easily digestible pancakes, but if you're into having a lot more, by all means do, just have them as a starter, wait 15-30 minutes and then have your pancakes.
Green Banana Pancakes Recipe
Prep time: about 15 minutes
Yields: about 10 small pancakes or 5 regular ones
Ingredients:
1 medium banana, make sure it's ripe (that makes it sweeter and we want that since it's our main sweetener here)
3/4 cup of rolled oats (use gluten-free, if you're g-f)
1/4 cup and 2 Tbsp of water or unsweetened plant-based milk of choice
1/2 Tbsp of ground chia seeds
1 tsp of baking powder (use gluten-free, if you're g-f)
1 handful of fresh baby spinach leaves
pinch of salt
pinch to 1 tsp of green Spirulina powder
pinch of cinnamon (or up to 1 tsp, if you like more)
Optional:
optional: 2-5 drops of vanilla extract
optional: pinch of Maca powder
optional: a handful of blueberries
optional: about 2 Tbsp of chocolate chips
optional: 1-2 pitted dates - if your banana isn't very ripe and you're not adding any blueberries or chocolate chips for sweetness, you may want to blend 1-2 pitted dates with the batter.
optional toppings include: a small portion of fresh fruit such as banana slices or berries, plant-based yogurt, homemade applesauce or jam, chia pudding and/or nut or seed butters.
Method:
1) Prep the fresh ingredients by washing and rinsing the spinach leaves, and peeling the banana and breaking it into 2-4 smaller pieces.
2) Add all of the ingredients to a blender and blend until you get smooth batter.
+ if using blueberries or chocolate chips you can add them in now and mix in with the batter now or you can sprinkle them on top of the freshly poured batter already on the pan, or you can do both.
3) Put the batter aside for a couple of minutes, 2-4 min should be enough here, it should thicken up a little bit as the chia start to bind it and the oats start to absorb the water.
4 Heat up a non-stick frying pan on medium-high heat.
5) Pour the batter onto the pan using a big spoon or a ladle- depending on what size pancakes you want and what you have available, but try to find something that will be big enough for your desired pancake size, because the pancake might not brown evenly if you start adding extra batter even a few seconds later
6) Use a thin spatula to check whether the pancakes are okay to flip- at first you won't be able to move them at all, but they should brown nicely within 2-4 minutes (so you need to keep checking) and that's when you should flip them.
7) The pancakes should be evenly brown (but obviously not burned) on both sides. Once they're done on both sides transfer them to a plate and serve with the toppings of your choice.
Bon Appetit!