Easy Sweet Potato Pancakes
There’s nothing better than fluffy pancakes on a weekend morning. My kids always vote for pancakes for breakfast. I love this recipe for sweet potato pancakes made with leftover sweet potatoes, gut-friendly kefir (a great sub for buttermilk), and a blend of unbleached flour and oat flour. This recipe is healthy, tasty, and simple to make!
A few more of our pancake favorites you don’t want to miss: Wild Blueberry Match Pancakes, Amazing Greek Yogurt Pancakes, Maple Bacon Protein Pancakes, and my mom’s famous Cottage Cheese Pancakes.
These sweet potato pancakes are made with kefir, a cultured, fermented dairy beverage that is loaded with probiotics. It contains more probiotics than regular yogurt. Probiotics are live microorganisms that protect your gut environment, defending against bad bacteria in your belly, and improve your digestive system. Kefir is a great gut-friendly alternative to buttermilk with a similar flavor profile when used in baked goods. If you don’t have kefir, buttermilk will work well in this recipe.
Gut health is a very popular topic in nutrition research. They are finding out just how much our gut health affects other systems in the body. It can affect everything from cognitive function to hormone regulation, weight loss, and immune response. Poor gut health can also impact your body’s ability to absorb nutrients from your diet.
This month, the Recipe Redux network of health and nutrition-focused bloggers are sharing recipes that contain ingredients to improve your gut health. Feeding your beneficial gut bacteria can help you feel your best throughout the cold and flu season. A healthy belly is super important for boosting your immune system. A happy belly equals a healthy, well-functioning, body!
How To Make Pancakes With Leftover Sweet Potatoes
For this recipe, you can buy canned organic sweet potato puree or make your own. You can cook the potato a day in advance, peel and puree, so that it’s ready to use the next morning. There is not a strong sweet potato flavor here, it’s very subtle and adds more tasty nutrition to the pancakes. If you use cooked sweet potato and still have some chunks of potato in your batter, throw it all in the blender and blend until smooth. Let it rest for 5 minutes before cooking pancakes.
Sweet potatoes are a good source of potassium, fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin B6, Vitamin C, and other health-boosting micronutrients. That’s why I love adding them in my pancakes, plus it sneaks in extra nutrition for picky eaters.
Recipe Ingredients
- Unbleached all-purpose flour
- Oat flour– learn how to make your own oat flour from whole oats in my Pumpkin Oat Flour Pancake recipe post.
- Baking Powder
- Brown Sugar- you can also use coconut sugar
- Cinnamon
- Nutmeg
- Milk– I used low-fat milk, but you can also use whole milk
- Kefir– buttermilk can be substituted for unsweetened kefir, but it won’t have the same gut health benefits
- Safflower oil– expeller pressed or avocado oil. I love avocado oil in baking and use these two oils interchangeably in my baking recipes.
- Egg
- Egg whites
- Pureed sweet potato– leftover potatoes are great for this recipe!
- Vanilla extract
Recipe Directions
Spray a hot griddle with a little butter-flavored cooking spray and drop pancakes onto a hot griddle using a 1/4 cup for each pancake. They are ready to flip when they are starting to bubble. Cook until golden brown on each side.
What To Serve with Sweet Potato Pancakes
I love to serve these with a little light butter and organic apple butter. These sweet potato pancakes are also delicious topped with toasted pecans and a drizzle of real grade A dark amber maple syrup.
(*This recipe was originally published in 2011 and updated with new photos and a few nutritional tweaks.)
Sweet Potato Pancakes
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour or gluten-free all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup oat flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 2 tbsp natural brown sugar or coconut sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- pinch nutmeg about 1/8 tsp
- 1 cup plain kefir
- 1 cup low-fat milk
- 4 tsp expeller pressed safflower oil such as Spectrum brand
- 1 whole egg
- 2 egg whites
- 6 oz pureed sweet potato
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Whisk all ingredients until smooth and let batter sit for 5 minutes
- Spray a hot griddle with a little butter-flavored cooking spray and drop pancakes onto hot griddle using a 1/4 cup for each pancake.
- They are ready to flip when they are starting to bubble.
- Serve immediately
Nutrition
Don’t miss the other gut health-boosting recipes. 🙂
- Mango Protein Shake - July 22, 2024
- Guacamole Puking Pumpkin - July 15, 2024
- Air Fryer Peach Crisp - July 10, 2024
Oh my those sound and look so tasty! MMMM! Pinning this one to make soon.
I love that you made these with kefir! We always have some in the house – my girls are fans. And we of course love sweet potatoes! Hope to make these soon!
What a great use of kefir! And I’ll take sweet potato ANYTHING.
oooh yum, I have some purple sweet potatoes I’m going to try this with! perfect for this weekend!
Hi Jen! Thanks for stopping by! That would be a really fun twist for Halloween! 🙂
Creative way to enjoy the benefits of kefir!