Quick and Healthy Banana Oatmeal Pancakes

These deliciously moist quick and healthy banana oatmeal pancakes will leave you feeling fueled all morning long. They’re gluten free and contain no added sugar. Best of all, you can mix all the ingredients up right in your blender!

Healthy, easy, and filling — what’s not to love??

Everyone in our house gets excited when it’s pancake day for breakfast. Who doesn’t love sitting down to a hot meal first thing in the morning?

One thing I love about these blender pancakes is that they really leave you feeling satisfied for hours. For a toddler who gets hungry every few hours (but never wants to actually sit down to eat because playing is just too much fun), these are the best. On pancake day, we load her up with these banana oatmeal pancakes slathered with our favorite, freshly ground peanut butter, and she stays happy and full until lunch time.

I get it, though. I always feel extra satisfied on pancake morning, too!

A secondary benefit of these pancakes is that they’re super easy (and not super messy) to throw in the car and take for snacks. I’ll toss one in the diaper bag, and she’ll munch on it cold while we’re out or whenever we need something easy to eat.

Can pancakes be healthy?

Yesssss. These pancakes are made with oat flour, banana, eggs, milk (cow’s milk or dairy-free), and just a bit of raw honey. We love to top them with no-sugar-added peanut butter and some berries. And they taste absolutely delicious.

How to make Banana Oatmeal Pancakes

1. Combine all of the ingredients in a blender and mix thoroughly (we love our Ninja blender).
2. Grease a cast iron griddle with a spoonful of coconut oil.
3. Heat griddle on medium on the stovetop.
4. Pour batter into pancakes on the griddle, flipping after the first side is cooked.
   
5. Top with peanut butter, berries, and a drizzle of honey.
6. Enjoy!
   

Ingredient substitutions

These pancakes are super easy to customize and adjust for your preferences. For dairy-free, you can substitute the same amount of regular milk for almond milk or other alternative milk options. If you don’t have raw honey, maple syrup is a great substitution as well.

Tips for making banana oatmeal pancakes

• I like to mix these pancakes the night before and stick the entire blender in the freezer so we can just cook them up quickly in the morning. However, if you do this, the batter will be thicker once refrigerated. In this case, you have a couple of options. Either set them on the counter an hour or so before cooking, or just spread the mixture out on the griddle a bit instead of pouring each pancake in one big clump. Thicker mixture can make for thicker pancakes, which can leave you with the middle being a bit gooey.
• We also like to cook up extra pancakes so we can eat them for two days in a row and not have to cook the second day. If you do this, just throw the extra pre-made pancakes in the fridge. The next day, stick them in a conventional oven to toast up. (You could also toast them on a sheet pan in a regular oven.)
• Depending on your blender, you may want to blend up the oats by themselves before putting the other ingredients in. This will ensure that it gets ground into a nice flour without any big flakes.
• Pay attention to the temperature of your griddle. A griddle that’s too hot can quickly cause these to overcook. A griddle that’s not warm enough will leave you with mushy pancakes that fall apart when you try to flip them. I always find that I have to adjust the temperature a bit while I’m cooking to keep it even and make perfectly golden pancakes.
• To make all of the pancakes the same size, you can use a ¼ cup measuring scoop rather than simply pouring them onto the griddle.

How to serve banana oatmeal pancakes

There are so many different ways to serve pancakes, which make them great for a family-style breakfast with lots of different taste buds! Our kids (who don’t eat much sugar) eat these with just a thick layer of peanut butter on top. Garrett and I enjoy peanut butter with a drizzle of raw honey. If we’re not in a rush, we’ll make a warm berry reduction on the stovetop. Fresh berries are great, too!

How to make a berry reduction

Grab a cup or two of frozen berries and put them on a pot on the stove with about 1/4 cup of water. When the mixture starts to boil, turn it to low and put the top on. Let the berries simmer for about 10 minutes. In the meantime, mix a teaspoon of cornstarch in a mug with a few drops of water. Stir the cornstarch mixture into the berries and let thicken for another minute or two. You can also stir in a teaspoon of sugar if you want a little bit more sweetness. Voila!

How to freeze pancakes

These pancakes are great when you have extra bananas and milk you need to use up (which surprisingly happens in our house quite often). I like to catch my milk when it’s a day or two from being expired and make a whole bunch of pancake mix.

It’s easy to freeze these banana oatmeal pancakes. Just mix them in your blender and pour the entire mixture in a gallon-size freezer bag. When you’re ready to eat, pull them out of the freezer the night before and let them thaw in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, cut a hole in the corner of the freezer bag and squeeze the pancakes out onto your griddle. Use a spatula on the outside of the bag to keep scraping the mixture toward the hole.