Best Vegan Almond Flour Pancakes (Healthy & Gluten-Free)

These fluffy vegan almond flour pancakes are easy to make, delicious, and the perfect start to your day! Packed with healthy fats and naturally gluten-free, they make for a satisfying breakfast everyone will love. 

I originally created these pancakes for my son who is an extremely picky eater. I wanted to find a way to add in nutritious foods to an already well-accepted food to help him get more variety in his otherwise very restricted diet.

So I mixed nutrient-dense foods (like almond flour, flax seed, olive oil, and maple syrup) together to create my own healthy spin on traditional pancakes. The almond flour provides a subtle nutty flavor that makes the most delicious breakfast.

Now it's a staple in our home (though I often exchange oat flour for whole wheat flour because it's easier for me), and I have to make a huge batch of this recipe every single week for my kids to eat on throughout the week.

If you're interested in a protein pancake version of this recipe, I have one on the blog as well. I simply use almond protein in place of the almond flour, whole wheat flour instead of oat flour, remove the oil, and adjust ingredient amounts slightly. It's become one of my new obsessions.

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Instructions
• What Makes These Vegan Pancakes Healthy?
• Variations
• Topping Ideas
• Equipment
• Storage
• Recipe

Ingredients

You'll need these simple ingredients.

• Oat Flour (or oats ground in a high-speed blender)
• Almond Flour (or you can use almond meal by grinding whole almonds in a high-speed blender)
• Ground Flaxseed (used as a binder in place of eggs - sometimes called "flax eggs")
• Unsweetened Soy Milk (or other non-dairy milk of choice like cashew or almond milk)
• Olive Oil (you can also use avocado oil)
• Salt (I almost always use iodized salt to help meet my iodine needs as a vegan)
• Baking Powder
• Pure Maple Syrup
• Vanilla Extract

See recipe card for quantities.

Instructions

Here's how to make these healthy almond flour pancakes:

For more easy vegan homemade recipes, be sure to check out my garlic hummus, Alfredo sauce, and mac and cheese.

What Makes These Vegan Pancakes Healthy?

• No refined sugar - these pancakes use pure maple syrup instead of any refined sugars.
• Healthy fats - instead of butter or coconut oil which can be high in saturated fats, these pancakes use olive oil or avocado oil which are healthy monounsaturated fats. In addition, there are omega-3 fatty acids in the ground flax seeds and more unsaturated fats in the almond flour.
• Extra protein - although they don't have as much protein as my protein pancakes, they still have more than traditional pancakes at 14g per serving, which is great for kids. I would probably add a little extra protein source if I were eating these for breakfast myself as I aim for higher protein than I feed my family.
• High in fiber - these vegan almond flour pancakes provide 7g of fiber per serving unlike regular pancakes which usually have less than 1g.
• Vitamins and Minerals - among other vitamins and minerals, one serving provides nearly 20% of our daily iron needs and over 50% of our daily calcium needs.

Variations

If you're wanting to switch things up, you can try these ideas:

• Switch out the flours - If you don't need these to be gluten-free, you can switch out the oat flour for whole wheat flour (or an all-purpose flour if you prefer). I do this often because it takes out the extra step of grinding oats and helps to make fluffier pancakes. You could also switch out the oat flour for one of your favorite gluten-free flours or a homemade gluten-free flour blend.
• Protein pancakes - I made a high-protein version of this recipe available on this vegan protein pancakes post.
• Mini pancakes - I also like to make this recipe into small pancakes fairly often because gluten-free pancakes hold up better when they're smaller and my son thinks it's more fun to have mini-sized pancakes.
• Waffles - If you prefer waffles over pancakes, you can also put the batter into a waffle maker! I like to use a 4-slice waffle maker like this one so that I can prep a ton of waffles in a short amount of time and freeze them to be pulled out anytime we are in a rush. You may need to cook them for a shorter amount of time than traditional waffles since the batter is thinner.
• Banana pancakes - add some mashed ripe banana into the batter.
• Chocolate chip pancakes - add some vegan chocolate chips into the batter before cooking.
• Pumpkin spice pancakes - add a little bit of pumpkin puree and a dash of pumpkin pie spice to the batter.

Topping Ideas

• vegan butter and a drizzle of maple syrup (of course!)
• almond butter or peanut butter
• fresh berries or other fresh fruit
• coconut cream and banana slices

Equipment

Although I love my Cuisinart stainless steel pots and pans for most of my cooking uses, I definitely recommend using a non-stick skillet for pancakes as they will stick to pans that aren't non-stick. I prefer ceramic pans over Teflon as they are free from "forever chemicals" PFOS, PFOA, and PTFE. (Note: instruction photos were taken with an old pan I had before I got this non-stick skillet from Amazon). Even if you use this non-stick pan, it still helps to lightly oil the pan as well and make sure the pan is very hot before pouring on the pancakes to help prevent sticking.

Storage

Store the pancakes in an airtight container for 3-5 days in the fridge or for a few months in the freezer. I typically like to make large batches when I cook so that I can freeze leftovers to pull out later when I'm not in the mood to cook.

If you want to pull out just one or two pancakes from the freezer at a time, I'd recommend adding a piece of parchment paper between the pancakes so they don't freeze together. Otherwise, you can just move a whole batch to the fridge to thaw the day before you need to use them. Simply warm them up and serve.

Recipe