Banana Quinoa Pancakes
I had never even heard of quinoa til I went to Stanford (land of healthy food), but I loved eating it in the dining halls. Luckily for my sake, it turned out to be super healthy. Then I found out you could use it for all sorts of goodies….like banana pancakes!
My friend Dora was coming to visit me from California, and we decided to give this recipe from Ambitious Kitchen a try. A year before, Dora and I had tried oatmeal pancakes using no flour, which turned out to be a bust and she refused to eat it since it tasted very undercooked.
Me? Uh, I still ate it because if you add enough whipped cream, nuts, fruit, etc, everything tastes good. I blame Mom, who has been known to “fix” stale pancakes and waffles with lots and lots of toppings.
The quinoa texture makes it definitely different from normal flour pancakes, more soft and doughy rather than cakelike, and we had trouble getting it to cook evenly. This makes 10 tiny pancakes since the batter wouldn’t spread out (I guess that’s portion control right there). It came out certainly much better than the oat pancakes we made previously, so although I still prefer “normal pancakes” this is one step closer to my fulfilling my quest for the guilt free pancake.
Banana Quinoa Pancakes
Ingredients
1 cup cooked quinoa
3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
3 large egg whites (about 1/2 cup)
1/3 cup plain greek yogurt
2 tablespoons skim milk
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large very ripe bananas, pureed
Directions
In a medium bowl, whisk together quinoa, flour, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. In another medium bowl, whisk together egg whites, yogurt, milk, vanilla, and brown sugar until smooth. Add egg mixture to flour mixture and whisk to combine. Add pureed bananas and mix until just combined.
Lightly coat a large nonstick skillet or griddle with butter or cooking spray and heat over medium. Drop batter by 1/4 cup onto skillet. Cook until bubbles appear on top, about 2 minutes. Flip cakes and cook until golden brown on underside, 2 minutes. Wipe skillet clean and repeat with more melted butter and remaining batter.
PS. Next time, I think I would just use the whole egg to avoid the hassle of separating them. Besides, I’d just use the egg yolk in some highly unhealthy custard dish anyway, so why add the temptation 😛
