The Fluffiest High Protein Almond Flour Pancakes

Sunday mornings are lazy mornings for us. Most mornings we are busy and don’t eat our first meal til noon. Sundays, however, you will find us sitting on the couch drinking espresso, streaming a little Sunday morning TV. Mid-morning we decide it’s time to eat which is usually much earlier than the rest of the week. (You can say we are fasting from intermittent fasting.) This week, I was craving pancakes and our newest brunch spot had an impossible wait (we called ahead thankfully) so I decided I would suck it up and make them myself. Not wanting a total carb-fest, I created these High Protein Almond Flour Pancakes and you can thank me after making them in the comments below because you will LOOOOVE them!

What Makes These HIGH PROTEIN Almond Flour Pancakes?

Typically pancakes are made from flour (regular or gluten free blend); leaveners like salt, baking soda and baking powder; and liquid ingredients like eggs and milk or buttermilk. Almond flour is naturally much higher in protein than grain-based flours, but these pancakes also have three eggs and two scoops of collagen protein powder. While I haven’t officially tallied up the macros for this recipe, these are all inherently high protein so naturally the finished pancakes have quite a bit of protein. That said, I have added a few additional ingredients such as arrowroot flour and tapioca flour to insure that the finished product is fluffy just like their grain-filled counterparts.

Tips for Making Perfect, Fluffy High Protein Almond Flour Pancakes

There are a few things to know if you are new to making grain-free pancakes:

• The batter is going to grainy due to the almond flour not breaking down like grain-based flours do and it will be thicker since the chemical reaction between grains and leaveners is different than it is with the high protein content of almond flour, so all this is good. You didn’t do anything wrong.
• Because of it being thicker, however, you can’t reliably just pour the batter out and get PERFECT pancakes. They may be more blobby looking that way. I just use the same 1/4 cup measuring cup I used to measure the flour and scoop the batter out. That made perfect 6″ pancakes like you see above. I haven’t tried it in a squeeze bottle or any other contraption to make silver dollar pancakes, but feel free to try that.
• While it may be tempting to throw blueberries or chocolate chips into the batter, I find that placing them (or any other mix-ins) messily on the batter just after ladling them on the pan works much better and ensures that you don’t get to the bottom of the batter and someone gets a naked pancake (unless someone wants one)
• Cook on medium high heat, no matter what. I’m a chronic rusher. I try to get things moving by turning them to high (my broiler gets used more than probably any other broiler in the country outside of restaurants.) I don’t recommend this, especially with these pancakes. Patience will pay off, I promise!
• Brush the pan in between each set of pancakes with coconut oil or butter
• Don’t try to flip them until you see lots of bubbles and the edges look almost dry. I had a lot of strange looking pancakes the first time (and a full morse code message in pancake strings and dots) due to rushing the process and trying to flip too early.
• Once flipped, look away. Your busy hands might want to pat them down

Ways to Make These High Protein Almond Flour Pancakes EXTRA

We all know that pancakes are fine on their own, but don’t you love it when they are a little EXTRA? Here are some of my favorite over-the-top pancakes:

Mix-ins

• Coconut-Pecan – Sprinkle coconut and pecans over the batter as you scoop it on the pan
• Blueberry – the classic
• Bacon – Crumbled almost crisp, but not black at all will yield perfect bacon pieces in the pancakes
• Sausage – I love sausage with pancakes so why not crumble it up (slice up links) and cook them together
• Chocolate Chip – another less healthy classic, but look for an organic or paleo chocolate like Target Simply Balanced, Enjoy Life, Hu Gems or Lily’s chocolate and you’re good to go
• Apple Cinnamon – Add 1 tsp cinnamon to the batter and use finely chopped apple

Toppings

• Almond Butter – Slather the pancakes with almond butter to really ramp up the protein content and give you a much richer flavor than butter
• Caramel – Use my paleo caramel sauce instead of maple syrup for a truly decadent brunch (especially on the apple cinnamon version!)
• Coconut Whipped Cream – If you’re going all out and making chocolate chip pancakes, whipped cream is a must, but it takes a little planning. Place a can of full-fat coconut milk in the fridge overnight. Scoop off the very thick cream at the top and place in a bowl. Whisk or use an electric mixer until you have whipped cream. Sweeten with a tiny bit of maple syrup or leave it as is to off set the sweet pancakes.