Perfect Blueberry Coconut Flour Pancake Recipe

I’m feeling it already.

You know how you hate heading to the kitchen by 4:00 on gorgeous summer days?

It’s tempting to spend all my time outside or doing spring cleaning and decluttering and throw cereal, PBJs on store bread and frozen pizzas at the family for a week straight.

But this summer I’m planning to serve huge, hot breakfasts every day instead.

And I can’t wait until blueberries are in season so this blueberry pancakes recipe can be a regular feature.

Grain Free Pancakes Continual Disappointment

I’d been kind of down on coconut flour pancakes in the five years that we’ve dabbled in grain-free living.

It seemed that the ones I tried that were “just pancakes” using coconut flour, whether they were from a Paleo blog or not, were pretty much “just boring.”

They had no flavor.

The texture was blah.

They just didn’t do it for me.

I stuck with my favorite orange vegetable-rich grain-free pancakes as our standby and mixed it up sometimes with the famous banana Paleo pancakes from time to time. Both grain-free pancake recipes use coconut flour, optionally, but it’s not the centerpiece at all, just a supporting player.

This post is sponsored by Plan to Eat, as is my summertime “big breakfast” meal planning!

Finding a New Favorite

This spring as we were easing off the Whole30, however, I wanted to celebrate Easter with something fun.

We didn’t want to jump into any new food groups very quickly for my husband, because we wanted to watch and learn one food at a time so that the “elimination diet” aspect of the Whole30 was made worthwhile.

When my kids put in a special request for blueberry pancakes for Easter Saturday morning, I knew that would be perfect – I could stick with grain-free, dairy-free, sugar-free and only amend the Whole30 protocol by making the actual pancakes (which aren’t allowed on the Whole30 simply because there’s a “no baking” rule to help break people of their cravings).

I pulled out the coconut flour pancake recipe I’d made previously a few times and looked at it sideways, wrinkling my nose.

My kids were so excited about blueberry pancakes, but I just couldn’t work up the enthusiasm.

It was time to get creative in the kitchen.

By the time I made the recipe what we needed by adding a little sweetness, a little bite, some lift and some flavor – not to mention the blueberries themselves! – I ended up with a totally new recipe.

And was my experiment a success?

Oh, yes, most definitely.

They were so good, we had them again the very next day for Easter Sunday brunch after church! (Which also tells you they are pretty easy to make, because usually I’d shoot for a “make-ahead” breakfast for a meal after a holiday Mass.)

Leftovers have been hard to come by.

I’ve made the pancakes a handful of times more already, doing some A/B testing on some of the ingredients to see what quantities hit the sweet spot just so.

Now I’ve got some enthusiasm – and I’m totally geeked to share the perfected recipe with you!

As soon as I grab it from the recipe holder in the kitchen – since every time I bring it to my desk to type it up, it makes its way back to the stove before I get a chance – these perfect coconut flour pancakes will be all yours.

5.0 from 2 reviews

Grain-Free Paleo Blueberry Pancake Recipe

 

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Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

15 mins

Total time

25 mins

 

I always thought coconut flour pancakes were bland and boring, until I fixed that problem with these delicious grain-free blueberry pancakes. Super easy, kid-friendly.

Author: Katie Kimball

Recipe type: Breakfast

Serves: 16-18 pancakes

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• ¼ c. unsweetened applesauce
• ¼ c. coconut milk (or whole milk)
• ½ banana, mashed (optional)
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ½ tsp. nutmeg
• ¼ tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
• ¼ c. melted coconut oil
• 3-4 Tbs. packed coconut flour
• ½-3/4 c. blueberries

Instructions

1. Prep note: If your coconut oil is solid, melt it. I like to use my metal measuring cup right on my griddle as it preheats so I don't dirty another pot!
2. In a medium-sized bowl, mix all the ingredients except the coconut oil, coconut flour and blueberries.
3. (I like to use a tool that can mash my banana right in the bowl.)
4. Heat a cast iron griddle orenameled cast iron pan (or whatever you like to cook pancakes on) over medium heat.
5. Whisk in the melted coconut oil quickly - it tends to solidify when it hangs out with the cold eggs too long.
6. Add the coconut flour, starting with 3 tablespoons. Watch for clumps.
7. Whisk thoroughly.
8. Grease your cooking surface with ample fat (coconut oil, tallow or lard are great choices).
9. Ladle out 3-inch pancakes, adding blueberries (or huckleberries, even better!) right into each pancake.
10. Over medium-low or medium heat, cook a minute or so, until bubbles form on top, then flip and cook another 30 seconds or so until brown on the bottom.

Notes

* Avoiding sweeteners? Try with natural applesauce on top.
* Use a whole (small) banana for a little more sweetness if you're not going to add maple syrup. It's just a balance between adding the sweet and not getting a banana pancake, taste-wise.
* Start with 3 packed tablespoons of coconut flour. If you'd like a bit thicker pancake, go to 4 Tbs. (which is ¼ cup). Both taste good and don't get dry!
* If you're new to coconut flour, it's nothing like what you're used to! Be sure to check out "How to Bake Grain-free with Coconut Flour" for all the tips, why I tell you pack it, and the best prices on the web.
* If you grab the coconut milk or coconut flour at Vitacost and it's your first order, you can get $10 off by clicking HERE.

3.3.3070

Why I’ll Push for a 3-Course Breakfast Every Day This Summer

Crazy, right?

Why would I want to spend my precious mornings cooking over a hot stove?

I’m trying something new – since I DO feel that distaste for being in the kitchen almost as much as my kids do when they have to come inside and get a summer foot wash, I figured why not frontload the day?

If we have a huge breakfast, a couple things (hopefully) will happen:

1. We might be able to skip morning snack, have an early-ish lunch and a nice afternoon snack. Instead of feeding the household FIVE times a day, I may get away with four, which would be nice. I get tired of offering snack choices.
2. We’ll have a hot meal under our belts and could get away with some cold dinners more easily. That means I don’t have to come in the kitchen so soon – yay!
3. It’s cooler in the mornings, usually, so “slaving over a hot stove” won’t be as annoying.
4. I’m also hoping that being in the kitchen will allow me to prep some slow cooker meals, cut veggies for dinner, and simply do some of the things that I’d usually do between 4-6 p.m. so I can just keep playing once we’re all outside.
5. We’ll be well fueled for our day, and I’m hoping that the appetites will allow for smaller dinners. I think that’s the healthier way to eat anyway, timewise – bigger meals at breakfast and lunch and then a smaller meal at dinner since your body has less time to digest it before the restorative rest of the overnight sleep.
6. Maybe we can knock out dishes midday and not have such a disaster of a kitchen each night at 9 p.m. when we’re feeling run down already. It’s beyond time for us to train our two older kids, 10 and 7, to do dishes!!!
7. It will also be easier to involve the kids in making breakfast, since I won’t be dragging them away from play that they’re already deeply invested in. Our neighborhood doesn’t really get going until 10 a.m., so we’re going to do kitchen work, practice piano, and some academic and craft work immediately after we wake up. (I think my theme for summer will be “maximize your mornings!”)
8. With more “courses” at breakfast, I can get some veggies in to frontload the day on nutrients, also. Summer is a great time to have fresh vegetables in abundance at every meal!

The trick will be this – I’m not all that great at planning ahead for breakfasts.

I do it, but it’s usually only a day or two in advance.

So my challenge will be to plan my breakfast meals as if they were dinner meals, a week in advance, and make sure I shop to have all the necessary ingredients.

Enter Plan to Eat!

PTE already has built in space for both breakfast and lunch planning, and every recipe I drag to my weekly meal plan will automatically populate the shopping list on my phone, so no matter when I shop during the hectic days of summer, I’ll know what I need for the next 7 days.

Time to get my favorite breakfast recipes into my PTE recipe box (each one takes about 30 seconds) and find some new ones to try in the KS Group.

I’m open to suggestions! And I know I’ll be planning these delicious (and easy!) blueberry Paleo pancakes often, especially when the berries are fresh in season.

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Disclosure: Plan to Eat is a longtime sponsor of KS. They paid for this post because they value helping people eat real food and sharing new ideas about meal planning – the team at PTE knows it’s almost impossible to keep eating right if you don’t plan ahead.