Vegan Cinnamon Pecan Oat Pancakes

Packed with crunchy pecans, rolled oats, and a hint of cinnamon, these hearty pancakes will keep you full and warm on chilly weekend mornings– for a little over $2 a serving.

I love pancakes.

I almost never eat them because they always feel so indulgent, like having a piece of chocolate cake for breakfast (which is fine, just not an every day thing for me). So when I do have pancakes, I want them to be special.

Folks, these are special.

Wheat flour doesn’t always, shall we say, agree with me. For this recipe, I wanted pancakes made with oat flour. Oats are filling, they’re loaded with fiber, they’re cheap, and you can make oat flour easily at home.

I experimented with a few of my favorite pancake recipes, finally settling on a variation on these Simple Oatmeal Pancakes by Pick Up Limes. Over several attempts, I tweaked the amount of ingredients, made some substitutions, added pecans, and voila: The Frugal Spinster’s Cinnamon Pecan Oat Pancakes were born.

These are GOOD. Hearty. Filling. Dense. Nutty. After I ate the very stack you see in these photos (yes, I eat every meal you will see on this blog), I actually felt full. Like, full-full. I did not want to eat anything else for a few hours, which is unheard of for me.

I don’t add sweetener to pancakes. I know some pancake recipes call for sugar or maple syrup, but since I always use maple syrup on top of my pancakes, I don’t need the pancakes themselves to be sweet. So, just note that this recipe will not result in sweet pancakes.

These are not your average light and fluffy pancakes. The applesauce and oats help make them a bit denser than pancakes that seem to float on air. They’re a meal.

If you’re hungry, you’ll be happy you made these.

INGREDIENTS

Exact amounts are in the recipe at the end of this post.

• rolled oats
• oat flour (made from rolled oats)
• pecans
• cinnamon
• applesauce
• milk (of your choice)
• olive oil
• vanilla extract
• baking soda
• salt

INSTRUCTIONS

Additional instructions are in the recipe at the end of this post.

This is a quick, easy recipe.

The only thing that might take a few minutes is setting up a food processor to dice up the whole rolled oats into oat flour, something I did for my Vegan Banana Peanut Butter Muffins.

However, you could do what I do and pre-process a few cups of oats:

• Process rolled oats for about two minutes
• Keep this oat flour in a closed container (fridge optional)
• Next time a recipe calls for oat flour, you’re ready to go

Start by combining all your dry ingredients in a bowl and your wet ingredients in another bowl.

Chop up the pecans. Add these to the batter last, once it’s combined.

You may already have your preferred pancake cooking surface. If you’re unsure, I would go with whatever surface sticks the least. Having spent years trying to figure out which of my frying pans worked best for pancakes, I finally bought a non-stick pancake griddle. So much easier.

Combine the dry and wet ingredients into one bowl. Let the batter sit for about five minutes to thicken, which will result in thicker pancakes. Turn on low-medium heat under your pan.

Greasing my nonstick griddle wasn’t necessary, but I used a little bit of oil anyway. Whatever you do depends on your pan, but the less “nonstick” it is, the more oil or butter you might have to use.

After the batter has sat for five minutes, add in half the pecans and mix until combined. If you use 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake, this recipe should make five pancakes.

Normally, I would only put four pancakes on this griddle, but since I knew this recipe would make five, I just went for it. Fortunately, there wasn’t a huge disaster in the flipping.

Top the pancakes with the remaining pecans and anything else you’d like. Just remember that the recipe isn’t very sweet on its own, so adding maple syrup, fruit, or powdered sugar (or all three?!) will make a nice, lightly-sweet breakfast.

Maple syrup, cinnamon, and pecans. What a trifecta.

SUBSTITUTIONS

• Oat flour. You can substitute all-purpose flour for the same amount of oat flour in this recipe. If you do grind your own oat flour and you’re gluten-free, make sure the oats are labeled gluten-free.
• Pecans. The pecans in the recipe are optional, but the flavor of pecans adds so much to these pancakes. You can always substitute walnuts, almonds, or any other nut you’d like. You can also leave out the nuts altogether.
• Applesauce. I’ve made other vegan pancake recipes with flax eggs (a mixture of ground flax seeds and water) or baking soda and vinegar, but in my testing, using applesauce resulted in pancakes with the most rise. I recommend unsweetened applesauce.
• Milk. I used oat milk to add extra oat flavor, but you can use any type of milk.
• Olive oil. You could use any type of oil. In fact, the original recipe calls for coconut oil. I opted for olive oil because it doesn’t add any noticeable flavor to the pancakes, and it also doesn’t harden into clumps when combined with cold milk from the fridge – something that will happen with coconut oil unless your milk is room temperature.

STORAGE

These should keep in the fridge for a few days in a closed container, or wrapped tightly in plastic wrap or foil. In the freezer, they can last much longer. You may even want to make more than one batch and keep all the extras in a closed container in the freezer. This could make for a great breakfast meal plan!

I’ve never done this, but I’ve heard of popping a frozen pancake in the toaster to reheat it. Now I want to try this. Guess I’ll just have to make these again.

COST BREAKDOWN

As always, your cost may vary depending on your ingredients. When estimating cost, I use the ingredients I bought for the recipe – unless I find an easily-obtained, similar ingredient out there for much less.

For instance, the cinnamon I have in my kitchen is from a 1-lb. bag I bought at a local health food store for $23.79, or $0.37 a tablespoon. However, I found that Target’s Good & Gather brand of cinnamon costs about $0.15 a tablespoon. I mean, we’re talking cents here, but I think it’s still nice to know.

The most expensive part of the recipe is, of course, the pecans. Nuts can be pricey. I bought mine from the bulk section at Whole Foods. I know that tends to be more of a high end store, but I usually only buy their relatively inexpensive 365 brand of products. You might be able to find pecans cheaper than what I paid, which was $5.72 for a 7 oz. container.

Here’s the breakdown of what this recipe could cost (not including the maple syrup or any toppings besides the pecans).

• oats: $0.52
• pecans: $0.81
• cinnamon: $0.08
• baking powder: $0.01
• salt: $0.02
• applesauce: $0.20
• oat milk: $0.36
• vanilla extract: $0.19
• olive oil: $0.11

Total cost: $2.30

I’ll tell you this much: you will not pay two bucks and change for a stack of cinnamon pecan oat pancakes in a restaurant.

If you made this recipe, please let me know in the comments! Remember, it’s filling. Get hungry for this one.