When comfort food and healthy come together for breakfast in the most delicious way, you get these perfectly light and fluffy Healthy Vegan Cornmeal Pancakes. Cornmeal pancakes also fondly known as Johnny cakes, corn cakes, or hoe cakes are hearty and satisfying, sure to keep your belly happy until lunch rolls around. Packed full of healthy, feel-good ingredients, you can be assured that every bite will be brimming with deliciousness making it this week’s awesome Whip It Up Wednesday  recipe.  Whole Food Plant Based, vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, gluten free, no highly processed ingredients.

Hi!  Robin here!

Corn, creamed corn, cornbread, corn stuffing, corn casserole, corn chowder, corn muffins, mush, polenta, Johnny cakes, corn cakes, hoe cakes, (I sound like Bubba from Forrest Gump- LOL) anything corn related is ranked high in my book.  I love me some corn.  Plain or fancy, it doesn’t matter – corn is king in my humble opinion.  I just love it, end of story.

As most of our Readers know, I was raised in the middle of farm country.  The home I grew up in was mostly surrounded by corn fields.  In the summer, we could literally walk out our front door, turn left and be within 50 feet of a massive corn field.  We dined on corn all summer long.

Many a summer eve, we would roast corn in an open firepit in our backyard.  The corn was so sweet it required no butter, no salt, no pepper, no seasoning, nothing at all, it was perfectly perfect and completely delicious.  I remember it like it was yesterday and that was over 45 plus years ago.

Whip it up Wednesday

As you already know, every Wednesday, we feature a quick and easy recipe that can be “whipped up” in 20 minutes or less.  This recipe can be made in about 20 minutes which really helps speed things up in the kitchen.

Johnny Cakes

Johnny cakes also known as hoe cakes are another favorite of mine.  I absolutely love them. It wasn’t hard to develop a great Whole Food Plant Based recipe for them.  The hardest part for us was finding a nonstick skillet where the pancakes didn’t stick.  Anyone else know what I mean?

We have made other pancakes and used nonstick skillets like Copper Chef, etc. and didn’t have an issue with those pancakes sticking; however, these Healthy Vegan Cornmeal Pancakes really wanted to stick to the pan, no matter what nonstick skillet I used, they stuck fast and were challenging to flip.  It was beyond frustrating.

This post contains affiliate links, and we may receive a very small commission if you purchase through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures! For more information, see our disclosures here.

Nonstick Happiness

One day I was shopping at our local World Market and saw their new display for the “Green Pan.” It was advertised as an amazing nonstick pan.  I thought what-the-heck, I will buy this tiny little pan ($9.99) to see if I can make my Johnny cakes and see if they stick.

Well, I am very happy to share with you that World Market’s green pan is all that and then some.  I then went back and purchased the griddle pan ($49.99 – on sale for $39.99) and have been very happily making my Healthy Vegan Cornmeal Pancakes ever since.

Be prepared for a wide variety of pancake recipes coming in the future.  I love a great pancake!

Ameera here!

Mom makes thee best pancakes ever!  These light and fluffy Healthy Vegan Cornmeal Pancakes are divine!  I just can’t get enough of them!  They are so good with just a light drizzle of maple syrup, unsweetened applesauce, or lovely fresh fruit.  On a special occasion, we will sprinkle them with a tiny bit of Whole Food Plant Based “powdered” sugar.

We hope you enjoy our new Whip It Up Wednesday  quick and easy ideas!

If you try it, we would love to know if you enjoy it as much as we do!  Please leave us a review 🙂

Also, check us out on Facebook and Instagram!

Products Used:

• Food Processor
• Griddle or nonstick pan – we LOVE World Market’s Green Pan. No oil required.

Healthy Vegan Cornmeal Pancakes

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• Author: Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures
• Prep Time: 5 minutes
• Cook Time: 15 minutes
• Total Time: 20 minutes
• Yield: 5-6 Pancakes 1x
• Category: Breakfast
• Cuisine: American

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Description

When comfort food and healthy come together for breakfast in the most delicious way, you get these perfectly light and fluffy Healthy Vegan Cornmeal Pancakes. Cornmeal pancakes also fondly known as Johnny cakes, corn cakes, or hoe cakes are hearty and satisfying, sure to keep your belly happy until lunch rolls around. Packed full of healthy, feel-good ingredients, you can be assured that every bite will be brimming with deliciousness making it this week’s awesome Whip It Up Wednesday  recipe.  Whole Food Plant Based, vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, gluten free, no highly processed ingredients.

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• ½ cup cornmeal
• ½ cup rolled oats, coarsely chopped
• ¼ cup brown rice flour
• 1 Tablespoon flax meal
• 2 Tablespoons organic maple syrup
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ cup unsweetened plain plant milk
• 2 Tablespoons unsweetened almond butter, softened *
• ½ cup bananas, mashed (about 1 small banana)
• Pinch sea salt (+/- to taste) * 

Toppings

• Fruit
• Organic unsweetened applesauce
• Organic Maple syrup
• Sprinkle of WFPB powdered sugar *

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Instructions

1. Place the oats in a food processor and process just to break up the oats, about 20 seconds. Then add all the remaining ingredients to the food processor and process until smooth and combined.
2. Preheat a griddle or a nonstick pan. You want the pan medium-hot at first, but not too hot. I started with a setting of 6 to heat up the pan, then quickly switched the heat level to a 4-5 out of 10 once it is hot.  I then consistently used a setting of 4-5 out of 10 heat level to cook the pancakes.  They are thick so you want to make sure the center of the pancake gets cooked.
3. Take about ¼ cup of the batter and place onto the medium heat griddle. This makes about a 3 ½ to 4-inch sized pancake (1/4 cup of batter). The pancake batter should lightly sizzle when the batter hits the griddle/pan. When the sides are firm, and the pancake has been on the griddle for about 3 minutes (set a timer if needed) test the “flip-ability” of the pancake by sliding a very thin edged small spatula just underneath the edge of the pancake, and peek underneath. Does it look nicely browned?  If so, then gently side the spatula all the way underneath, and then flip it over.  Generally, you should cook it about 3 to 4 minutes on the initial side, and about 2 – 3 more minutes on the flip side. See notes for TIPS.

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Notes

*Almond Butter:  Most almond butter is generally already very soft; however, some require refrigeration after opening and it becomes rigid when cold.  If you are using an almond butter that has been refrigerated, then heat it up in the microwave for about 25 seconds or remove the required amount from the refrigerator and allow to come to room temperature before stirring in.  It is difficult to distribute refrigerated almond butter evenly throughout the batter as it tends to lump up.

*Pan Tips: We keep a damp paper towel/cloth next to the skillet.  We fold it up into a log, dampen it, then wipe down the skillet to pick up any crumbs before laying down the next batch of pancakes. This keeps the pan clean. Be careful to not get burned.

*Spatula Tips: Keep the edge of the spatula clean at all times.  It is much easier to slide a clean spatula underneath the pancake. If the spatula picks up crumbs it can make flipping more difficult because the crumbs stick to the spatula and are dragged underneath the pancake, ripping the it open or making it more difficult to flip.

*Pancake Size Tips: Even though it may take a few more minutes, keep the size of your pancakes small.  It helps with flipping them.  When you don’t use oil, the pancakes are slightly more fragile.  Keeping them small allows you more control when you flip them.

*Texture: These pancakes are beautifully light and fluffy. They rise high. They hold together very nicely. We typically top ours with unsweetened applesauce or a very tiny amount of maple syrup.  However, when we did our photoshoot, we ended up saturating the stack if pancakes trying to get a “pouring” shot and noted that when the pancake becomes saturated, it did get fragile and break a part as we suppose most pancakes would do; however, we did want to point this out.

*Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.

*“WFPB Powdered Sugar” – Optional: Place 1 Tablespoon of dried maple sugar and 1 Tablespoon of cornstarch into a high-speed blender (Ninja) and blend on high for one minute to create a very fine powder. Sprinkle the maple “powdered sugar” over top of the pancakes through a fine mesh sieve.

*Serving:  Makes approximately 5 to 6  – 3 ½ to 4-inch pancakes.

*Storage: Refrigerate and use within 5 days.  Freezes well.

This post contains affiliate links, and we may receive a very small commission if you purchase through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures! For more information, see our disclosures here.