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Easy vegan sweet potato pancakes are lightly sweetened with maple syrup and plenty of vegan chocolate chips! Spruce up your mornings with this delicious, fluffy short stack.
Sweet potatoes aren't just for roasting! I love to use them in muffins, brownies, biscuits, and best of all, pancakes. They add a boost of plant-based nutrients and sweet potato flavor, plus my kiddos love them!
If you love a hot breakfast as much as I do, this vegan sweet potato pancake recipe is for you. They disappear faster than I can get them off the griddle. They're perfectly sweet, light, and fluffy with no dairy or eggs.
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If your mornings are busy and pancakes feel intimidating, I hear ya! I like to make them on a weekend morning and double (or triple!) the batch, then freeze half for later. Then during the week, I can just pop one in the microwave for 30 seconds, and breakfast is ready!
👩🍳 Why This Recipe Works
- Plenty of sweet potato flavor
- Fluffy pancakes every time
- Made with wholesome ingredients
- Kid-friendly & delicious
- Plant based, with a gluten-free option!
- Easy to freeze
- Amazing vegan pancakes!
🥘 Ingredients
These eggless sweet potato pancakes require simple ingredients found at your local grocery store.
- All-Purpose Flour: All-purpose flour keeps pancakes nice and light. If you want to use a whole wheat flour, I recommend a whole wheat pastry flour so it doesn't weigh down the pancakes too much.
- Baking Powder: This leavening agent creates carbon dioxide bubbles once it's mixed with a liquid. Pancakes are dense and flat without it.
- Maple Syrup: Naturally sweetens the pancakes! Only a small amount is needed, since the chocolate chips add plenty of sweetness too. Coconut sugar or brown sugar work great too.
- Unsweetened Almond Milk: I love the mild and creamy taste of almond milk, but any non-dairy milk will do. Try soy milk, coconut milk, cashew milk, or your favorite plant based milk.
- Sweet Potato Puree: Sweet potato puree is simply cooked sweet potato that's been pureed. I like to roast a few sweet potatoes at the beginning of the week and refrigerate them for later use. Or you can use leftover sweet potato mash!
- Cinnamon And Vanilla Extract: Sweet potatoes and cinnamon are a match made in heaven. If you don't like cinnamon, feel free to leave it out. Vanilla helps enhance the natural sweetness of the potatoes!
- Olive Oil: I like to use heart-healthy olive oil, but any neutral-tasting oil works. Canola, vegetable, or coconut oil are great options.
- Vegan Chocolate Chips: Not all chocolate chips are vegan, so it's important to check labels. Nestle has an allergen-friendly and vegan version of their chocolate chips, or Enjoy Life is a good brand too.
📖 Variations
You can customize this vegan sweet potato pancakes recipe in so many different ways! Here are a few of our favorites:
- Toppings Of Your Choice: Sliced bananas, peanut butter, granola, coconut whipped cream, pumpkin seeds, chopped nuts, vegan butter, almond butter, pure maple syrup, and even caramel sauce or chocolate sauce are delicious options!
- Vegan, Gluten Free Sweet Potato Pancakes: Swap the flour with a gluten-free all-purpose flour blend. My favorite is Bob's Red Mill 1:1 Gluten Free Baking Flour for its gluten-like taste and texture. You can also use gluten free oat flour or buckwheat flour, but you may end up with a slightly denser pancake.
- Vegan Sweet Potato Protein Pancakes: Add one scoop of vanilla vegan protein powder to the batter before blending.
- Sweet Potato Banana Pancakes: Reduce the sweet potato puree by half, and then add 1/4 cup of mashed ripe banana into the blender with the pancake ingredients and blend until smooth.
- Vegan Pumpkin Pancakes: Swap the sweet potato with pumpkin puree in a 1:1 substitution. You can find canned pumpkin near the pie fillings in the baking aisle.
🍠 Make Roasted Sweet Potato Puree
You can find canned sweet potato puree at the grocery store, but for even more depth of flavor, you can roast your sweet potatoes ahead of time and store them in the fridge until you're ready to make these pancakes! Here's how to make homemade roasted sweet potato puree:
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
- Wash your sweet potato, dry it, and poke a few holes in it with a fork.
- Wrap it in foil, place in an oven safe baking dish.
- Bake for 45 min - 1 hour until it's soft.
- To turn it into a puree - let the sweet potato cool once it's out of the oven. Peel the skin off, put the flesh into a food processor and puree until smooth (you might have to add a couple tablespoons of water if the flesh is too thick).
🔪 How To Make Vegan Sweet Potato Pancakes
Blend Wet And Dry Ingredients: Combine all the ingredients, except the chocolate chips, in a high-speed blender and blend until smooth. A food processor works if you don't have a blender.
Add Chocolate Chips: Pour the thick batter into a large bowl and fold in the chocolate chips.
Let Batter Rest: Let the batter rest for 10 minutes before using it. This lets the baking powder do its magic for fluffier pancakes.
Cook Pancakes: Heat a frying pan or large skillet over medium heat and pour in a 1/4 cup of batter into the hot pan. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes until bubbles begin to form.
Flip Pancakes: Flip the pancakes and continue to cook for another 2 to 3 minutes or until cooked through. Repeat until you've used all the batter. You should get 12 pancakes.
Serve: Enjoy with a dusting of powdered sugar or your favorite pancake toppings!
❓ Recipe FAQs
Are sweet potato pancakes healthy?
It depends on the recipe! Sweet potatoes in general are super healthy because they're packed with fiber and antioxidants (their bright orange color is how you know they have beta-carotene - a powerful antioxidant!) So whether these pancakes turn out to be healthy depends on the other ingredients you combine with the sweet potatoes!
A pancake labeled vegan may not be healthy, because it could still be packed with sugar, fat or refined grains. This recipe is a bit more on the decadent side - and you can modify it to be healthier or keep it as a breakfast treat!
To make healthy sweet potato pancakes: replace the flour with whole wheat pastry flour, reduce the maple syrup to 1/8 cup and reduce the chocolate chips to 1/4 cup. You can also omit the maple syrup and/or chocolate chips altogether, but just keep in mind you'll end up with more of a savory pancake in that case!
How do I store vegan pancakes?
Store them in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to 5 days. Reheat in the microwave in 15-second increments until warmed through.
Can I freeze vegan pancakes?
Yes! Let the cooked pancakes cool to room temperature, then transfer them to a freezer-safe container or ziplock bag. For best results, use within 3 months. Reheat in the microwave or a toaster oven until warmed through.
What should I serve with fluffy vegan pancakes?
These pancakes are delicious on their own, but we like to serve them with a variety of toppings like vegan whipped cream, maple syrup, nut butters, etc. (see variations above). They taste great as part of a larger spread with vegan breakfast items like a tofu scramble or a vegan omelette and fresh fruit.
💭 Expert Tips
- Don't skip letting the batter sit. If you give the baking powder a few minutes to work, the pancakes will be fluffier.
- Let the skillet heat up before you add the pancake batter. If it's not hot, the pancakes will spread too much.
- For the easiest flipping, use a nonstick skillet or a pancake griddle and a thin edged spatula. A bulky spatula makes it hard to flip pancakes.
- There's no need to use a flax egg in this recipe. The sweet potato puree and olive oil binds the batter without it.
- If the pancakes brown too quickly, reduce to medium low heat.
- If you want crispy, golden pancakes, add a thin layer of oil or vegan butter before you pour in the pancake batter.
