An ongoing battle with me and my diet is ensuring I get enough protein.
This might be a common issues among vegetarians and vegans, but my naturopath has advised me to go for a balance of 150g or so of carbs per day with 55-65g protein and up to 50g of healthy fats. I am under on both fats and protein fairly consistently.
Luckily, I’m not TOO low on protein (often falling around 50g), but one surefire way to power up my day is to start my day off with a good dose of protein.
On my naturopath’s recommendation, I have started stirring half a scoop of protein powder into my morning oatmeal. And my favourite part about this protein need is incorporating these beauties into my diet as often as possible!
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Healthy, high-protein vegan banana protein pancakes.
This recipe provides two large pancakes per breakfast serving. I top mine with applesauce for some sweetness and a nice complement to the banana. Or of course, you can use maple syrup, lemon juice or your favourite topping.
In each two-pancake serving, you get just 250 calories, 5.5g fat (and this includes the oil they’re fried in!) and 14.5g protein. That’s what they call a winner, folks!
I’ve realized that to reach my protein needs for the day, I really need to get around 15g at each meal. Snacks like my lemon poppyseed protein muffins definitely help, but the bulk of it has to come from meals. This breakfast more than helps out!
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Anna’s Banana Protein Pancakes
INGREDIENTS (serves 2 – making 4 pancakes):
1 banana, very ripe
1/2 cup almond milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/16 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp flour (any kind, I use spelt or wholewheat)
2 tbsp coconut flour
1 scoop vanilla or unflavoured protein powder (mine provides 24g of protein per scoop)
1 tsp oil (for frying)
DIRECTIONS:
1. Add banana, almond milk and vanilla to a blender and blend until smooth.
2. Mix dry ingredients (spices, salt, baking powder, flours and protein powder) in a mixing bowl.
3. Pour blended wet ingredients into dry and mix with a spatula.
4. Heat oil on a griddle and drop batter onto griddle. I use two heaped spoonfuls per pancake.
5. Fry until golden on one side and flip. Cook on other side; serve! Enjoy!
NOTE: I double this recipe and make 4 servings. I wrap two pancakes in parchment paper and put them in a sandwich bag. I then freeze three sandwich bags’ worth and just microwave them for breakfast the next day. They taste just as good warmed up this way and it saves you major time!
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(As you can see, I like my pancakes pretty well cooked and crispy on the outside and soft on the inside ;)).
Nutritional information per serving of 2 pancakes (if recipe serves 2):
Nutritional information courtesy of caloriecount.about.com
QUESTIONS:
- If you are a vegetarian or vegan, do you struggle to get enough protein in your diet?
- What’s your favourite breakfast? Pancakes, oats, cereal…?
The Guiltless Life 
These look fabulous and and I loving the ingredients and nutrition facts! It is a good idea to make extra and then save them for later, I need to get better at meal prep!
Thank you for the recipe 😀
Yes the stats are pretty awesome on this, and I freeze these all the time and they defrost REALLY well!
These look good! I love pancakes 🙂
The words banana pancakes always remind me of the Jack Johnson song I love, haha!
Happy Monday! ❤
Hahaha love Jack Johnson. These pancakes are super yummy – I know you’d love them!
These look delicious! Thanks for sharing your recipe!
Thank you Suzanne, no worries 🙂
These look so delicious and fluffy! I’ve made protein pancakes in the past that were good, but yours look extra delicious!
Being pregnant, I need to make sure I get enough protein in as while because it’s very important for the baby growing inside of me!
Definitely – I sent this recipe to my sister as soon as I created and loved it, because she’s pregnant and is always in need of protein and iron!
You can’t go wrong with banana pancakes!! They do look so light and fluffy, yum!
They really are, but the bananas keep them moist. So good!
Ooohhh yummy!! These look so delicious! And I have the same applesauce in my fridge 😉 haha. Comes in handy!
It’s awesome applesauce, the good ol’ Sun-Rype! haha
can you do all coconut flour
I wanted to do a g-f version but I haven’t tried it myself so didn’t want to post it. But if you used all coconut flour or replaced the flour portion with buckwheat or almond flour, it should work – but you might need to add some starch or gum to keep it together. I would suggest 1/3 cup coconut flour + 1/6 cup coconut or other g-f flour, plus 1/6 cup tapioca starch. Try that – but I haven’t, so be warned!
Yummy yummy! I’m always looking for new vegan & GF recipes to add to my collection. You’re right– a winner indeed
Yay, glad you like! 🙂
wow that’s a tremendous amount of protein per pancake. way to go lady!
Thanks girl! You know me, always trying to cram in that protein! 🙂
Wow these sound so delicious! I bet they are so filling with all the protein as well!
Can’t wait to try them out this weekend!!!! 🙂
Ooh they’re so yummy they’re the perfect weekend treat! Thanks Jentry!
Hi! These look Ahhh-mazing! So do the pumpkin ones. I’m eating gluten free as well (a bit of self torture I suppose) and wonder if they’d come out as good if I just used all coconut flour in place of the wheat flour? Or maybe I could use almond meal…? Can you think of any reason why that wouldn’t work? Going to try these tomorrow.
Thanks again
Lindsay
Hi Lindsay! I would try it with coconut flour sure, or even better if you can buy some gluten-free oats (they sell them at WF etc), and grind them to a flour, oat flour works very well in baked goods. If using coconut flour, I would add something like tapioca flour or xanthan gum to bind the ingredients though, as they might be too crumbly. However, coconut flour isn’t the worst for that so you could definitely give it a whirl if you don’t have any of those gums in house! Good luck! x
I do not struggle with protein. My “normal” diet is only about 20-25g protein, but my blood work shows my levels are fine at this level. I do try to get a bit more when I am doing a lot of exercise