Nothing springs us out of bed quite like the aroma of homemade pancakes. But we’re thinking it’s time we get more creative than a sprinkle of chocolate chips. Behold: 35 easy, creative pancake ideas that will spice up weekday mornings, Sunday brunch and heck, even breakfast-for-dinner night. They range from savory specialties (like a ham-and-egg Dutch baby) to sweet masterpieces (like cinnamon roll pancakes with vanilla icing) that your whole fam will be eager to scarf down—even before you’ve poured their coffee.
35 Pancake Ideas That Put Basic Flapjacks to Shame
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Published Mar 30, 2022
1. One-cup Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 10 minutes
- Why I Love It: <30 minutes, <10 ingredients, beginner-friendly, kid-friendly
This recipe is so easy that you’ll have it memorized after your first attempt. Make the simple stack a bit fancy with Greek yogurt, jam and lemon zest.
2. Sheet Tray Pancakes With Peaches And Strawberries
- Time Commitment: 55 minutes
- Why I Love It: crowd-pleaser, kid-friendly, one pan
Alfresco brunch for a crowd, anyone? We can’t think of a better way to show off your first stone fruit haul of the season.
3. Cinnamon Roll Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 45 minutes
- Why I Love It: kid-friendly, special occasion-worthy
Sure, you could go the maple syrup route…but we’re partial to this three-ingredient vanilla glaze.
4. Pancake Tacos With Cheese And Bacon
- Time Commitment: 1 hour and 40 minutes
- Why I Love It: high protein, kid-friendly, beginner-friendly
Complete with scrambled eggs for extra protein. Serve these handhelds with plenty of hot sauce and coffee.
5. Swedish Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 1 hour and 10 minutes
- Why I Love It: <10 ingredients, special occasion-worthy
Think of these lighter pancakes as a cross between American flapjacks and French crepes. Here, they’re layered with raspberry jam and dusted with confectioners’ sugar.
6. Croque Madame Dutch Baby
- Time Commitment: 50 minutes
- Why I Love It: special occasion-worthy, kid-friendly, high protein
Complete with buttery, nutmeg-laced béchamel sauce.
7. Nutella Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 2 hours and 15 minutes
- Why I Love It: <10 ingredients, kid-friendly
The only thing better than slathering your pancakes in hazelnut-cocoa spread? Stuffing them with frozen discs of it instead, so each pancake has a molten chocolatey core once it’s cooked. Molten lava cake but make it breakfast.
8. Chrissy Teigen’s Blueberry Cream Cheese Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 40 minutes
- Why I Love It: special occasion-worthy
Each pancake is studded with what Chrissy calls “cream cheese bombs,” or frozen cubes of cream cheese that turn soft and creamy as the flapjacks warm through.
9. Kaiserschmarrn (austrian Shredded Pancakes)
- Time Commitment: 40 minutes
- Why I Love It: <10 ingredients, special occasion-worthy, one pan
Also referred to as Emperor’s Mess, this rustic dish of buttery shredded magic has been around since the 19th century.
10. Easy Red Velvet Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 45 minutes
- Why I Love It: beginner-friendly, kid-friendly, <10 ingredients
Bring on the cream cheese icing. Your guests will be so impressed that they’ll have no clue you started with red velvet cake mix.
11. Gluten-free Almond Flour Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 30 minutes
- Why I Love It: gluten free,
Gussy up these wheat-free wonders with cinnamon, chocolate fudge, peanut butter, whipped cream or any fruit your heart desires.
12. Johnnycakes With Rhubarb And Sour Cherries
- Time Commitment: 20 minutes
- Why I Love It: <30 minutes, special occasion-worthy
Pucker up, friends. Not only is this stack crowned with tart-sweet rhubarb-cherry maple syrup, but it’s also finished with a dollop of tangy plain yogurt.
13. Sheet Pan Pancakes With Chocolate Chips
- Time Commitment: 25 minutes
- Why I Love It: <30 minutes, <10 ingredients, kid-friendly, crowd-pleaser
Slice the one-pan gem into slabs or cut it into strips instead so the kids can dunk them into syrup like French toast sticks.
14. Dutch Baby Pancake
- Time Commitment: 35 minutes
- Why I Love It: <10 ingredients, beginner-friendly, special occasion-worthy
German pancake. Bismarck. Dutch puff. Whatever you call it, you’ll be shocked how easy it is to prepare. (You can even mix the batter in the blender if you’re feeling extra lazy.)
15. Sweet Crepes With Caramelized Pears And Mascarpone Cream
- Time Commitment: 45 minutes
- Why I Love It: crowd-pleaser, special occasion-worthy
Crepes are basically just pancakes without leavening. Make the batter in advance and keep it in the fridge for up to two days ahead of Mother’s Day brunch.
16. Gingerbread Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 30 minutes
- Why I Love It: special occasion-worthy, kid-friendly, beginner-friendly
Make these spiced cuties on Christmas morning once and they’ll become an annual tradition. Might we suggest washing ’em down with homemade eggnog?
17. Baileys Red Velvet Pancakes With Whipped Cream
- Time Commitment: 35 minutes
- Why I Love It: special occasion-worthy
AKA our new favorite way to use Irish cream. Swap crushed freeze-dried raspberries in for red food coloring to turn the batter pink—their flavor will pair beautifully with the cocoa.
18. Pumpkin Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 20 minutes
- Why I Love It: kid-friendly, beginner-friendly, <30 minutes
The ultimate way to fuel up ahead of trick-or-treating. Tangy buttermilk and warm spices like ginger, clove and nutmeg counteract the sweetness of the canned pumpkin purée.
19. Lemon Ricotta Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 15 minutes
- Why I Love It: <30 minutes, beginner-friendly, special occasion-worthy
Ricotta cheese in the batter ensures fluffy, moist and unbelievably tender pancakes every damn time.
20. Sweet Cherry Buckwheat Pancakes With Bourbon Butter Syrup And Bacon
- Time Commitment: 45 minutes
- Why I Love It: special occasion-worthy, crowd-pleaser
Trading AP flour for buckwheat is an easy way to zhuzh up your usual stack. (Salty-sweet, bourbon-spiked syrup doesn’t hurt either.)
21. Coconut Banana Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 35 minutes
- Why I Love It: beginner-friendly, one bowl, kid-friendly
An edible tropical vacation that’s well worth getting out of bed for. Bonus points for toasting the shredded coconut before sprinkling it onto the pancakes.
22. Fluffiest Blueberry Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 20 minutes
- Why I Love It: beginner-friendly, kid-friendly, <30 minutes
Buttermilk isn’t exactly a pantry staple. Luckily, you can sub in milk and white vinegar.
23. Whole Wheat Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 30 minutes
- Why I Love It: beginner-friendly, kid-friendly
You kids may be wise to you putting their sandwiches on whole-wheat bread instead of white, but we’re betting they’ll be less suspicious of a syrup-soaked short stack.
24. Browned Butter Cinnamon Peach Dutch Baby
- Time Commitment: 30 minutes
- Why I Love It: special occasion-worthy, crowd-pleaser, <10 ingredients
The peaches are baked in nutty, luscious brown butter before being mixed into the batter. Need we say more?
25. Pineapple Upside-down Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 15 minutes
- Why I Love It: special occasion-worthy, kid-friendly, <30 minutes
We don’t know about you, but we’re topping ours with vanilla ice cream *and* maple syrup, thank you very much.
26. Japanese Souffle Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 30 minutes
- Why I Love It: special occasion-worthy, <10 ingredients, kid-friendly
The key to these light-as-cloud delicacies is whipping the egg whites into meringue before adding them to the batter.
27. Low-carb Keto Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 20 minutes
- Why I Love It: low carb, keto-friendly, <30 minutes, gluten free
Using almond flour, coconut flour and monk fruit allulose instead of AP flour and sugar keep the net carbs at a low 3 grams per serving.
28. Chocolate Buckwheat Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 45 minutes
- Why I Love It: special occasion-worthy, beginner-friendly
Dessert for breakfast is always a good idea. Top the pancakes with chopped nuts, raspberries, strawberries or caramel sauce.
29. Rice Krispie Treat Pancakes With Browned Butter Syrup
- Time Commitment: 35 minutes
- Why I Love It: special occasion-worthy, kid-friendly
This breakfast is peak nostalgia. If your kids are thrown off by the idea of brown butter syrup, casually mention there’s a hefty scoop of melted marshmallows in the pancake batter and they’ll be sold.
30. Apple Cinnamon Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 45 minutes
- Why I Love It: special occasion-worthy, kid-friendly
The pancakes are studded with old-fashioned oats, shredded apples and chopped pecans, so feel free to drench your plate in Honeycrisp-brown sugar topping.
31. Crepes With Meyer Lemon Curd And Berries
- Time Commitment: 1 hour
- Why I Love It: special occasion-worthy
If you can’t find Meyer lemons near you, substitute a 50/50 mix of lemon and orange juices instead. (We’d suggest cara cara oranges for extra sweetness.)
32. Buttermilk Pancakes With Chamomile Cream And Gingered Strawberries
- Time Commitment: 30 minutes
- Why I Love It: special occasion-worthy
Pro tip: Make a double (or um, triple) batch of the chamomile-honey whipped cream for galettes, tarts, pies, waffles, cakes and beyond.
33. Ginger-orange Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 35 minutes
- Why I Love It: crowd-pleaser, beginner-friendly
There’s OJ in the pancakes, but the recipe also calls for a touch of orange extract to drive the citrusy flavor home.
34. Healthy Banana Oatmeal Pancakes
- Time Commitment: 20 minutes
- Why I Love It: beginner-friendly, <30 minutes, one bowl, gluten free
All you need to do to prepare the batter is plop all the ingredients in the blender and blitz until combined. In the words of Ina Garten, how easy is that?
35. Black-and-white Pancake Cake
- Time Commitment: minutes
- Why I Love It: kid-friendly, special occasion-worthy
Sure, you can reserve this uber-decadent behemoth for dessert…but we’re betting your kiddos wouldn’t mind having a slice for breakfast.
Victoria Bellafiore
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