Vegan Spinach Pancakes

Vegan spinach pancakes are simple, tasty and gloriously green and made with just 3 ingredients. Fill with your favourite spread, veggies or salad for a nutritious meal.

We love how spinach packed and nutritious these vegan crepe style pancakes are. They’re a great way to get plenty of greens, without having to munch on a load of leaves!

They’re also a great way to get spinach into kids. My nephew not only remembered having these pancakes on a visit a year ago, but actually specially requested them on his latest visit!  Who could forget these bright green pancakes.

All you need to make these pancakes is:

• Spinach
• Plain flour 
• Soy milk

The process is super simple. Just whizz all the ingredients up in a blender, until you have a smooth, bright green batter. The consistency should be like cream, you want it to be slightly thick but still pourable so it can spread itself out in the pan. 

To cook your pancakes, heat a small amount of oil in a pancake pan or well seasoned skillet. When it’s hot, pour in some batter into the centre, and lift and tilt the pan to swirl the batter around to fill the whole pan. 

When the top surface of the pancake is cooked, loosen it and flip it over with a spatula. Cook for another minute until the other side is lightly browned. 

Then repeat with the rest of the batter until you’ve used it up. Depending on the size of your pan this makes between 4-6 pancakes. 

We usually serve the pancakes fresh out of the pan. But you can also stack them on a plate, and either cover with a tea towel or pop them in the oven at low temperature until you are ready to serve.

Top tip for cooking pancakes! Be patient when heating up your pan and the oil. With a fully heated pan your first pancake is much less likely to get stuck to the pan! 

Variations and substitutions

Here are our ingredients tips and ideas for how you can vary this recipe.

Use frozen spinach instead of fresh

The flavour won’t be so fresh tasting., but frozen spinach also works. Use half the amount and gently defrost it before blending. If necessary, adjust the batter thickness with a bit more flour or a splash more plant milk.

Try other greens instead of spinach

We love these with wild garlic too. Got some sad looking salad greens that need using up? Rescue them by blending them up into these pancakes! 

Different types of flour

We’ve also made these with wholemeal flour, you’ll want to add a splash more soy milk to compensate for the additional liquid that wholemeal flour absorbs. We’ve not tried with gluten free flours, so let us know if you experiment! 

Other plant milks

We find soy milk to work best in thin crepe style pancakes, as it has a good binding effect. If you do try other vegan milks, you may find the pancakes don’t hold together as well.

Oil 

For pancakes we usually use sunflower oil, or another neutral tasting oil like rapeseed (canola) oil. But you can also use more flavourful oils like coconut or olive oil. For extra flavour you can also use vegan butter to cook the pancakes. Just let it melt and spread it around the pan, before pouring in the batter. 

Spices or seasonings

You could enhance the flavour by adding a bit of salt or pepper into the batter. Some turmeric, ginger or garlic powder would also be a nice addition.

Filling ideas

Once you’ve made your spinach crepes, the fun of filling them begins! Here’s a few ideas of what to serve with them: 

• Some tangy vegan garlic and herb cheese
• Strips of fried smoked tofu
• A generous spread of homemade cannellini bean hummus 
• Fresh, herby salad
• Sautéed garlic mushrooms
• Or our richly flavoured vegan mushroom pate
• Fried onions (what doesn’t taste better with the addition of fried onions!)
• Mixed roasted veggies

We hope you enjoy these vegan spinach pancakes! Try our other easy recipes with just a few ingredients:

Red Lentil Flatbread

3 Ingredient Chocolate Cookies

Chickpea Flour Tofu