I make these easy banana-oatmeal pancakes whenever I want a healthy breakfast in minutes

• When I want a healthy but sweet breakfast, I make Ambitious Kitchen’s easy banana-oatmeal pancakes.

• You just dump the ingredients into a blender to make the batter, then pour them into a hot griddle.

• After a couple of minutes on each side, they’re done.

On a recent trip to Hawaii, I stopped into Cafe Haleiwa on Oahu’s North Shore on my way to a surf lesson (a first for me).

While ordering my coffee — I wasn’t about to eat a heavy breakfast before such an athletic activity — I noticed a waitress carrying plates heaped with thick, golden pancakes to multiple tables.

Later, I found out they’re apparently the banana pancakes Jack Johnson wrote a song about.

Sadly, I didn’t have time to get back to the North Shore to try them, but I had the song lodged in my head for the rest of the trip. And since getting home, I’ve had banana pancakes on my brain.

So I turned to what’s become a go-to recipe to fulfill my craving: Ambitious Kitchen’s healthy banana-oatmeal pancakes.

They’re almost effortless to make, since all the ingredients are poured into a blender, and they’re delicious while still being healthy. I make them whenever I want a sweet, but light, breakfast in a pinch.

Whenever the bananas in my fruit bowl look sad, or I want a healthy but sweet breakfast, I like to make these banana-oatmeal pancakes from Ambitious Kitchen.

You can find the full recipe, from Ambitious Kitchen’s Monique, here.

On her blog, Monique says she came up with the recipe in 2019, and that her “mission in life is to become the Queen of Healthy Pancakes.” Based on this recipe, I’d say her mission was accomplished. And according to her Instagram, Monique has a cookbook coming out in fall 2024 with more recipes. (Monique did not respond to Insider’s request for comment.)

Back to my favorite pancakes, they are indeed healthy without any butter, flour or sugar, and still taste delicious. Though admittedly, I like to serve them doused in maple syrup.

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Most of the ingredients are pantry staples, and there are barely any steps to the recipe because everything goes in the blender.

Here’s what you’ll need for the batter for nine pancakes total (approximately three servings):

• 2 bananas, preferably medium ripe (I’ve used almost completely brown bananas, and found it added more sweetness)

• 2 eggs

• 1.5 cups of rolled oats

• 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (I sometimes use almond-coconut milk, which adds a hint of more flavor)

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 2 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Besides that, you’ll need olive oil on hand for cooking, but, according to the Ambitious Kitchen recipe, coconut oil or vegan butter are fine alternatives.

Step one: Literally, throw everything into a blender.

What’s great about this recipe is that there are no real steps to making the batter. It’s pretty much one and done.

Then, blitz the ingredients in the blender for 30 seconds to a minute to create your batter. Let it sit while you heat your griddle or pan.

The recipe calls for blending on a high setting, but mine — a hybrid food processor/blender from Cuisinart — doesn’t have that capability. So I use the food-processor function to break up the ingredients more before switching to purée mode to create a smooth batter.

To check the mixture is smooth before pouring it into my pan, I turn off the blender and lift some up with a spoon and let it fall back into the blender; if there are any clumps, I’ll blitz it for a few more seconds.

Once your griddle is hot, switch to medium heat and add a thin coating of oil. Let the oil heat up, then carefully pour 1/3-cup servings of your batter to make your pancakes.

Full disclosure, I was a little too liberal with my olive oil, but I wiped some out of the pan and found that worked well, even if some pooled in one area of ​​the griddle.

Cook each pancake for 2-4 minutes before flipping it over.

The recipe suggests waiting for the pancakes to “slightly puff up and you see a few bubbles along the edges.”

I tend to adjust the timing based on how the pancakes are looking, gently lifting the edge with a spatula to check the color underneath. If it’s a golden brown, that means the pancake is ready to be flipped; if it’s dark brown, it’s cooking a little too fast and you’ll want to lower the heat. Turn the heat down to medium-low if that’s the case.

Flip your pancakes over with a spatula to let them cook on the other side. Repeat with the rest of the batter.

The recipe says to wipe your griddle clean each time and add oil before cooking the next pancakes in your batch, but I’d added enough oil to my pan at the start that it didn’t affect my results in this case.

I’m also a lazy cook and hate to make more work for myself, so I generally avoid wiping out the pan when transferring ingredients unless I really have to.

As I made the pancakes, I kept them warm on a plate under foil. Then I piled four pancakes on a plate — the recipe suggests three per serving, but I was hungry — and topped them with banana and maple syrup.

While I topped my pancakes with remaining banana and maple syrup (of course), the Ambitious Kitchen recipe shows them adorned with pecans.

I don’t usually have pecans at home, but in the past, I’ve added chopped walnuts, a dollop of Greek yogurt, and honey — and would highly recommend this combo. You could add any other fruit you like, too.

A sprinkle of cinnamon is also a nice touch, and adds a hint of sweetness.

The pancakes have a nice thickness and fluffiness to them, and just the right amount of sweetness.

I can never seem to achieve the appropriate thickness with regular pancakes when I make them at home, but I’ve made these a few times now and found they turn out to be a good size every time.

For a healthy recipe, they don’t necessarily taste like it — a pro in my book! If someone made these pancakes for you, you’d never guess they were made without sugar. For me, they have just the right amount of sweetness, thanks to the ripe bananas. And I find you can’t taste the oatmeal at all. It’s really like eating dessert for breakfast, except an hour later you can do a workout if you want.

Despite feeling like a decadent breakfast, they’re light — fluffy on the inside, without being too cakey. And they surrender beautifully to a fork while holding their shape, no knife necessary.

I’m a big believer in leftovers, and always thinking about tomorrow’s breakfast. I found these pancakes keep well overnight in the refrigerator under foil. You can also freeze them.

Whatever I’m making, whether it’s my grandmother’s Greek orzo or Mary Berry’s scones, I like to make sure I have leftovers. Thankfully, these pancakes are good to eat days or even months after.

I’ve frozen these pancakes before, but also found refrigerating them on a plate wrapped in foil works well as long as you eat them a day or two after you’ve made them. I reheated my refrigerated pancakes the day after I made them in the microwave (I’ve found 40 seconds to a minute will do the trick), and they tasted almost as good as the day before.

If you’re freezing them, Ambitious Kitchen has a clever tip to keep the pancakes apart: Lay them out on a baking sheet, pop them in the freezer for a half hour, then freeze them, stacked, in a container for up to three months. You can reheat them in the microwave; depending on your microwave, it should take 30 seconds to a minute to get them warm.

However you eat them, enjoy — and try to get Jack Johnson’s “Banana Pancakes” out of your head. I’m still working on it.

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