Protein-Packed Pancakes for You & Your Kids
As the proud father of five kids, I believe I can shed some light to other parents about getting them out the door every morning with a high protein breakfast. Nothing makes me happier than to see my kids gobbling down a healthy protein-packed breakfast, and we all know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It gets those brain cells firing and energizes them. One of my favorite recipes is high protein pancakes.
My kids joke around with me that I have probably made more pancakes than any other father in the world. I have to agree that I must be close at this point, unless there is a father who’s a cook at a pancake house.
My pancakes have always been high protein pancakes as I add egg whites and a scoop of MaxPro Elite Vanilla Ice Cream protein to every batch. It’s really a very simple recipe, or more accurately, a recipe change that packs the pancakes with high quality protein. Take whatever base mix you are using, whether it is the basic Aunt Jemima or healthier buckwheat mix and make some simple adjustments.
The recipe will typically call for 1 to 1½ cups of water or milk. I tend to use milk instead of water because every ounce of milk has one gram of protein. But here’s the real trick: if the recipe calls for 1½ cups of water or milk, I will use 6 eggs (4 egg whites and 2 whole eggs), which will be about 1 cup of fluid, then I add ½ cup of milk to make my total of 1½ cups. More or less milk will give you control over how thick your pancakes are.
You can also give your frying pan a quick spin or jiggle it around to get the batter to flow outward. This will cook it quicker and make the pancake a little thinner if preferred.
I also highly recommend using butter in place of any kind of oil, just add a nice dollop to coat the pan (you can always add more in between pancakes). This will make the pancakes easy to swallow and help them from sticking to the pan while adding essential fatty acids.
I have often given shameless plugs to the VitaMix blender in my column. It’s a great blender and it enables you to add a ton of nutritious ingredients to whatever you are trying to liquefy. So, I add all my pancake recipe ingredients with MaxPro, eggs, butter, etc. into my blender and let it blend for 30 seconds. Sometimes I add a few apple slices or berries for some extra flavor. You can even get away with a handful of baby spinach as long as you don’t add too much.
So, give protein-packed pancakes a try the next time you are making pancakes for the kids. They taste awesome and my kids gobble them up. Butter them up and pour on the syrup (a sugar-free syrup even) and they will love them.
By Joe Wells, CEO Max Muscle Nutrition