Fluffy Gluten Free Banana Pancakes with Buckwheat Flour

Yes, really, fluffy vegan gluten free pancakes without eggs! And even if you do eat wheat flour, trust that these are actually good but I, too, eat gluten. So if you just feel like trying something new, or need to eat to eat gluten free, they’re great either way. Bonus, these are totally sugar free and sweetened only with banana.

The bananas are key in this recipe. They hold everything together so multiple flours aren’t needed, and make the vegan recipe possible. Keep in mind that they make the pancakes rather sweeter than usual, so you can use less maple syrup, or leave it off altogether.

I think topping them with something a little tart, like a blueberry sauce, is excellent, as is nut or seed butter. I usually serve these banana pancakes with extra banana, cinnamon, and a touch of maple syrup. You can see that these are also topped with a few lilac blossoms, which are edible, and delicious (you could also top these with lilac syrup)!

This recipe uses only buckwheat flour, no blends or starches needed. You’ll need just 8 ingredients in total, including vanilla, and everything is mixed in one bowl.

Ingredient Notes and Substitutions

• Buckwheat flour: I haven’t tried making these with any alternative flours to the buckwheat. I don’t recommend messing around with that unless you’re very used to working with gluten free flours, and please don’t sub coconut flour.
• Milk: any thinner non-dairy milk is fine – think almond milk, cashew milk, or oat milk. If dairy is no problem for you then feel free to use dairy milk.
• Add-ins: consider this a base recipe that you can add to. Extra spices like cinnamon or nutmeg, chocolate chips, blueberries, and so on.
• Oil: this can be any light-tasting oil, or something like melted butter. I don’t recommend omitting the oil as it will cause the pancakes to stick during cooking.

Recipe Notes

There are a handful of ways to make pancakes that are both vegan and gluten free. One is to use a mix of multiple different flours and starches, which I don’t love as I prefer to keep the number of ingredients as low as possible. Another method, utilised here, is to add a natural binding agent into an integral part of the pancakes. Bananas!

Any type of frying pan will work. If it tends to be sticky on a good day, make sure you add enough oil to prevent this as gluten free pancakes can be a bit trickier to flip. I use a well-seasoned cast iron pan.

As with wheat-based pancakes, you flip them when you see bubbles forming around the edges. They do brown and cook quite quickly due to the banana adding a higher natural sugar content, so keep an eye on them. The exterior is almost caramel-like and very nice.

How to Store

Storage: keep leftover pancakes in a sealed container at room temperature for a couple of days, or refrigerate for longer. They’re a good little snack cold, too.

Freezing: these will freeze well, stored in an airtight container, for up to three months. Thaw as you usually would for pancakes.

About Buckwheat

This is my favourite gluten-free flour. Despite the name, buckwheat is actually a seed, so the flour is totally grain free and ideal if you’re celiac or otherwise can’t have wheat. It has a really nice flavour, especially in combination with banana and cinnamon, and works well in pancakes. It’s cheap, too. Win, win.

Buckwheat tends to be pretty widely available and can often be found even when other types of flour might be in short supply. Depending on where you live, you might be able to get both light or whole grain buckwheat flour. Both work well for these pancakes.

You can make your own buckwheat flour by grinding buckwheat groats into a fine flour using a high speed food processor or dry-ingredient safe blender (or a mill, of course). This will be whole grain flour.

Expert Tips

• Sift baking soda: because the batter is mixed in one bowl and dry ingredients are added second, you can get some pieces of baking powder or soda that will be unpleasant later. If you have lumps in either, sift them when adding to the batter.
• Mix away: because this is gluten-free, you can whisk without fear of over-mixing. Don’t whisk again after the first time, though, as you might knock some of the air out from the leavening agents.
• Blend the bananas: if you don’t like the possibility of banana chunks, use an immersion or standing blender to mix the wet ingredients until very smooth.
• Measure by weight: it’s always more accurate and I highly recommend using weights over cup measurements, but for gluten-free recipes it is particularly helpful as the density of flour varies so much between brands. If you’re grinding your own buckwheat flour, you must weigh it for this recipe.

More Gluten Free Recipes

Almond Flour Brownies
Buckwheat Trail Mix Cookies
Ultimate Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies
Gluten Free Date Squares

If you make these Gluten Free Banana Pancakes or any other vegetarian breakfast recipes on Occasionally Eggs, please take a moment to rate the recipe and leave a comment below. It’s such a help to others who want to try the recipe. For more OE, follow along on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest, purchase the Occasionally Eggs cookbook, or subscribe for new posts via email.

This post was originally published in August 2015. It has been updated with new pictures, text, and improvements to the recipe as of April 2020.