You’ll Love These Easy and Healthy Cinnamon Banana Oat Pancakes

If you’re like me, there’s some days where you just crave something bready and sweet, like pancakes. These Cinnamon Banana Oat Pancakes lets you enjoy comfort food without resorting to a processed pancake mix or refined flour. In other words, you can fuel your body well while still enjoying something that’s delicious and familiar. The bananas in this recipe give it the flavor of banana bread. It’s so delicious that even my kids enjoy pancakes for supper (and any leftovers the next morning for breakfast).

What About Leftovers?

Leftovers are not a problem with these pancakes. I love to make extra so that the kids and I can both eat on them for a few days. They are good in the fridge for about 5 days, or you can throw them in the freezer. As long as they’re wrapped up well, they should last in the freezer for several months. Frozen pancakes are super easy to thaw out for a quick meal. Either way, you can heat them up in the oven or in the microwave.

What Kind of Blender Is Best?

As long as you have a good blender that will mix everything thoroughly, you should be good. We absolutely love our Vitamix. We had a ninja before and kept having to buy replacement blades. It worked fine until we started using the blender daily, for things like smoothies. If you use your blender multiple times a week, a Vitamix is a great option. I really like that it has a “soup” feature that makes hot soups directly in the blender. It’s also great for smoothie bowls and for grinding up oats into oat flour to use in recipes.

How Do You Eat Healthy When You’re Feeding a Family?

I believe this is a careful balancing act. There are times when I fix my whole family things like Cinnamon Banana Oat Pancakes and add some eggs and sausage or bacon for extra protein. There are other times when I let my daughter mix up Bisquick and chocolate chips while my husband and I eat healthier pancakes or even roasted veggies and chicken. Usually, I try to feed the whole family the same base meal and change up the sides. Just because my husband and I are eating healthy on a regular basis doesn’t mean my kids can’t have something like apple sauce or biscuits as their side. A few extra carbs or less veggies isn’t necessarily bad.

At the same time, our goal as a family is to be healthy and fit together. What good is it if I’m making healthy changes and feeding my kids bad food that doesn’t fuel their bodies as they grow? There are definitely some things I pretty much never buy anymore, like foods with colors, sugary cereal, regular granola bars, other highly processed snacks, sweet tea, and soft drinks. There are so little health benefits from foods like these, I try to stock our pantry with things that are better for our entire family. Trying new recipes also helps. Discovering things like smoothie bowls and healthy pancakes makes eating healthy just a little bit easier.

What About Toppings for Cinnamon Banana Oat Pancakes?

What you put on your pancakes is almost as important as what you put in them. If you’re covering it with regular chocolate chips and sugary syrup, it’s pretty much a dessert. At the same time, you can pick more natural options for syrup, like maple syrup or honey. If you decide to do a chocolate chip pancake treat, there are even healthier options for chocolate chips. Some of my favorites are Bake Believe or Lily’s Chocolate Chips. You can also try different berries or nuts or even yogurt.

Are Cinnamon Banana Oat Pancakes Healthy?

In many ways, Cinnamon Banana Oat Pancakes are a healthy choice. Because they use oats as the base, you are completing avoiding processed flours. The bananas give it a sweet flavor, so it doesn’t need added sugar. At the same time, it’s important to keep in mind that even this pancake recipe contains carbs. You can balance it by adding proteins or even veggies on the side. Something like a veggie omelette would be a great way to do this.

It really depends on what your goals are. For me, enjoying a comfort food that has more natural, less processed ingredients helps me stay on track. If you’re trying to lose a bunch of weight, eating pancakes for dinner every night might not be the best way to accomplish your goals. I love having this recipe in the mix, to make once or twice a month, when I’m craving pancakes. I like my kids getting a healthier meal than processed pancakes. It does feel incredible to eat something so delicious like pancakes and not have to compromise by adding in processed sugars and flours. If that’s important to you, than this is a valuable recipe to have on hand.

Breakfast for Supper

As I’m posting this recipe, I’m sharing it as one of our meals of the month. Who doesn’t love breakfast for supper? As I mentioned earlier, having leftovers to heat up for breakfast afterwards is a bonus. As a family, I think we do pancakes more as a dinner than a breakfast. I grew up eating pancakes every Saturday morning. Now, I love making new pancake memories with my kids. It’s one of those few meals nobody complains about. All 6 of us are good with pancakes for breakfast, especially when there’s also bacon and cheesy eggs. I truly hope Cinnamon Banana Oat Pancakes becomes a favorite in your home too!

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