Made with Greek yogurt, oats, whole wheat flour, and not much else. Simple, wholesome, and satisfying.
Healthy whole wheat pancakes are difficult to master because pancakes are meant to be light, soft, and fluffy. All things that whole wheat flour isn’t. However, finding the right balance of ingredients to make your pancakes whole-grain AND fluffy isn’t impossible. It just took me a few (um, several) tries.
I’ve never met a pancake that I didn’t like.
Correction. I’ve never met a fluffy buttermilk pancake that I didn’t like. I have, however, met several flimsy-dense-flavorless-whole-wheat pancakes in my life. And they’re quite a disappointment to say the least.
The chocolate chip version of this recipe is our favorite. Though I can never say no to a classic, maple-syrup drenched whole wheat pancake.
Making these pancakes is actually really simple. There’s no crazy ingredients you’ve never heard of. Nothing requiring you to spend $15 on a crazy sugar substitute you can’t pronounce. Just plain everyday ingredients like whole wheat flour, egg, quick oats, milk, and yogurt. The pancake batter is flavored with cinnamon and vanilla extract and is very lightly sweetened with brown sugar. Only 2 Tablespoons of brown sugar for the entire recipe. Not too shabby, right?
Let’s just discuss how thick these guys are. You have the baking powder to thank. Not too much baking powder so that your pancakes taste like chemicals, but just enough to give them a little lift. Ok, a lot of lift. And I’m lovin’ it!
The addition of oats adds fiber to your pancakes, as well as gives them a hearty, satisfying texture. The oats bulk up the batter without adding any unnecessary sugar or fat. You know when you mix oats with water/milk, they bulk right up? The same goes with this pancake batter. I always add a touch of oats to my batters. Oh and don’t worry, these pancakes won’t taste oat-y. If you prefer to skip the oats, try these whole wheat pancakes instead.
Greek yogurt adds a slight protein punch to the batter. It also keeps things on the lower fat side. I love using Greek yogurt in my healthier recipes; it’s like a softness inducing miracle ingredient. Yogurt also brings so much moisture to the resulting pancake.
These whole wheat oatmeal pancakes are:
- Soft
- Thick
- Healthy
- Whole-grain
- Moist
- Really, really good
These whole wheat pancakes are not:
- Made with weird ingredients
- Boring
- Flavorless
- Diet-busting
- Dry as cardboard
- Hard as bricks
Just making sure we’re clear here.
Healthy Whole Wheat Oatmeal Pancakes
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 7-8 pancakes
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Made with Greek yogurt, oats, whole wheat flour, and not much else. Simple, wholesome, and satisfying! Recipe may be doubled.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (123g) whole wheat flour or white whole-wheat flour (spoon & leveled)
- 1/2 cup (43g) old-fashioned whole rolled oats or quick oats (not instant)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 large egg or 2 egg whites
- 1 cup (240ml) milk*
- 2 Tablespoons packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup (63g) Greek yogurt*
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- optional: 1/2 cup add-ins like chocolate chips or fruit
Instructions
- In a large bowl, preferably with a pour spout, toss the flour, oats, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon together. Set aside.
- In another large bowl, whisk the egg and milk together. Whisk in the brown sugar and yogurt until no lumps remain. Whisk in the vanilla until combined. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently whisk to combine. Make sure there are no patches of dry flour at the bottom of the bowl. The batter is thick and a few lumps are fine. Gently fold in any mix-ins you prefer.
- Heat a griddle or large skillet over medium heat. Coat generously with butter or nonstick cooking spray. Once it’s hot, drop/pour a heaping 1/4 cup of batter on the griddle. Cook until the edges look set and you notice holes in the pancake’s surface around the border, about 2 minutes. Flip and cook the other side until cooked through, about 1–2 more minutes. Coat griddle/skillet with butter or nonstick spray again, if needed, for each batch of pancakes.
- Keep pancakes warm in a preheated 200°F (93°C) oven until all pancakes are cooked. Serve pancakes immediately with toppings of choice.
- Cover and store leftover pancakes in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: Pancakes freeze well up to 3 months. Reheat frozen pancakes in the microwave. Or you can reheat frozen pancakes in a 350°F (177°C) oven. Place pancakes on a lined baking sheet and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 6–8 minutes or until defrosted and warm.
- Can I make the batter the night before? No, I don’t recommend it. Baking powder is activated once wet. You can, however, mix the dry ingredients and wet ingredients together and keep them separate and covered in the refrigerator until the morning.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Electric Griddle, Griddle Pan, or Shallow Skillet/Pan
- Milk: Recipe tested with both skim and vanilla almond milks. Soy milk, 1%, 2%, buttermilk, or rice milk are OK.
- Yogurt: Recipe tested with plain 0% Greek yogurt. Regular yogurt, any milk fat and your choice of flavor, is OK.
Keywords: whole wheat oatmeal pancakes, whole wheat pancakes
THANK YOU FOR THIS RECIPE, SALLY! I have been searching for a good whole wheat pancake recipe for years and I’m so excited that the search is over! 🙂 I LOVED these. I added frozen mixed berries and they came out perfectly. My whole family loved it. Sally to the rescue yet again! I just wish I had tried these earlier!
Been looking for a healthy pancake recipe for a while now. These turned out perfect and fluffy!!! My 18 month old loved them too!Thanks!
I used to make some oatmeal pancakes, but they were never fluffy… So I tried this ones today, adding half banana… And they have been the best ones so far! Thank you so much for sharing, can’t wait to make it with chocolate chips!
These were fabulous! I added chocolates chips to the batter and served them with fresh picked strawberries + maple syrup. Yumm!!
These pancakea are gorgeous! I made them for brunch with some friends today, and they went perfectly with my homemade raspberry white chocolate ‘jam’!
Regular pancakes I can never stop eating and feel bloated afterwards. But these were actually filling as if i had a full meal! We enjoyed them very much 🙂
WOW…I was drawn to this recipe first by the gorgeous pictures, and then I read everyone’s comments and HAD to try them (I’ve never seen so many positive comments on a recipe before!) This is by far the BEST pancake recipe (healthy or not) I’ve ever made . I was forced to use spelt flour and honey instead of WW and sugar, since I was too eager to make these rather than go to the store first. But they were fantastic, and the recipe was much larger than I thought (made 15 pancakes!!). I can’t imagine them tasting any better, but will try the brown sugar and WW flour next time anyway! Can’t wait to try some more of your recipes!
NICE! So glad you love these, Megan. I should try them with spelt flour sometime!
Hi Sally,
I made these on the weekend and they are A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. So flavourful, light and fluffy and they turned out perfectly. You would never know they were a healthy pancake too. I also made your honey whole wheat no knead bread – fantastic! Thank you so much for your wonderful recipes.
Made them this morning. They were amazing! I used almond milk and added frozen blueberries 🙂
They came out perfect! Love them!
delicious pancakes. made directly as stated. very dense and filling. thanks sally!
I tried so many recipes for healthy pancakes but none came close to this. Instant hit with everyone. Flavor & texture are amazing.
These are the first healthy pancakes I ever tried to make and they came out sooo well! 🙂 I made them on Monday for the first time and I’ve been having them for breakfast since then. I’m obsessed – I don’t think I’ll ever want to eat anything else for breakfast. I love experimenting with them and changing up the extras. For example, today I added sliced almonds and cocoa powder. These pancakes are also the first breakfast dish that actually fills me up and doesn’t leave me hungry after two hours.
I think this is the longest comment I’ve ever written on a blog, haha – can you see how obsessed I am? 😀
wow! fantastic! I’m a pancake snob and love making pancakes from scratch for my family – found your site and this recipe through a Google search, amazing pancakes…two comments: it definitely is better to make a smaller pancake w this recipe – the bigger ones were little more challenging to manage and flip. I used almond milk, and added blueberries to the batter – delicious! I also added one item: about a tablespoon of lemon juice as I mixed the dry and wet ingredients together – that makes fluffy light pancakes even fluffier! This is my new favorite recipe…thanks for sharing!
Thank you for the great recipe. Just made them for me and my family. Added some chocolate and ate with honey. Yum yum yum.
Just made them! With pieces of green apple, and ate them with a tablespoon of dulce de leche. Delicious!! They’re great, fluffy and will make a great breakfast tomorrow. From Argentina, a huge THANKS to you!
Seriously the best pancakes i’ve ever made and tasted!!!! Thank you so much! I added blueberries to mine, delicious! Excuse me while I go look at your other recipes now!
Thanks again!
Honestly, I tried these for the first time yesterday (and left overs today) and they were some of the best pancakes I’ve ever had. I used what I had in the house, so I substituted with regular flour, and light yogurt, but I definitely want to try the healthier option next round. I’m definitely keeping this recipe! Thanks SO much, they were DELICIOUS!!
Just made this pancakes this morning for breakfast, and not lying, these were THE BEST pancakes I have ever had ever. Better than White Spot, better than IHOP. Just amazing!
I tried these pancakes a couple of weeks ago, and I cannot get enough of them! i make them almost every weekend and I doubt I will ever get tired of them. I love the oats in them, I thought that was a very nice touch. These pancakes are practically heaven. Thanks so much for the recipie!
Hmmmm mmI.mmmmm! Lickity split goodness! I’m eating these luscious pancakes as im writing! And they’re every bit as good as you promised ( actually betrer!) And I can’t believe they’re wholesome too! Thanks for another winner recipe!
These are great! I added in a banana and they still came out soft and fluffy. No complaints from my husband either who usually shies away from things made with whole wheat flour.
Great tips and great ingredients. I loved the taste and texture. Only problem was I had a hard time only eating two.
I make these pancakes at least once a week (sometimes I make a double batch to freeze – obsessed much?). I absolutely love them topped with fresh berries or a berry compote. My husband will often ask if I will make him “my famous pancakes” and I always reply that “they’re Sally’s pancakes” haha. Thank you so much for this recipe!!!
Wow… these are amazing! I love this recipe. I made them yesterday morning with chocolate chips. They satisfied my pancake craving…while being so much healthier and filling. I will definitely be making these again… Thank you!!
These are light and fluffy and tasty, for years I have been making my version which tasted good but not that fluffy
thank you definitely keeping as my recipe for whole wheat pancakes.
I have made these for the past two weekends and they are delicious! Just enough sweet, just enough fluff, just enough texture and I even left out any mix-ins. Halved it and makes the perfect amount for two hearty breakfasts, 4 pancakes total. Thanks, Sally!
Just made these and I have to say – Best pancakes ever!! I used cottage cheese because I was out of greek yogurt and they were still perfect! Of course I made the chocolate chip version. Thank you so much for this delicious recipe
Sally,
These are amazing! I just made them for breakfast and both myself and boyfriend really enjoyed them! So flavourful that indeed maple syrup wasn’t even needed. I chopped fresh strawberries and bananas on top 🙂
I have been trying out different three ingredient pancakes too and I love that we can eat healthier versions of recipes.
I just made these for some pre-skiing breakfast! I used regular oats instead (so I just let the mixture sit a little longer to soak up the liquid), added flax seeds, a dash of pumpkin pie spice, and blueberries and then cooked in coconut oil. These were perfect, fluffly, and delicious– Everyone seriously enjoyed them! We have a new favorite!
Hi, thanks for sharing this recipe. I have made them twice and I love them! I use berry flavored quick oats and it makes the pancakes smells like berries 🙂