This gluten free vegan pancakes recipe makes super fluffy eggless pancakes in one bowl, in just minutes. Even if you’re a vegan, you can still enjoy pancakes!
Eggless wonder
As long as I’ve been writing gluten free recipes, I’ve been conscious of whether or not I was including dairy. I know that, although most people who are gluten free can tolerate dairy, some can’t—especially when they first go gluten free. My gluten free son could not tolerate any dairy when he first went gluten free and his body was still healing.
I try to provide as many substitution suggestions and information on the ingredients in my recipes as possible, but they’re never all going to be dairy free—or vegan. But a funny thing happens when you start testing more and more ingredient substitutions.
You get a taste of the challenge, and you become certain that you can do it better than before if you just try one more thing! That’s how this vegan pancakes recipe was born.
Typically, my suggestion for making a recipe eggless is to use a “chia egg” (1 tablespoon chia flour + 1 tablespoon lukewarm water, mixed and allowed to gel). It usually works reasonably well when you only replace up to 2 eggs that way. I do not like Ener-G’s egg replacement. Generally, I’ll stick with a chia egg.
But when I tried chia eggs (and flax eggs—which have a strong, unpleasant taste to me), not only did I not love the flavor, but they really just didn’t work to make fluffy vegan pancakes. And that just wasn’t good enough.
So instead of chia eggs, or a mix of chia eggs and applesauce (I’m telling you, I really tried everything!), I hit pay dirt when I used a combination of applesauce (the pectin provides some structure and it provides moisture), my gum-free gluten free flour blend (my simplest, most incredibly useful blend ever) and xanthan gum itself.
I know you’re going to want to know if you can just use one of my all purpose gluten free flour blends since we’re using xanthan gum anyway. But you really can’t! I tried. I tried it all. And I tell you all about it in the “Ingredients and Substitutions” section just below.
Ingredients and substitutions
Since these pancakes are vegan and gluten free, there isn’t a whole lot that I can imagine you’d need to substitute. But here are a few guesses at what you might ask, and my answers to your unasked questions ;).
Applesauce: I tried these pancakes every which way. Like, really, with every possible substitution (except for adding gluten to them!). I was able to replace the applesauce with an equal amount, by weight, of finely mashed banana (about 1/2 a medium banana).
I served alllll of the varieties to my children without explaining a thing. They could taste the bananas, and 1 out of 3 of them did not care for the switcharoo. But the pancakes were still light and fluffy. So it’s definitely an option.
Flour blend/xanthan gum: Originally, I made these pancakes without xanthan gum completely, and instead with “chia eggs” (and even with “flax eggs,” although I do not care for that substitution but it felt like the right vegan thing to do). With chia eggs and with flax eggs, they were flat—whether I used xanthan gum or not. I really recommend using xanthan gum.
This question is one I know is coming: if you’re adding xanthan gum to the gum-free flour blend, can’t you just use Better Batter or another gum-containing gluten free flour blend? Well, I tried that, too. And the pancakes were gummy and more fragile. Mysteries abound! 🐇🎩 I do not recommend using an all purpose gluten free flour blend with xanthan gum.
Rice flour: You simply cannot make this recipe without rice flour. If you’re not vegan, but need dairy free gluten free pancakes, try my recipe for Paleo Pancakes made with almond flour or my recipe for Coconut Flour Pancakes.
Non-vegan (hey, if someone can ask how to make a banana bread without bananas, someone can ask how to make vegan pancakes non-vegan, right?) If you’re not vegan, try my recipe for Gluten Free Buttermilk Pancakes, or my recipe for DIY Gluten Free Pancakes Mix.
Watch this 1-minute video of me making vegan pancakes.
Just push play ▶ and then make your own! They truly just take minutes.
HELLO! I’m Nicole! I make gluten-free food enjoyable & affordable. If they can make it with gluten, we can make it without. That’s a promise!
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I was so excited to find this recipe to try for our Sunday morning pancakes. I’m fructose intolerant and my daughter has an egg allergy, so I made these with banana instead of apple (no one could taste the banana in them) and with regular milk and butter, but used refined coconut oil for the pan, and they turned out beautifully! What a treat!
We can’t have rice so according to another blogger I subbed for cassava flour. Everything else I kept the same but they are so gummy:( any other flour sub??
April, cassava flour is definitely not a substitute for any other flour or flour blend, as it seems you found out the hard way! I’m afraid that wasn’t very good advice you got. :( I recommend you take a look at my Paleo recipes and my flourless baking recipes, as all of my other recipes that call for a rice-based flour blend (which is most of my other recipes) cannot be made without rice at all.
Made these this morning and wow. They are light, fluffy and very tasty. Thanks Nicole
Awesome, Ken! Thanks for letting us know. So glad you enjoyed them.
Hi Nicole, My copy of classic snacks arrived yesterday i can’t wait to get started, coming from the UK these snacks are things we’ve heard on American TV Shows for years now we can try them!!
That’s awesome, Irene! And be sure to check out the recipe for Digestives. That’s one you should already know quite well, and they are soooooo good! I love that book, but I’m afraid I realized long after it was already published that the index isn’t as useful as it could be since all of the snacks are indexed by their trade names. So if you don’t know the trade name, you’re better off just paging through the particular chapter. Other than that, I love that book and am using it myself today to make Little Debbie-style brownies to bring to a dinner party. :)
I thought I had all your books. How did I miss this one??? Ordering it now! I’ll have to search Amazon to see what else I may have missed.
Haha Linda, for some reason, Gluten Free Classic Snacks (although I think it’s an amazing book) just never took off like the others! Here’s a little bit about each of my cookbooks: https://glutenfreeonashoestring.com/gluten-free-cookbooks/
I just wanted to say thank you for the recipes and for putting all the substitutions in now – I really love that!!. We have multiple allergies in our home and you have my things so much easier for me by giving the substitutions. I really appreciate it. My family loves your recipes!!
That’s so great, Kim! I’m thrilled the suggestions have been useful. :)