Under 30 MinutesFamily-FriendlySmart Treats

Green Pancakes with Spinach Recipe

Hulk Smash! These healthy green pancakes with spinach hide a whopping 1 cup of spinach, and they come out super fluffy. The kids will never know! 💪

Total20 min
Serves10
Calories86
Protein3g
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Stack of fluffy green pancakes made with spinach

Hulk Smash! Introducing this healthy green pancakes with spinach recipe: fluffy, kid-friendly pancakes with a whole cup of spinach blended right in.

The recipe

Green Pancakes with Spinach Recipe

Prep
5 min
Cook
15 min
Total
20 min
Serves
10
Colorful Recipes kitchen-tested
📌 Pin

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Melt the butter at room temperature or microwave it for a few seconds to soften, and set aside.

  2. Preheat a griddle or skillet on low heat and coat it with a little butter.

  3. In a mixing bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt by hand, preferably with a whisk, to make sure they are perfectly combined. Set aside.

  4. Place the spinach in the blender first.

  5. Add the milk, vinegar, melted butter, egg and vanilla extract to the blender.

  6. Blend on the highest setting for about a minute, or until you see no traces of the spinach. We use a Vitamix blender and it works like magic.

  7. Pour the blended mixture over the dry mixture in the mixing bowl.

  8. Stir gently by hand using a spoon or spatula. Do not whisk or overmix. You want the batter to remain somewhat thick.

  9. Using a measuring cup, pour a little less than 1/4 of a cup of batter at a time onto the preheated griddle.

  10. Cook on low heat (lowest setting or 1 at the most) for .

  11. Flip and cook the other side for another .

Notes

I recommend this double-burner griddle to cut the cooking time in half.

The spinach cup should be pretty full, but don't pack the leaves too tightly.

You can add more sugar if you want sweeter pancakes. Otherwise, stick to the 1 tbsp of sugar and rely on your favorite toppings or syrup for added sweetness.

Getting the timing right is critical to keeping the pancakes light green, so lift them gently to make sure they aren't browning. In my experience, about 1.5 minutes on each side on very low heat works best.

Nutrition Facts

10 servings per recipe
Serving size1 pancake
Amount per servingCalories
86
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 3g4%
Sodium 215mg9%
Total Carbohydrate 12g4%
Total Sugars 3g
Protein 3g6%

* The % Daily Value tells you how much a nutrient in a serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

Macro mix

  • 14% Protein 3g
  • 55% Carbs 12g
  • 31% Fat 3g

Protein score

3.5g protein per 100 calories

Treat yourself

Nutrition is an estimate per serving carried over from our original recipe card and will vary with brands and portions. Use it as a guide, not medical advice.

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Behind the recipe

The story, tips & photos

There is a whopping 1 cup of spinach in this recipe. The best part is that the kids have no idea! 😉 As far as they are concerned, these are superhero pancakes with Hulk Smash written all over them. 💪

Enjoy!

Stack of green pancakes with spinach on a plate
Fluffy green spinach pancakes cut to show the soft inside

How to make fluffy spinach pancakes

The fluffiness of these spinach pancakes is surreal. The trick is making sure the spinach is fully blended in a powerful blender with all the wet ingredients, including the apple cider vinegar.

Hulk green pancakes with spinach topped with syrup

Other pancake recipes usually call for buttermilk, which we are skipping in this recipe. Buttermilk is fermented milk, which means the milk sugar, lactose, has been metabolized into lactic acid. The lactic acid reacts with the baking soda in the batter to produce carbon dioxide gas. The gas bubbles are then caught in the batter as it cooks on the griddle, and this is what makes the pancakes fluffy. The workaround in this recipe is apple cider vinegar: its acid reacts with the baking soda in the same way, so don’t skip it.

Healthy green pancakes with spinach and fresh berries

How to keep your green pancakes bright green

The perfect light green color is easy to achieve if you keep an eye on a couple of things:

  1. Fill a cup with fresh spinach. Make sure it’s a full cup, but don’t pack the leaves too tightly.
  2. Blend the spinach with all the wet ingredients in a very powerful blender to make certain it’s completely blended and no traces of the spinach leaves are visible.
  3. Do not skip the apple cider vinegar.
  4. Do not overcook! Keep a close eye on the pancakes to make sure they don’t brown.
Light green pancakes with spinach on a griddle

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