Traditional pancake without eggs

This is my favourite recipe for classic pancakes made without eggs.

This easy no egg pancake recipe is great if you want to make an eggless pancake for diet reasons or if you are on a budget and you want to keep the eggs for breakfast omelette or use them for something else (or simply don’t have any eggs!).

The best thing is that this simple pancake recipe with no egg taste as good as the traditional pancake recipe and I promise you won’t even notice there is no egg in it!

Perfect eggless pancakes to serve warm or cold with your choice of your toppings for a delicious breakfast, brunch or afternoon snack!

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Why make this recipe?

• No eggs pancake – can be made to suit a vegan diet
• Budget friendly recipe
• Taste delicious like a traditional pancake
• Easy to make

Can you make pancakes without eggs?

Yes, absolutely you can! I’ve kept the recipe as close as I could to a traditional pancake recipe and I’ve only replaced the egg with water and oil and extra baking powder to keep the flavour and texture of these pancakes very similar to the traditional recipe.

When I was growing up, we often made pancakes without eggs, because we simply didn’t have them or we wanted to keep them for making breakfast omelettes or for baking. We only had fresh eggs in the spring and summer when we got them from my grandmother’s little farm.

We preserved the eggs for the winter and when we were getting low, we had to make a choice about where to use them. Pancakes with eggs were definitely a luxury! We often also made pancakes without milk with just water, and they still tasted great.

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My top tips on making pancake recipe without eggs successfully first time round

Mix the dry ingredients first and then add all the wet ingredients. If the batter feels a little too thick, add 1-2 tablespoons of milk, but only if needed.

Don’t overmix the batter – make it smooth when mixing, but since we are not using any eggs in this recipe you don’t need to whip the batter. An overmixed batter could make the pancakes a little flat (it’s like making muffins – few lumps are absolutely fine).

What makes this pancake recipe without eggs work

• Replacing the egg with vegetable oil makes the batter nice and smooth and the pancakes are not dry
• Adding a little extra baking powder replaces the egg too – it makes the pancakes light and fluffy even without any eggs.
• Using a good quality vanilla essence, extract or a paste makes a real difference to the taste (or using a lemon zest). It’s optional, because these ingredients are quite pricey and not in everyone’s cupboard, but they do make a difference to the flavour of your pancakes.
• Adding a pinch of salt helps to sharpen the flavours and won’t make your pancakes taste bland

Any specialist equipment needed to make eggless pancakes?

You don’t need specialist equipment to fry your pancakes, any large frying pan or a flat griddle will be fine to use as it’s very easy to make pancakes from scratch without eggs.

Since I make pancakes quite often, I’ve treated myself to a special pancake frying pan which, I think makes a difference in how the pancakes rise.

The pancake pan has deeper cavities, which prevents the pancake batter from spreading out and makes them rise a bit higher. This also means that they are thicker and that makes the pancakes lighter.

I think having a specialist pancake pan is totally worth it, as it also helps me to portion the pancakes better into more even rounds.

Time saving tip

You can double or triple this easy recipe for pancakes without eggs and make more pancakes in one go. These eggless pancakes are easy to freeze and they taste great when defrosted, so you can make a lot and freeze them for later.

Pro tip

To make these egg free pancakes evenly cooked, make sure that you heat your frying pan only to low to medium heat.

Too much heat is going to burn the pancakes and they also might be undercooked in the middle. Always use extra butter or vegetable oil to brush the frying pan to make sure that your pancakes won’t stick to the pan.

Ingredients & Possible Substitutions for pancake recipe without egg

Flour

I’ve used all-purpose – plain flour (cake flour) in this recipe, but you could use any low gluten type of fine flour or a mix of different flours.

To keep the pancakes still nice, light and fluffy you could use 2/3 of the total amount of all purpose – plain flour and 1/3 of different flour, such as:

• Spelt Flour
• Buckwheat Flour
• Potato Flour
• Lupin Flour
• Wholemeal Plain (Cake) Flour

Please don’t use self-raising flour for this recipe as we are going to use baking powder as a raising agent and it would be just too much rasing agent together.

Baking powder

I’ve used baking powder for this no eggs pancake recipe, as it’s partly replacing the ‘raise’ you would normally get from the whipped egg whites.

Sugar

This recipe will work with any white granulated or white caster of sugar. I’ve used regular caster sugar, but you can change the flavour of the pancakes by using other types of sugars.

Darker sugars, such as light brown sugar, coconut sugar or similar types of sugar will add colour and flavour to your pancakes.

If you want to use liquid sugars, such as honey, agave or maple syrup, you might need to add a little less milk to compensate for the liquid sugar syrup.

I only use one teaspoon of sugar for this recipe, which I think it’s quite low, but if you want to you can add a little more if needed.

Salt

I always add a tiny pinch of salt to my pancake batter because it helps to bring all the flavours together. I use regular fine table or cooking salt.

You can add anything up to 1/4 teaspoon of salt, depending on your taste buds!

Milk

The traditional recipe for pancakes have regular dairy milk but you can use pretty much any type of milk with this eggless pancake recipe.

I usually use semi-skimmed milk, but whole milk would add extra creaminess if you wanted to. Lactose free or plant based milks are fine too – use the same amount as the recipe states. When I use plant based milk, I prefer to use milk with non-distinct flavours (e.g. no soya milk).

• rice milk
• oat milk
• almond milk
• 50% water & 50% white yoghurt mix
• whole milk
• 50% cream & 50% water or milk

Vanilla essence

Don’t worry if you don’t have any vanilla essence or extract of a paste, but if you do have it, vanilla makes a lovely addition to the flavour of your pancakes. The better quality you have, the better taste.

Lemon Zest

If you are thinking of making these classic pancakes into more of a luxury treat, I recommend you try to add freshly made lemon zest. You can leave the vanilla essence out or add both lemon zest and vanilla essence in to make the flavour extra special.

When I make these eggless pancakes with lemon zest and vanilla essence I often don’t add any extra toppings or perhaps only dusting of icing sugar and a little cream. The flavours are so amazing, you don’t want to overpower them with too many other flavours.

If you are thinking of adding lots of yummy toppings, you can easily leave the lemon zest and vanilla essence out, as you are very unlikely to taste the difference (and you can save yourself a bit of money too).

Vegetable or Sunflower oil

Use any kind of vegetable, sunflower or non-flavoured type of oil.

You can use any flavourless type of oil, that won’t add any extra flavour to your pancakes. If you can avoid it don’t use olive or coconut oil as these have a little too much flavour (although they will work with this recipe too).

Optional flavours

These pancakes are pretty amazing as they are, but you can easily make them different if you use cinnamon, mixed spice or other sweet spices, change the type of sugar, lemon or orange zest or swap regular milk for single cream or yoghurt.

How to replace egg in a pancake recipe

To replace the eggs in this recipe, I’ve used some vegetable oil and a bit of water. There is also an extra baking powder in the recipe to replace the lift (rise) you normally get from whipped egg whites.

If you are not leaving out the egg because of your diet – you don’t mind eggs, but simply don’t have them or want to save them for another recipe, you can also use about 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise to replace the eggs in the recipe.

Apart from the egg replacement, I also find that mayonnaise adds an extra flavour – it makes the pancakes taste more buttery and all round nice especially if you use vanilla extract too.

If you don’t have vegetable oil (or other type of oil) or mayonnaise, you can also use 2 tablespoons of butter to add to the batter (use extra for frying) or just leave out any replacements all together.

The flavour and texture of pancakes made without any egg replacements is fine, especially if you add some nice toppings – you won’t be able to see much difference. You might need to add extra 3 tablespoons of milk to compensate for the oil and water, but the rest of the recipe can stay the same.

Other egg replacements – such as mashed bananas, flax seed, chia seeds etc are not that great for pancakes unless you don’t mind having banana-flavoured pancakes or have seeds in your pancakes.

How to make a traditional pancake recipe without eggs

In a large mixing bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt using a whisk or spatula.

Add the rest of the ingredients – milk, water, vegetable oil and vanilla extract (or lemon zest if using) and use a hand whisk to combine until smooth.

Heat your frying pan (or pancake pan) on low to medium heat and lightly grease it with butter to make sure your pancakes won’t stick.

Spoon or pour your pancake batter on the frying pan either using a large spoon or ladle to measure your batter depending on how large you wan’t your pancakes to be. If using a regular frying pan, leave a space between the pancakes so that they can cook properly.

Cook your pancakes for about 1 minute or until you see bubbles form on the pancake surface and the pancake batter starts to look dry. Gently lift the bottom of one pancake – it should be very lightly brown. If it is, flip or turn the pancake using a non-stick spatula and cook on the other side for another minute or so.

Serve the pancakes hot or cold with your choice of pancake toppings.

Fresh fruit, yoghurt, honey or maple syrup or melted chocolate on top of whipped cream make great toppings, but these pancakes are also delicious on their own with perhaps just a dusting of icing sugar with few drops of fresh lemon juice.

Can I use pancake mix without eggs?

Yes, you can! Most pancake mixes have the dry ingredients already pre-mixed in and you only need to add eggs and milk or water (and sometimes butter).

All you need to do is to replace the egg with the 1 1/2 tablespoon of vegetable oil and 1 1/2 tablespoon of water and follow the rest of the pancake mix instructions.

Pancake mixes are great to have in the kitchen cupboard as they are very easy to use and have a very good shelf-life.

Can I use just egg white or yolk if I don’t have a whole egg for my pancakes?

In short, yes, you can! The good thing about my easy homemade pancakes without eggs is that it’s so versatile.

I often have a leftover egg yolk if I’m making my Egg white omelette for breakfast or have egg whites when I’m making Traditional Vanilla Ice-cream and I always use up what little of egg I have into my pancakes.

Depending on how much egg white or egg yolk I have, I’d use 1 1/2 tablespoon of vegetable oil with one egg white or one egg yolk. If I happen to have a two egg yolks or egg whites from 2 eggs, I’d probably leave the vegetable oil out.

How else you can make this pancake no eggs recipe? Allergies, dietary requirements

This eggless pancake recipe (as it is) is not suitable for a gluten or dairy-free diet. It’s also not suitable for vegan diet, although it’s fine for vegetarian diet. Here is how you can make a few tweaks to this recipe to make it to suit your diet:

Gluten-Free Version

Swap the plain flour for gluten-free plain flour mix and either add 1/2 teaspoon of xantham gum or use it as it is if your gluten-free flour already has a xantham gum mixed in.

Dairy Free Version

Swap the regular milk for your favourite plant based milk, bearing in mind that something like coconut milk will affect the flavour of the pancakes. I usually use rice or oat milk to keep the flavour the same.

Use vegetable oil instead of butter to grease the frying pan.

Vegan Version

Use vegetable oil instead of the butter to grease the frying pan. Swap the dairy milk for dairy free – plant based milk.

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Serving size

This recipe makes approximately 8 medium sized pancakes and the quantity is suitable for 2-3 people.

Can I scale up or down this recipe?

Yes, absolutely – you are welcome to half the recipe by halving all the ingredients. This would make it a perfect portion (4 pancakes) for one person.

This recipe is also perfect to make in large quantities – double or triple.

Again double or triple all the recipe ingredients as required. You can just toggle the measurements of the ingredients on the recipe below and it will show you exactly what you need.

How to serve no egg pancake recipe

These eggless pancakes are great hot or warm straight from the frying pan served with a icing sugar dusting and a little bit of freshly squeezed lemon juice.

These pancakes are also perfectly fine cold (I often take them – with no topping – with me as a snack for day trips out or countryside hikes).

You can always warm them up in the microwave again (before you add your toppings, yoghurt, sauces or fruit).

Toppings & Sauces Ideas

Enjoy topped with different sweet sauces, yoghurt, peanut butter, Nutella, cream, jam or homemade marmalade or other pancake toppings.

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Troubleshooting tips

This is a pretty straightforward recipe, so you shouldn’t come across many problems.

The only thing here to remember is that depending on what type of flour and milk you use you might need to adjust the amount of milk to get the right thickness of the pancake batter.

Can this recipe be made in advance?

Yes, you can make your pancakes with no eggs recipe in advance and then either keep them in the fridge in an airtight container (perhaps stored with baking parchment in between each pancake, so that they don’t stick to each other) for 2-3 days.

How to store eggless pancakes if you have any leftovers

If you do have some leftovers, cover your pancakes with another plate (or place them into an airtight container) and keep them in the fridge for 1-2 days or freeze them on the same day.

I’ve never had them in the freezer for more than 1-3 months, but I’m sure they will probably last a bit longer if needed.

Can you freeze pancakes with no eggs?

Eggless pancakes are suitable for freezing as there is very little that can go off in these and the texture will also stay the same when they are defrosted (and warmed up again).

If you make far too many pancakes or you can’t finish them in a few days, I’d recommend freezing them.

Providing that you’ve frozen your pancakes correctly (and keep your freezer at a good condition) your pancakes without eggs should last up to 3 months in the freezer. They will be probably fine for much longer, but I’ve always eaten them before that time.

Freeze the pancakes straight away after they have cooled down, leaving them on a flat tray (placed in the freezer) and then stack them up with baking or greaseproof paper in between. That way you can easily take them out one by one and have them for breakfast any time you want.

To defrost your pancakes, just take them out the night before you want to use them and defrost them overnight in the fridge. You can also leave them out on a kitchen counter to defrost a room temperature (don’t worry they won’t go off but make sure you eat them on the same day).

You can also defrost pancakes over a saucepan of simmering water or using a microwave or oven (see my notes about heating up your pancakes).

How to re-heat no egg pancakes

I would always heat them up in the microwave or oven (180 Celsius or 350 Fahrenheit for 5 minutes – depending on the quantity) and serve them warm.

Simply microwave the pancakes for 10-20 seconds depending on the quantity. Check after 10 sec and add more time if needed. You can keep them stacked in a 3-4 to prevent them from overheating or burning.

You can also use the oven to re-heat your pancakes by heating the oven to about 180C (350F) for 5 minutes – depending on the quantity and leaving the pancakes to warm through.

If you don’t have access to microwave or oven, you can also warm up pancakes over a saucepan of hot water. I’ve successfully done this when out microwave burned out and I didn’t want to switch the whole oven on to just warm up a couple of pancakes.

To warm up pancakes over hot water, first add some water (1 inch – 3 cm) to a medium size saucepan and place it on a medium heat.

You can get the water boiling if you want, but then lower the heat down to let the water simmer only. Add the pancakes – ideally spaced out) to a bowl or plate and place it on top of the saucepan. If you have something suitable, like a large lid or another light plastic bowl, cover the pancakes to make them warm up quicker.

Let the water to simmer for 5 minutes, by which time the pancakes should be nice and hot. This method will keep the pancakes nice and soft (and not dried out like if you heat them up in the oven).

This blog post was originally written on 17 February 2023 and last updated on 19 February 2023