It doesn’t matter if you’re just out of milk or avoiding any milk or dairy products and you want to make some delicious Pancakes without Milk of any kind, we have the easiest recipe for you! You’ll get a stack of fluffy, tender, golden brown pancakes in no time with this incredibly simple recipe.
My family agrees that pancakes are one of the best breakfast recipes to have. It doesn’t even have to be the weekend and my kids still want some pancakes. I can’t argue when they’re this simple to make. Serve a batch of great tasting pancakes with a glass of orange juice and some fresh fruit and breakfast is served.
Making pancakes from scratch doesn’t have to be hard. It can be as easy as a boxed pancake mix, especially when you use this simple recipe for the perfect weekend breakfast.
Why You’ll Love This Breakfast Recipe
- Dairy free pancakes for everyone using just basic ingredients, nothing fancy needed
- Easy base recipe to work off of to make fun variations and flavored pancakes
- Simple recipe to double or triple to make a big batch to feed more people
- Just need a frying pan, mixing bowl, and measuring cups
Ingredients Needed
Here are the essential pantry staple ingredients you need to use to make some pancakes without milk.
- Water
- Oil
- Eggs
- White Sugar
- Flour
- Baking powder
- Vanilla extract
How to make Pancakes Without Milk
Just like any other pancake recipe, these steps are super simple.
- In a small mixing bowl, combine your dry ingredients: flour and baking powder.
- In a separate bowl combine your wet ingredients and then combine them together with the dry ingredients.
- Mix until combined, but do not overmix. Some lumps are okay in the pancake batter.
- Once you’ve mixed the batter, heat your frying pan up over medium-high heat.
- Spray the pan with nonstick spray if you want to use it. Otherwise you can use dairy free melted butter if avoiding dairy, or just a tad bit of oil. You just need a little something so the pancakes don’t stick to the hot griddle.
- Cook your pancakes for around 2-3 minutes on one side. This will vary depending on the size of your pancakes. Once the bubbles in the pancakes start to pop, it’s usually time to flip the pancakes. Again, watch your pancakes as they cook because it will vary how long your pancakes take.
- Flip the pancakes and cook on the other side until they’re golden brown on both sides.
- Serve and enjoy.
Storage
Leftover pancakes should be kept in an airtight container or some kind of zip top plastic bag. Wait for the pancakes to cool down completely before trying to store them.
If keeping them for just 2-3 days, place the cooled pancakes in your container or bag and keep them in the refrigerator.
If you want to keep your cooked pancakes for a longer period of time, you can. Instead of refrigerating your pancakes, you can freeze them for up to 3 months.
There are two freezing options. You can place them all in a freezer safe bag or freezer safe container and freeze them and call it a day. Or, if you want to make it easier to just grab a couple out at a time, instead of thawing a big brick of pancakes, you can flash freeze them first before freezing them for good.
Tips for flash freezing pancakes
Once the pancakes are cool, line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place your pancakes on the baking sheet. Do not overcrowd the baking sheet. Do not overlap the pancakes on the parchment lined baking sheet and place the baking sheet with pancakes in the freezer for about 1-2 hours, or until the pancakes are thoroughly frozen all the way through.
Once your leftover golden brown pancakes are completely frozen, remove the sheet from the freezer and transfer the pancakes to a freezer safe container or freezer safe zip top bag and place the bag in the freezer for up to 3 months. Be sure to remove out any excess air before closing the bag or container of pancakes before placing them in the freezer.
Don’t forget to label your pancakes to know when you have to use them by. There is nothing worse than wasting time and money on delicious pancakes to freeze for later only to find them past their best by date in the freezer.
Pancake Recipe Tips and Variations
- If you overmix your pancake batter you will end up with dense pancakes instead of fluffy pancakes.
- Make sure to use all purpose flour, not self rising flour.
- These are dairy free pancakes, if you wanted to make vegan pancakes, just use an egg replacer in its place.
- We use all purpose flour when making these regular pancakes, but if you would like to make whole wheat pancakes, just swap the flour out for whole wheat flour.
- In this pancake recipe, we used vegetable oil, but we imagine you could use coconut oil or canola oil in its place. Although, we have not personally tested the recipe with that modification yet ourselves. If you decide to go that route, let us know how they turn out!
- Make some flavored pancakes without milk by adding in some mini chocolate chips to the batter, or try some diced fruit in the batter. You can also use any other flavored baking chips- white chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, cinnamon chips, etc.
- To make your pancakes the same size, you can use a measuring cup or ice cream scoop to scoop batter out of the mixing bowl.
What can I top these homemade pancakes with?
- Classic maple syrup
- Honey
- Molasses
- Whipped Cream
- Sprinkle with Brown Sugar and Cinnamon
- Diced fresh fruit
- Chopped nuts and coconut flakes
Can I use water instead of water in pancakes?
Yes, you can use water in place of milk in pancakes. However, we like this recipe that uses oil in place of the regular milk. It gives you a little more fluff and a little more life to your pancakes than just using water. Some recipes will call for water or another dairy milk alternative or non-dairy milk, like oat milk, almond milk, soy milk, or coconut milk.
We like the fluffiness and ease of using oil so if you have any allergies to any nuts or soy, you can still enjoy a stack of perfect pancakes too!
How can I keep my pancakes warm?
If you are making a big batch of pancakes and don’t want the first handful of pancakes to get cold while you are working on the rest of the batch, there are a few things you can do.
First, try covering the pancakes with some kind of cover to trap the heat in. Be careful with this option as if they’re too hot, or too many in there, it can create condensation on the underside of your cover, that runs the risk of dripping onto the pancakes and causing them to become soggy or mushy. So, if this is the option you choose, do so wisely and quickly.
If you need another option to keep your dairy-free pancakes warm while you finish making them, try placing your finished pancakes on a sheet pan and keep that sheet pan of pancakes in the oven. Set your oven to the warm setting if it has one.
Otherwise, you’ll want to set it to the lowest temperature it can go. Remember, we are not aiming to bake the pancakes, we just want to keep them warm while we finish making the rest of the batch.
Pancakes without Milk
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cup water
- 2 Tablespoons oil
- 2 eggs
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 ½ cups flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- In a small mixing bowl, combine your dry ingredients: flour and baking powder.
- In a separate bowl combine your wet ingredients and then combine them together with the dry ingredients.
- Mix until combined, but do not overmix. Some lumps are okay in the pancake batter.
- Once you've mixed the batter, heat your frying pan up over medium-high heat.
- Spray the pan with nonstick spray if you want to use it. Otherwise you can use dairy free melted butter if avoiding dairy, or just a tad bit of oil. You just need a little something so the pancakes don't stick to the hot griddle.
- Cook your pancakes for around 2-3 minutes on one side. This will vary depending on the size of your pancakes. Once the bubbles in the pancakes start to pop, it's usually time to flip the pancakes. Again, watch your pancakes as they cook because it will vary how long your pancakes take.
- Flip the pancakes and cook on the other side until they're golden brown on both sides.
- Serve and enjoy.
More ways to make yummy pancakes
If you loved this pancake recipe without any sort of milk, we have a few more different kinds of pancake recipes for you to try.
Here are a few more ways to whip up a batch of easy pancakes. These recipes are coming soon!
- Coconut milk pancakes
- Bisquick Sheet Pan Pancakes– a whole batch of pancakes on a baking sheet
- Protein pancakes without banana
- Pancakes in air fryer – use your Air Fryer to make a batch of pancakes using any delicious recipe
- Bisquick pancakes without eggs- these egg-free pancakes are always a hit