Vegan Whole Grain Waffles

Do you like to have big hearty waffle breakfasts on the weekend?  My kids sure do.  For us waffles are always topped with a large colorful juicy pile of delicious fruit.

The ones in the picture above, have some homemade fruit jam between the layers as well.

You can easily make fat-free vegan waffles from a store-bought box pancake mix!

This recipe describes how to veganize a pancake or waffle mix, to make awesome vegan waffles!

I also give tips about using hemp seeds, picking the healthiest waffle mixes, and some info about whole grains vs. refined grains.  

Store bought pancake mixes can save you time and mess.

Somehow, when I take a bag of regular flour out, I get it on the floor, and all over the counter.  The flour package is just awkward to get into, and proofs little clouds of slippery flour dust.

Pancake mix boxes are easier to use.

Here is one of our current favourite store-bought waffle / pancake mixes.

It is in Canada – from Superstore – one of their Blue Menu healthy items.

We also like a brand called Coyote, in a reddish bag.  Both use whole grain whole wheat flour, with few additives, and are very tasty.

If you aren’t in Canada, can you find a similar one where you live?

Look for simple unprocessed ingredients – meaning nothing good has been stripped out and nothing bad has been added.

Many mixes have milk powder or oil added.   No need for those!

We could do without the sugar, but at least it isn’t the first ingredient – everyone knows ingredients are listed in order of most to least, right?

The package is probably going to tell you to add milk, oil and eggs.

I promise you, dairy milk, oil and eggs are unnecessary.

You can make totally delicious waffles with non-dairy milk, without oil, and definitely without eggs.

The waffles don’t fall apart, they are moist, they are tasty, you might notice they aren’t as oily – this is a good thing!

Instead of eggs/oil use hemp seeds

Hemp seeds taste great as a satisfying healthy touch of fat.   Ground flax seeds work also, but I find flax has a strong flavour and goes rancid too quickly, so I prefer hemp seeds.

Hemp seeds are more of a nutty taste, and last longer than ground flax in the fridge.  The hemp does have a green bit on each seed, so the waffles look a little different, but covered with fruit and syrup no one has complained!

How to tell if your pancake mix is healthy.

Make sure it says “whole grain” and, apply the 5-to-1 ratio test.

I’m talking about the carbohydrate grams to fibre grams ratio.  Carbs divided by fibre should be 5 or lower.

For a full description of the 5-to-1 ratio test see my post about judging from a label, whether grains are healthy.

For example, the Blue Menu pancake mix has 21 g of carbohydrate and 5 g of fibre.  21 g / 5 g = 4.2 carbs to fibre ratio – the ratio is 5 or less and is low enough to be considered healthy.  If the carbs were higher, or the fibre lower it would be less healthy and probably not whole grain, or has a lot of added sugar.

An Aunt Jemima mix has 27 g of carbs to 1 g of fibre = a ratio of 27.  That’s bad.

For more tips like this, check out Dr. Gregor’s How Not to Die book.

I highly recommend this book.  He addresses the top causes of death in our society, like Heart Disease and Cancer, and then presents evidence about foods that prevent those diseases.  Spoiler alert – it’s always plants that prevent disease.

Warning, it becomes addictive to start tweaking your meals to include the foods that studies have shown increase lifespan.  Reminds me, I need to eat more beets…

Amazing Book 

How Not To Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

This book has a great deal of science based information about foods that have been proven to prevent and reverse disease.

Back to making your waffles.

Wondering whether to use a pancake mix that is fortified with vitamins?

Not required.  Remember, we are getting all the nutrition we need from our whole plant foods, and personally I trust nature, more than I trust man-made (potentially cancer causing) additives and supplements.

Here’s how to make vegan waffles from a box of pancake mix:

Mix 1/3 cup mix and 1 tablespoon of hemp seeds for each waffle.  You want 4 waffles?  Use 1 1/3 cups of mix and 4 tbsp of hemp seeds.

Our favourite topping is thawed frozen fruit

About 1 1/2 cups of fruit per waffle…

Like sliced strawberries or whole blueberries.  We always have a few bags of frozen fruit in the freezer.  Costco is our favourite place to buy frozen fruit.

When we are starting to stir up the waffle mix, we pour frozen fruit in a big bowl and microwave it for a few minutes, until just thawed. When the waffle is done we generously spoon fruit over each waffle before serving.

Lastly, add pure maple syrup, or agave syrup, over the top if you like, we use enough for moisture and a bit of sweetness.

Make sure to drink something,

when you eat whole grain foods, because whole grains are full of fibre and are going to suck moisture out of your body if you don’t have liquids in your tummy too.

Often the kids will have a glass of soy milk as well with their waffles, this ensures they are getting vitamin B12 that day plus, some more healthy fats, and protein too.

To find out how we feed our family vegan on a daily basis check out this post, How to Eat Vegan for Energy and Weight Loss, it includes a breakdown of the amount of proteins and grains that we aim for.

We like waffles on sleepy mornings

because they are fast and difficult to mess up.  Pancakes take a bit more skill, don’t you find?  Pancakes can get burned, or may end up too soft on one side and too crispy on the other.

It wasn’t that long ago that we would cut waffles up for our girls.  Now they can do it themselves.

I’m realizing here, we have made vegan waffles every weekend, for more than a year.

I guess we don’t get tired of eating them!  Do you? 🙂