Plant Based U

Fat-Free and Low Fat Vegan Plant Based Recipes

nut-milk

The Best Ever Plant Based Banana Pancakes! (Low Fat Vegan Pancakes)

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These plant based banana pancakes are HEAVENLY. If you love pancakes, bananas, banana bread or anything banana related you will love these! You can even see the steam coming off these babies! (I served them with a side of my Deluxe Dijon Tofu Scramble) I just made these DELICIOUS vegan pancakes for my non veg family this morning for a delicious vegan brunch. Everyone loved them! I was looking for a perfect fat free vegan pancake recipe and thought I’d give these ones a shot. They were amazing.  I made a little modification to the original recipe and it turned out great. We served these yummy pancakes with real maple syrup from Quebec and topped it with fresh bananas and cinnamon. It was a really great brunch! My mom commented on how light and delicious  the pancakes were and she felt they were much healthier, even though I first made them with white flour. I think it was the  ground chia seed I added, but really you couldn’t see or taste them anyway. It’s also a great way to get a little chia into a typically not so healthy breakfast food. I hadn’t really made vegan banana pancakes before, but when I bit into these -wow. It sure reminded me of warm banana bread, which is one of my favourite treats ever. So I will definitely be making these again and again.  It really REALLy depends on having perfectly ripe non-starchy (lots of brown spots) bananas. Make sure your bananas are ripe! Use bananas with lots of brown spots on them. The one on the right is the sweetest and ripest banana. The two on the left are just starting to get sweet enough. Lots of spots on your bananas make them much better for recipes. Give these a try this holiday season and no one will know it’s oil free or vegan! This plant based banana pancake recipe is an adaptation from Susan Voisin’s Fat Free Vegan Pancakes recipe on the Fat Free Vegan Website Vegan brunch at home can be easy once you have a few tasty recipes!

Low Fat Plant Based Banana Pancakes (Vegan and Oil-Free)

Ingredients: 1 1/4 cups/150 grams of flour (I use half white all-purpose flour, half whole wheat flour when making for my family. Use a good gluten-free flour if you like instead, one you know will hold together nicely and not crumble) 2 tablespoons granulated sugar or coconut sugar 2 teaspoons baking powder 3/4 teaspoon sea salt 1 1/8 or 1 1/4 cups/270-300 ml  almond milk* (depending on how thin you want them) 1/2 tablespoon ground chia seed (or ground flaxseed or egg replacer) 2 tablespoons/30 ml water (to mix with ground chia/flaxseed or egg replacer) 1/3-1/2 cup diced ripe banana (see my ripe banana post if you are not sure) *To make this recipe nut free, substitute soy milk or oat milk for the almond milk. Tip: to combine ground chia with water, put water in bowl first and then sprinkle in chia and mix.  If you pour water over the chia it can get clumpy and not mix properly. Directions: 1. In large bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the almond milk, chia with water and bananas and stir just until flour is moistened. Let the batter rest for 5 minutes while skillet heats, and then stir gently one more time before using. Do not over mix. 2. Heat non-stick griddle or skillet over medium heat until drop of water sizzles. Pour batter by  1/4 cupfuls onto hot griddle, making a few pancakes at a time. Cook until tops are bubbly and bubbles burst; edges will look dry. With pancake turner, turn and cook until undersides are golden. Place on warm platter; keep warm. 3. Repeat until all batter is used, spraying a little bit of non stick spray before each batch. Since they are oil free, this will be necessary to prevent any sticking. 4. Serve pancakes with maple syrup or fruit as desired. I also like to add some yummy ceylon cinnamon (this is sweet cinnamon, you can get it here) Variations: I also made another batch of blueberry vegan pancakes and put 1/2 cup of frozen wild blueberries in the batter.  They were good, but the banana were the stand out pancakes this morning. Feel free to try both. I think wild blueberries work best as they are small and will keep it cooking evenly. Also if they are frozen when you add them,  they won’t turn your batter purple! Additional Tips: To grind your own chia seeds, use a coffee grinder or a Vitamix and pulse the coffee grinder, or turn the Vitamix onto high until all the chia is ground into powder.  It should take about a minute or two. Set aside into a container or plastic zipper bag and keep in the fridge or freezer until needed. This keeps it fresh and the nutrients intact longer. —- Serve with fruit, hash browns or my favourite Deluxe Dijon Tofu Scramble  Give them a try! And let me know what you think of these vegan banana pancakes.  What is your favourite kind of pancake?

How To Make Homemade Low Fat Raw Vegan Almond Milk In A Blender

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Almond milk is something that many people use nowadays, whether they are vegan or have dairy allergies. Sure you can buy some (non raw) almond milk at the store for your smoothies or cooking, but there’s likely going to be sugar, preservatives and other additives and synthetic stuff in it as well. While it is convenient to use pre made almond milk, it’s not a good idea to base your whole diet on processed packaged foods.



It’s very easy to make at home, and most cost effective if you enjoy using almond pulp in recipes like raw bars, cookies, crackers, or drying it out to use for almond flour. This raw almond milk is great for using in raw smoothies, raw banana ice-cream and raw dressings.

This low fat almond milk is also a nice pretty white colour and not browny tinged from additives like processed almond milk! Beautiful.



How To Make Your Own Homemade Raw Vegan Almond Milk

Ingredients:

1 cup of whole raw shelled almonds
Enough water to cover almonds if soaking overnight
4 cups filtered water (for making milk) If you want it even thinner use 5 cups of water.

Required tools:

Container to soak almonds
Metal mesh strainer/nut milk bag
Vitamix, Blendtec or other blender

Directions:

1. Soak almonds in a bowl or container with enough water to cover and let sit overnight, around 8 hours. (You can skip this step if you have a Vitamix or Blendtec)

2. Drain and rinse the almonds. Place into Vitamix or other blender with 4 cups of filtered water. Blend for about 45 sec to a minute on high. Just until all the almonds are in tiny pieces and it’s frothy.

3a. If using a nut milk bag hold the bag open over a large bowl and gently pour the blended almond milk into the middle of the open bag. Be careful not to spill pulp over the sides. Pour a little at a time and put the blender container down and close the bag at the top and squeeze the bag into the bowl to separate the almond pulp from the almond milk. You can either save the squeezed almond pulp to dry into almond flour or use to make cookies or nut balls or compost it. Continue this process until you have separate all the milk from the almond pulp. If you can’t stand and squeeze you can hang the bag filled with pulp and almond milk up above the bowl and let it drain for a while or in between breaks. Using a good quality nut milk bag you should only have to strain the milk one time if you didn’t spill any pulp over the edge.

3b. If using metal mesh strainers: get out 3 medium bowls or containers. Hold your small metal mesh strainer over one of the bowls and pour the almond mixture slowly into it. Fill up the strainer and then use a spoon to push the liquid down from the pulp. Place the extra pulp in one of the bowls if you want to save it for later. This will take a while. If using a metal strainer, keep filling it up with almond mixture and filtering the pulp from the milk with your spoon and set the pulp aside. Rinsing your strainer in between each filter will make it easier to strain and get rid of the little pieces stuck to it.  After you have filtered your almond milk once, you may want to filter the whole thing a few more times for a smooth milk. Place your filter over the last clean bowl and pour your filtered almond milk over it. You should see some froth and a little pulp being filtered out the second time. Rinse your other bowl and strainer and filter back and forth until your almond milk is smooth to your liking. I do this 6-8 times with a metal strainer for the smoothest milk.



5. Once you’re done you can store the almond milk in the fridge. Depending what you want to do with it you can leave it plain, or blend in a date and some vanilla for sweet almond milk.

I leave mine plain so I can use it for things like banana ice-cream, chia “tapioca” pudding, smoothie base, dressing base etc. I just add pitted dates or vanilla extract  or fresh vanilla bean to the recipe if I need a sweet milk.

Best used within 3 days. Store in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator.

Have you ever made your own plant based milk at home? What’s your favourite?