Protein Pumpkin Pancakes Recipe (2024)

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By Natalie Monson

Published on October 21, 2010

59 Comments

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Healthy Pumpkin Protein Pancakes are made with Greek yogurt and pumpkin puree. These sweet cakes make the perfect breakfast for fall and Halloween–get ready pumpkin lovers!

Got pumpkin? Or just love all things pumpkin? You HAVE to try our Pumpkin Spice Cake!

Healthy Pumpkin Protein Pancakes for Kids

Our kids love pancakes. So they’re pretty agreeable to pancakes in ALL shapes, sizes, and flavors. These pumpkin pancakes have a fun fall flavor and plenty of protein to go with it.

If your kids love pumpkin muffins or pumpkin cookies then there’s a great chance they’ll love these pancakes.

We recommend serving these pancakes with fresh fruit and a little bit of syrup.

What Substitutions Can I Make?

This recipe is pretty forgiving, so if you need to make some ingredient swaps, you can!!

Swap out the all-purpose flour for whole wheat flour if you like. White whole wheat flour is light and fluffy like AP flour, but with added nutrition. Go for it!

Pumpkin pie spice is made up of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger and cloves. If you don’t have pumpkin pie spice you can mix up some of your own.

Finally, pumpkin puree is not as crucial as you would think. When people think of pumpkin flavoring, most of that really comes from the spice. So if you happen to have no pumpkin puree, give these Pumpkin Protein Pancakes a shot anyway!

How Many Pancakes Does This Recipe Make?

Each pancake I made used about 1/4 cup of batter and the batch made about 8 pancakes. You can make them as tiny pancakes or big ones that are the perfect single serving size for your kiddos!

Blueberries, raspberries and strawberries are my favorite berries to eat with any type of pancakes, including these Pumpkin Protein Pancakes. If you’re looking for another fun pancakes recipe try our Banana Smoothie Pancakes!

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3.9 from 45 votes

Pumpkin Protein Pancakes

Healthy Pumpkin Protein Pancakes made with greek yogurt! The perfect breakfast for fall and Halloween–get ready pumpkin lovers!

Prep Time5 minutes mins

Cook Time20 minutes mins

Total Time25 minutes mins

Course: Breakfast

Cuisine: American

Servings: 8 2 pancakes

Calories: 117kcal

Ingredients

1 cup flour, all-purpose or white whole wheat
1 1/4 cup (8 fl oz) Greek yogurt, vanilla
2 large egg
2 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup pumpkin, canned
1 dash salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Instructions

Using a whisk, combine all ingredients in a bowl. (1.5 oz of pumpkin is equivalent to 3 Tablespoons!) Stir just until combined. The batter will be thick, if you prefer a thinner batter, add a little water or milk.
Heat a pan or your griddle to medium to low heat. Spray or butter your pan and use a 1/4 measuring cup so spoon batter onto pan. I use my measuring cut to also spread out the batter after I poured it, my batter was thick. Let cook until the edges begin to look done and then flip. Pumpkin pancakes take longer to cook because of the pumpkin puree, so make sure you cook them all the way through! Lower the temperature of your griddle if needed!
Serve with berries, whipped cream, butter, syrup… whatever you’re in the mood for!

Nutrition

Keyword : Pumpkin Protein Pancakes

www.superhealthykids.com

Natalie Monson

I'm a registered dietitian, mom of 4, avid lover of food and strong promoter of healthy habits. Here you will find lots of delicious recipes full of fruits and veggies, tips for getting your kids to eat better and become intuitive eaters and lots of resources for feeding your family.

Learn More about Natalie

I love pumpkin pancakes, I will have to try these!!

It’s 9:30pm right now. But I really want these pancakes! I’ll wait, but it won’t be easy.

I absolutely cannot wait to make these! I may just make them tomorrow morning. I LOVE pumpkin everything – except pumpkin pie. Weird, I know 😉

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I made these today. I ended up adding 2 TBSP of maple syrup to the batter. It was just enough my kids won’t ask for anything more. But I may top them with vanilla yogurt anyway. Thanks for the recipe!

I did the same and they were perfect! My 2 year old is eating his right now.

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Hi I was wondering if there is a way to make these without the cottage cheese? My daughter is allergic to milk.

I do a protein banana pancake with little or no flour (2 eggs, 1 smashed banana, tbsp ground flax or oats or nothing, splash of vanilla, sprinkle of cinnamon — make 3-4 pancakes and can be multiplied for larger batches). I’m thinking of adding some pumpkin puree to that mix to see how it goes. That would be dairy free.

Hmmm, I can’t think of a non-dairy alternative to these protein pancakes. But I’ll keep you in mind when I’m experimenting!

These did not turn out for me. We make a ton of pancakes – all different kinds but this is not a keeper. It was so hard to get the insides cooked – one has been sitting on med/low heat for 20 minutes.

Bummer.. I actually make some with sweet potatoes instead of pumpkin, and it is hard to get them to cook all the way through, but I really like them when they are cooked!

[…] pancake recipe was inspired by this one, but I found the ingredients proportions in that one to be a bit off as my pancakes first-time […]

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Hi Amy,
I have a 5 year old daughter who has type 1 diabetes and I am looking for healthy, low carb kid friendly recipes…love the pumkin pancake recipe and will try it, but my problem is that I need to know how many carbs per serving….any ideas? Thanks so much,
Amy

Hi Amy-
The only recipes we have analyzed so far are on our meal planning site, only because they take so long to do it! For recipes we haven’t analyzed, you could use nutritiondata.com and plug in the ingredients.
This one should be pretty straightforward: 75 total for the oats, and 3 for the cottage cheese, and 10 for the pumpkin=
88 grams total and I can’t remember how many the recipe makes, but if you keep track, than just divide by how many pancakes you got out of it.!
I’m sorry you have to do that! That is a lot of work to always keep track 🙁 Good luck!
Amy

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I completely agree. Very disappointing and frustrating recipe.

I made these using a mixer not a blender. They were horrible. Just blended the oats first. Then blended the cottage cheese. Then added it all together and mixed. I did have to cook them for a very long time. Is this normal?

Yes! I’ve cooked them for at least 20 minutes! These aren’t for everyone, but I really love them!! Lol
Thanks Rita!

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Buy a tiny “ice cream” scoop at Walmart… The type you’d expect to see in restaurant kitchens… They are about $5 I believe. They have a squeeze handle to release the contents from the scoop… I use it for kid sized pancakes (Half Dollars, I think they’re called)… Cookies… Meatball shaping… Even have used mine to scoop batter for mini cupcakes and bite-sized brownies… It makes the preparing/cooking go faster.

Thanks Becca- I have three sizes of those scoops for melons and cookies. Never thought of it for pancakes!

is there a substitute for cottage cheese?

Nayomie- to keep them high in protein, you could try tofu.

these look fantastic, and I’m going to make them for my kiddo. It would be awesome if you offered a printable layout option — I know, I know, this is the age of cooking with iPads and iPhones, and I do. But sometimes it’s nice to just print a recipe off quickly. Just a suggestion. 🙂

I work for the Valley News, an San Diego HOA paper and I am reaching out for permission to publish this recipe in our October issue. We have lots of families. I will credit you with the recipe. Thoughts? Thanks!

Sure Heather! thanks for sharing.

It’s hard to say! Glad you tried it… but I’ve always used a blender to make the batter smooth. But, it did take a long time on the skillet. If you dare try again, once you get it cooked all the way through, I think you’ll love it!

Thanks, its Works 🙂

Just made these for breakfast with left over winter squash. The flavour was good and my husband ate them with molasses. The texture is not the usual pancake texture but that is mostly due to using rolled oats in place of the usual flour and no leavening agent. They did take an unusually long time to cook .

These did not turn out for me. We make a ton of pancakes – all different kinds but this is not a keeper. It was so hard to get the insides cooked

these look fantastic, and I’m going to make them for my kiddo. It would be awesome if you offered a printable layout option We have lots of families. I will credit you with the recipe. Thoughts? Thanks!

Ok! I’ll see what I can do.

I will try the recipe, thank for sharing

Just by see on that picture, I think it’s really delicious, I just want to try 1 if there’s any pumpkin pancake in my town

Is the nutrition information listed somewhere?

Hi Andrea! I just attached the recipe, so you should be able to see those now. Thanks!

Is there a trick to getting the insides to cook? We love all things pumpkin, but can’t get the insides done. I wonder if using our mini waffle iron would work?

This does take forever to cook! Sorry 🙁

nice article . i love pumkin..

Loved these! Perfect for Lent served with hard-boiled eggs and fruit. I doubled the recipe. I didn’t have a whole cup of cottage cheese so I used a half cup of cottage cheese and a half cup Greek yogurt. I added a tablespoon of baking powder and about a quarter cup of milk. I had a half cup oat/flax flour that I used with 1 cup regular flour. I also added three egg whites for extra protein and a splash of sugar-free caramel syrup. I also put in some Stevia to offset the sourness of the Greek yogurt. I still only used 1 tablespoon of coconut oil even though I doubled the recipe. This made 15 large (4-5″) pancakes. It was great. I mixed it all up in my ninja blender and then just pored it from there onto the griddle. I tried to spread them out thin enough that I had no trouble getting them cooked in the middle. So yummy! The caramel syrup just put the flavor over the top!

Thanks for sharing, Susan!

I can’t seem to get the center to cook !

Sorry to hear that, Dana! Sometimes lower heat is the key… it gives the heat time to reach the middle before the outside is browned.

I only have frozen pumpkin chunks, no puree, how many grams would I need?

Hi Clau, it’s actually OK to just leave out the pumpkin, as long as you have pumpkin pie spice to give it that signature flavor.

These did not turn out at all! They burned on the outside before they cooked on the inside. I am trying them in the oven in a muffin pan. We will see how they come out.

Didn’t really like this recipe as written and my daughter said “ewwww yuck”. The Greek yogurt paired with baking powder and spice mix (all bitter components) just made for a bitter pancake with a strong aftertaste that not even syrup was able to overcome. I added brown sugar and these were way better. I love pumpkin pancakes and I love protein pancakes made with yogurt, but the combo just needs added sugar to balance bitter components.

I feel crazy…I’m reading the comments and people are talking about the cottage cheese…I don’t see cottage cheese in the ingredients…?

You can use cottage cheese in place of the greek yogurt! 🙂

These were pretty good and really easy to make. I think next time I might do like half the pumpkin pie spice and maybe add some cinnamon in place of the rest. (A little too much pumpkin pie spice for my taste buds) but they were still really good 🙂

Can I use anything other than white flour? If I want to use whole-wheat or Buckwheat flour, can I use that?

Yep – it will just change the texture a bit, but can be used.