Kefir Kale Pancakes – They’ll Make You Green with Envy
We’ve had the worst year ever on our plot. Lack of time combined with mega numbers of pests including deer, has meant little survived. We do, however, have plenty of kale. When I found a big bag of kale in my veg box last week, I knew I had to up my game. The result was a big batch of these vibrant green kefir kale pancakes. Served with vegetable tomato sauce and fried halloumi, it made for a most delicious meal – several meals in fact.
When I make pancakes, I tend to churn out quite a few. Why make one meal when you can have two or more with very little extra effort? Pancakes keep well for a couple of days once cooked and can be frozen for longer storage. They can easily be reheated in the oven or popped into a toaster.
Kefir is a great ingredient to use in pancakes. It gives a lovely fluffy texture and reacts with the bicarbonate of soda to give a good rise. Once you start making your own kefir, there is plenty to go around. If you don’t have kefir, sour milk or buttermilk work well too. I made these kefir kale pancakes with buckwheat flour and rolled oats. This gives a nice flavour and makes them naturally gluten free. If you’d like to see what other pancake recipes I have on the blog, just click the link.
I used my new Optimum G2.3 platinum series induction blender to blitz the kale and oats into the kefir. I then added the remaining ingredients and whizzed again, which made for a fast and easy way of making kefir kale pancakes.
Kale is packed full of nutrients: dietary fiber, calcium, potassium, vitamin E, vitamins C and B6, iron and magnesium to name but a few. It’s also easy to grow in the UK and is at it’s best in the autumn. We’ve grown several different types of kale over the years, but this year we only managed our perennial land kale. I saw some lovely varieties on a friend’s plot at the weekend, which has spurred me on to try something else next year. Adding kale to pancakes is also a fun way of getting some extra veg into fussy kids.
As well as kale, I also added some turmeric and black pepper to the mix. I’m trying to get a daily dose of turmeric to ease joint pain in my knees. It seems to be working. Apparently black pepper helps turmeric to do it’s thing, so I added some of that too. Cinnamon is also a recommended addition, but rather than add this to the pancakes, I thought it would go better in the accompanying tomato sauce.
For the spicy tomato sauce, I fried an onion and garlic in olive oil then added some veg that needed clearing out: courgettes, mangetout and baby corn. I threw in a can of tomatoes along with a little harissa, cinnamon and tamari. The sauce was exceptionally good and married brilliantly with my kefir kale pancakes. A few slices of fried halloumi completed the meal.
- 300ml kefir, buttermilk or sour milk
- Large handful of kale (about 75g) - washed with excess water shaken off
- 100g rolled oats
- pinch of sea salt
- 1 large egg (I used a duck egg)
- 150g flour – half wholemeal spelt, half buckwheat (but most flours would do)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tsp turmeric
- good grinding of black pepper
- 1 tsp coconut oil for frying
- Blitz the kale, oats and salt with the kefir in a power blender until you have a smoothish and bright green batter. I used my Optimum G2.3 for 90 seconds.
- Add all the other ingredients except for the coconut oil and blitz for a further 20 seconds or until everything is well mixed.
- Place a non-stick frying pan on a medium heat and add a little of the coconut oil.
- Pour dollops of batter into the pan, making sure there is room for them to spread. How many you get in will depend on how big the pan is.
- Cook for about 3 minutes or until bubbles start to rise up in the batter, then flip over and fry for a further 3 minutes.
- Stack on a plate and put in a warm oven until all of the pancakes are cooked.
- If you need the pancakes to be gluten free, ensure the oats and baking powder are gluten free.
- If the batter is a little too runny, leave it to stand for half and hour and it should firm up.
- Each batch of pancakes will take about 6 minutes to cook
What a totally delicious meal for Meat Free Mondays with Jac at Tinned Tomatoes.
As CT has been away, these kefir kale pancakes lasted me four days, so I’m also sending them off to Corina at Searching for Spice for Cook Once Eat Twice.
I’m also sending this off to Shaheen at A Seasonal Veg Table for Eat Your Greens
Other kale recipes you might like
- Kale & apple cake with apple icing via Veggie Desserts
- Kale & walnut pesto via Supper in the Suburbs
- Kale soup via Fab Food 4 All
- Miso muffins with kale via Tin and Thyme
- Quick & easy dal with kale via Fuss Free Flavours
I use my Optimum Blenders for smoothies, spreads, sauces and even chocolate making. The post contains affiliate links. Buying through a link will not cost you any more, but I will get a small commission. This helps keep Tin and Thyme blythe and blogging. Opinions are, as always, my own.
All That I'm Eating
4th November 2016 at 1:37 pmThese sound delicious, what I great way to use up some kale – I’d have never thought of that!
Choclette
5th November 2016 at 4:19 pmThanks Caroline. If it wasn’t for my super duper blender, I’d probably never have thought of it either.
Chris @thinlyspread
4th November 2016 at 1:42 pmOh my goodness, these look amazing and THEN you add haloumi into the mix! So much temptation, I am indeed green with envy!
Choclette
5th November 2016 at 4:45 pmExcellent, I’ve done my job well then Chris 😉
Camilla Hawkins
4th November 2016 at 1:45 pmLove these glorious and healthy little green pancakes, I bet kids who won’t eat greens would love them too:-)
Choclette
5th November 2016 at 4:19 pmYes, I think it’s the sort of thing kids would find so weird they’d eat it, but you never know.
Kate
4th November 2016 at 1:58 pmThey look great! We love green pancakes here – my kids aren’t phased by them at all. I love the sauce you’ve added and it’s a lovely nourishing meal.
Choclette
5th November 2016 at 4:18 pmBut your kids are possibly not the norm Kate, they are used to green cake!
Becca @ Amuse Your Bouche
4th November 2016 at 2:07 pmLove the vibrant colour the kale gives these pancakes! And I totally agree with you about batch cooking – I always try to make enough for leftovers 🙂
Choclette
5th November 2016 at 4:16 pmIt’s a fab colour and the pancakes tasted great. I actually had them 4 days on the trot and didn’t get bored at all.
Shaheen
4th November 2016 at 3:54 pmThese pancakes have colour and oomf from the puffy aspect which I really like. I love kale its my favourite leafy green to eat, I am sorry I did not grown any this year, but like you the pests have been horrid this year, that I delib. cut down on the brassica family. Thank you for sharing with EatYourGreens, the round up will be up on the 1st December.
Choclette
5th November 2016 at 4:12 pmThanks Shaheen. Kale is brilliant because it’s generally easy to grow as well as nice to eat. I’m just crossing fingers we have a better growing year next year.
Sharon
4th November 2016 at 4:30 pmI really must have a go at growing kale next year. I’ve failed to grow any veggies so far (due to the amount of critters living in my garden) but kale sounds pretty hardy. My husband is addicted to kale smoothies so I’m sure he’ll be very grateful to have a free, home grown supply 🙂
Your pancakes look lovely by the way. My family loves spinach pancakes but I’ve never made them with kale before. Will definitely have to give it a try.
Choclette
5th November 2016 at 4:10 pmVarious critters ate pretty much everything we tried to grow this year, but despite the pigeons we’ve managed to harvest a fair amount of kale. Kale smoothies are a regular breakfast here too, but it’s always nice to have it in different ways and it worked brilliantly in the pancakes. Now, I shall have to try spinach 😉
Dom
4th November 2016 at 4:39 pmsuch a glorious colour of green and such fat fluffy pancakes… have never used kefir before… am intrigued,
Choclette
5th November 2016 at 4:07 pmSince we got back into kefir making, it goes into many things including cakes. It’s a brilliant ingredient and healthy too, of course 😉
Nico @ yumsome
4th November 2016 at 7:16 pmThey are such a glorious green!
I must admit that I rarely think to use kale as an ingredient, probably because K and I both love it as a standalone veg (and we don’t have kids!) but I could be tempted to make these, just for the colour alone!
Choclette
5th November 2016 at 4:06 pmWe’re fans of kale too, but we do have quite a lot of it and it’s nice to ring the changes. Plus, as you say, green pancakes are just glorious 🙂
Angie@Angie's Recipes
4th November 2016 at 7:38 pmI love these pancakes…healthy natural ingredients and the pancakes turned out so fluffy and awesome. A great recipe, Choclette.
Choclette
5th November 2016 at 4:04 pmThanks Angie. I can quite happily say, I was really pleased with these pancakes on all fronts 🙂
Sarah James
5th November 2016 at 9:58 amLove the colour of your pancakes Choclette & they look delicious too, so fluffy! I really like the idea of using kale, although our crop was wiped out by flea beetle this year. Might just have to buy some kale 🙂
Choclette
5th November 2016 at 4:01 pmThanks Sarah. I’ve used various green powders in the past, but this was the first time I used real fresh kale and I was so very pleased with the result. I’ll be making them again and again from now on. I feel your pain re the kale. The wretched pigeons keep attacking ours, but at least we’ve managed to get some. Most of our crops this year were eaten by one pest or another, so we’ve had to stick to a veg box.
Corina
7th November 2016 at 11:58 amThese looks beautiful and I love the way they are served with the halloumi and vegetable tomato sauce. I have to admit that it’s a long time since I’ve bought kale as I seem to be the only one in our family who likes it so maybe I should try hiding it in a pancake. Thanks so much for sharing with #CookOnceEatTwice!
Choclette
8th November 2016 at 9:17 amThanks Corina, it made a pretty scrummy meal – several in fact 😉 Yes, try hiding the kale in pancakes, I’d be very surprised if your family didn’t like them.
Julie @ Running in a Skirt
16th November 2016 at 1:22 pmThese are gorgeous! I love kale in anything.
Choclette
28th November 2016 at 8:38 amKale used to be a much underrated green veg, so glad it’s profile has been raised in recent years.
Cathy @ Planet Veggie
30th November 2016 at 11:36 amI much prefer savoury pancakes to sweet and what a brilliant way to use up kale!
Choclette
30th November 2016 at 5:43 pmThanks Cathy. I’m with you when it comes to pancakes.
Monika Dabrowski
1st December 2016 at 6:39 pmThese pancakes look wonderful, so healthy and beautifully green! And I love the idea of using coconut oil to fry the in:)
Choclette
21st February 2017 at 8:41 amThe colour of these pancakes are my favourite think Monika, but they did taste good too 🙂