Celebrating Pancakes As a Food Waste Hero
This February, let’s celebrate pancakes not just for Pancake Day, but for their superpower: turning leftovers into something worth eating.
Pancakes are flexible, forgiving, and a perfect way to use up odds and sods from the fridge. This National Pancake Day, have a little fun, get creative, and make pancakes the Love Food Hate Waste way with whatever’s on hand.
Start With a Simple Base
A good, everyday pancake recipe, like our Scotch Pancakes, is the perfect foundation. Once you understand the basic balance of flour, liquid, egg, and leavening, you can easily customize it. From here, pancakes can go in many directions.
The Banana Pancakes recipe shows how ripe bananas can replace both dairy and added sugar. The Coconut Pancakes with Strawberry Compote recipe offers another dairy-free option and shows how easy it is to turn fresh or frozen fruit into a simple topping. The same compote method works beautifully with fresh or frozen apples, pears, berries, or cranberries.
From Sweet to Savoury and Everything in Between
Pancakes don’t have to be sweet. Savoury pancakes, fritters, and latkes are all part of the same family. Think grated vegetables, herbs, cheese, and other leftovers folded into a basic batter and fried until golden.
Our Corned Beef Fritters with Peach Salsa and Broccoli Fritters show how pancake-style batters can turn savoury leftovers into a meal. For a smoother texture, Elaine Cheng’s Sweet and Savoury Pancakes use roasted mashed squash with rosemary and Parmesan. That same approach would work equally well with mashed potatoes or sweet potatoes.
More Ways Pancakes Use Up Leftovers
Soft or Cooked Fruit – Use soft fruit, frozen fruit, or jams and jellies for a quick sauce or compote to go on top or alongside pancakes.
Leftover Cooked Grains – Stir small amounts of cooked oatmeal, rice, quinoa, or other grains into pancake batter to add body and stretch a meal.
Extra Yogurt, Labneh, or Sour Cream – Use in place of some of the milk or use as a topping for a little tang.
Beans or Lentils – Mash and add to savoury batters or use as a hearty topping for fritters – for example hummus with broccoli fritters.
What’s in Your Fridge Right Now?
What do you have in your fridge that you could use to celebrate Pancake Day?
- Soft fruit that could become a sauce?
- A bit of yogurt or sour cream to use up?
- Vegetables that could be grated into a batter?
- Leftovers that might shine in a savoury pancake or fritter?
By treating pancake batter as flexible rather than fixed, you can reduce food waste, save money, and make something comforting from ingredients that might otherwise be forgotten.
We’d love to see your creations! Tag @lovefoodhatewasteca and show us how you used pancakes to put leftovers to good use.
