These sourdough discard pancakes really are perfect. They are light and fluffy and not a bit sour! Perfection!

Sourdough discard pancakes hit the spot for me! I’m always on the hunt for quick and easy breakfast food that’s healthy and homemade. I love pancakes and waffles so much!!! Just look back at my zucchini chocolate chip pancakes, or my pumpkin waffles or the copycat cinnastack pancakes! I think I have a breakfast obsession.

The crazy thing is that nothing has fueled this obsession more than sourdough! Recently, I am hard pressed to think of what we have for breakfast if it isn’t sourdough toast with an egg, sourdough pancakes, sourdough waffles, sourdough French toast made with old bread. It’s all delicious!

What is sourdough discard?

If you make sourdough bread, you know that the more you feed your starter, the more amazing it becomes! But who needs a fresh loaf of bread everyday? You need to get rid of that sourdough starter somehow, and I’m definitely not going to throw it away! That’s how I developed so many of my sourdough recipes, using the amount other people would simply discard.

Is sourdough good for you?

Sourdough is lower on the glycemic index than it’s typical commercial counterparts. I’m linking to an article here that goes way more into depth than I will. The sourdough starter also seems to break down the phytic acid that binds up nutrients in most breads. Additionally, sourdough might be an option for people who have a gluten sensitivity. My husband, for instance, looks pregnant after he eats gluten. But we eat sourdough products every day and he never ever has an issue with it! It’s amazing! You can read some actual research about that here.

So I’d say that yes, sourdough is good for you. It has a lower glycemic index, it breaks down phytic acid so those nutrients are available to you, and it may even be a great option for people with a gluten sensitivity!

What if I don’t have any sourdough starter?

If you don’t have any sourdough starter, you can make these amazing pancakes that I have loved for years!! However, if you’d like to get started on sourdough, here’s a great checklist that will teach you how to begin your own sourdough starter. It takes a couple weeks to get it going strong, but once you have it, you’ll never have to do that part again!

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The night before

The night before you want to make pancakes, you’ll need to feed your sourdough. I usually use about 100g of starter or less. Then I add 100g of unbleached white flour, and 100g of filtered water. Mix it up and cover it with a lid or plastic wrap and leave on the counter overnight. By the time you wake up it should be all bubbly and beautiful like this!

In the morning

In the morning, gather all your ingredients. This is a really good whole wheat flour that I love. I also love to use my dry container for my Vitamix and grind wheat berries as I need them to make whole wheat flour. I just put 2/3c of wheat berries for every cup of flour I need and then grind on high for 1 minute. It’s super easy!

Combine your starter with the rest of the wet ingredients. Then combine all your dry ingredients.After they are mixed up, you can whisk them together gently until there are no more lumps. Don’t go crazy on this part. A lot of recipes will say mix until “just combined”. Flour has gluten in it which is developed when it is worked. So with pancakes, we like to work the gluten as little as possible.

As soon as it looks like this one below, it’s good to go! You’ll see that immediately the buttermilk will react with the baking soda and start to cause bubbles. That’s what makes these so fluffy and amazing!

Once they are all mixed up, drop about 1/4c. onto a greased skillet for each pancake – this is the one I’m using today and I love it! When starts to dry a little around the edges and you see bubbles that are beginning to pop, check underneath and see if they are brown. If they are, go ahead and flip them. The second side cooks faster, so when it’s golden, and the sides look dry, they are done! These can get pretty fluffy sometimes so I always check the sides to make sure they are done all the way through. That’s it! Your sourdough discard pancakes are done!

Do these taste sour/wheaty from the sourdough and whole wheat flour?

Surprisingly, no! I usually don’t like sourdough that is sour, so I strive to make my sourdough breads and things really neutral tasting. Sourdough definitely adds complexity to the flavor, but it’s not sour at all.

It also does not taste wheaty. One of the ingredients I always have on hand is cultured buttermilk. I know people bake with substitutions like milk with a splash of vinegar or lemon juice in it, but it doesn’t hold a candle to cultured buttermilk!

You can make your own buttermilk?!?!

I make my own really easily. You mix a 1:3 ratio of milk to buttermilk and leave it on the counter for a full day. I find that once I started making it myself, I always had some on hand. Whenever I get down to the last cup or so, I just make it really quickly and know it will be ready the next day.

As a side note, it does not need to be precise measurements. I put in about 1/4 of a jar of buttermilk and 3/4 of a jar of milk, but I’ve never measured and it always works perfectly fine. It’s kind of funny that you need to have buttermilk to make buttermilk, but it’s basically just like yogurt or kombucha. In order to make it, you need to have a little bit on hand first.

How to make cultured buttermilk:

1. In a quart mason jar, combine 1 cup of cultured buttermilk with 3 cups of whole milk.
2. Put lid on jar and shake well.
3. Set on the counter and set timer for 24 hours.
4. After 24 hours, shake again and store in refrigerator.

What do I top the sourdough discard pancakes with?

I love maple syrup SO much! If you haven’t seen my posts on it, then you don’t know that we tap our own trees for maple syrup. It’s a labor of love and we enjoy the fruit of our labor all year long!

If you don’t have maple syrup on hand, but do have some maple flavoring and sugar, you could make this delicious pancake and waffle syrup rendition that our family has made forever! You could also make this amazing warm caramel buttermilk syrup. It’s SO good!

Another way I like to eat these is put peanut butter or jam on them. It’s an especially great option when you are running out the door in the morning and don’t have time for something messy.

So that’s sourdough discard pancakes! I hope you love them! Have you had any beneficial things come about after eating sourdough? I’d love to hear about it!

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