Perfect Sourdough Pancakes Recipe

These perfect buttermilk sourdough pancakes are mixed up the night before and ready to be cooked in the morning for a lazy weekend breakfast. They are very easy to make once you have your sourdough starter going and I believe they are the most delicious pancakes you’ll ever taste. Even if you aren’t interested in baking sourdough bread from scratch, these pancakes and the sourdough biscuits that I shared last week are more than enough reason to keep a sourdough starter in the refrigerator.

Whether you get some from a friend, buy it online, or make your own (it’s really not that hard!), maintaining a sourdough starter is easy. And once you have a jar of starter bubbling away on the counter or tucked away in the refrigerator, you can use it to start making these delicious pancakes that everyone will love.

In my experience, even people who don’t normally care much about pancakes will rave about these! Making the batter is simple. The night before, stir together flour, buttermilk, and sourdough starter. Cover the bowl and let it sit out at cool room temperature overnight. By the way, if you don’t have buttermilk, regular milk works just fine in this recipe.

The next morning, the batter will be nice and bubbly and ready for the rest of the ingredients. Stir in an egg that has been beaten with salt and baking soda. I mix the soda and salt into the egg just to help everything get distributed into the thick batter a little easier. Stir it all together until the egg is completely mixed in. Next, stir in the melted butter. I add the butter separately so that the melted butter doesn’t doesn’t harden from being mixed with the cold egg. Your pancake batter is ready to go.

I cook my pancakes on a cast iron griddle that came with my stove. Because it’s cast iron and takes a while to heat, I turn it on before the final mixing of the batter. Then when I’m ready to cook, I brush it lightly with either butter or oil using a silicone pastry brush. This time I used coconut oil.

Sometimes I make big pancakes, sometimes I make small ones. It just depends on my mood and who I’m feeding. These were for my husband, so they are on the large side. This is a pretty thick batter so the pancakes will cook up thick and fluffy. Because of that, you want to make sure your griddle isn’t too hot or the pancakes will burn before they are cooked through.

You’ll know it’s time to flip them when edges of the pancakes are starting to look dry. It may take a little trial and error to get the griddle to the perfect temperature, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be rewarded with perfect, golden, fluffy sourdough pancakes. Don’t forget the butter and maple syrup!

This pancake recipe is adapted from the recipe that came with the original sourdough starter I purchased from King Arthur Flour about 10 years ago. Yields 10-12 4-inch pancakes, about 3 servings. Combine the flours and sugar in a mixing bowl. Add buttermilk and sourdough starter and stir to combine. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

Let sit out at cool room temperature overnight (up to 12 hours is fine). Melt butter and set aside to cool a bit. In a separate bowl, whisk together egg, baking soda, and salt. Stir egg mixture into the pancake batter until well combined then stir in melted butter. Drop by spoonful (as large or small as you want) onto a moderately hot, lightly greased skillet or griddle.

Cook pancakes until bubbly and starting to dry out on the edges then flip and and continue cooking until browned to your liking on the other side. This recipe feeds about 3 people. Recipe can easily be doubled or tripled for a larger family. You can use all purpose flour in place of whole wheat if desired, but the whole flour tastes great in this recipe. Regular milk can be used in place of buttermilk if that's all you have.

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