The Best Vegan Gluten-Free Buttermilk Pancakes that are made with white rice flour, almond flour and potato starch. These are so fluffy and soft, nobody would know they are oil-free and not made with any eggs! Just 8 ingredients and 1 bowl!
Have you ever had dreams of soft, fluffy and light buttermilk pancakes? Well, wake up, you aren’t dreaming, these are Vegan Gluten-free Buttermilk Pancakes are real. They are vegan and gluten-free, but taste amazingggg. My blog is no stranger to some amazing pancakes. In fact, some of my most popular recipes are in fact, my pancakes. These are consistently reader favorites:
- Best Vegan Fluffy Pancakes
- Vegan Sweet Potato Pancakes (also grain-free!)
- Fluffy Vegan Blueberry Pancakes
- Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Pancakes
But, I’ve never made just a classic buttermilk flavored pancake. All of my other ones are flavored in some way. It took me 3 trials to get these right, and third time was the charm. They are super soft, light, fluffy and moist.
To get that buttermilk flavor, I combine “lite” canned coconut milk with apple cider vinegar. Coconut milk has a different flavor than any other milk, in the sense that it lends a buttery mouth-feel. These are truly incredible. For gluten-free, these really are the best vegan pancakes. Honestly, just as good as regular gluten!
Vegan, and especially gluten-free, pancakes have a bad reputation for being raw and mushy inside and that is because most of them are. To me, there is nothing worse than a raw, flat, dense and disgusting pancake. The lack of eggs is the culprit, but I’ve found many tricks in many of my trials in creating the most amazing, soft and fluffy vegan gluten-free pancakes.
HOW DO YOU MAKE FLUFFY VEGAN BUTTERMILK PANCAKES?
Easy, you will start out by adding the rice flour, almond flour, potato starch, baking powder and salt to a large bowl and whisk for a couple of minutes, making sure it is well mixed and all lumps are broken up.
Make a well at the bottom and pour in the milk, don’t stir yet, then pour in the remaining ingredients. Don’t over mix it or the batter will get overly thick. This batter will be fairly thick, kind of like a thick cake batter. It should still be smooth though, not stiff. The thick batter is what will yield fluffy pancakes.
Let the batter sit 10 minutes before cooking. This is necessary to let the ingredients soak in together and allow the starch and baking powder react with the liquids, resulting in more fluffy pancakes.
Heat up your pan on medium-low while the batter sits.
Pour a scant 1/3 cup batter into the circle and lightly smooth out the top. Let them cook about 3 minutes or until the top is starting to look dry before you flip them. Repeat with all of the batter. If you have a griddle, it will go really fast.
The inspiration for this recipe came from my super popular Garlic & Chive Dinner Muffins. Those are so darn light and fluffy and buttery, and that is thanks to the coconut milk, almond flour and rice flour mix.
No raw mushy inside in these babies! These really are the best fluffy vegan pancakes!
I really hope you all love these Vegan Gluten-free Buttermilk Pancakes as much as we do.
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Vegan Gluten-Free Buttermilk Pancakes
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons (100g) white rice flour
- 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons (70g) superfine blanched almond flour
- 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons (60g) potato starch (potato starch is what makes these so fluffy, other starches don't work well)
- 2 1/2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
- scant 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons (150g) room temp "lite" canned coconut milk, shaken first (Highly recommend Thai Kitchen-SEE NOTES)
- 4 teaspoons (20g) apple cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons (30g) water
- 2 tablespoons (40g) pure maple syrup or agave
- 2 teaspoons (10g) vanilla extract
- Optional: a 3.5 inch cookie cutter for perfect round pancakes like in the photos.
- I use this scale.
NOTE
- Always use a scale for accuracy when using flours, following MY gram weights listed. You never need cups, just the scale and bowl.
Instructions
- Add the rice flour, almond flour, potato starch, baking powder and salt to a large bowl and whisk for a couple of minutes, making sure it is well mixed and all lumps are broken up.
- Make a well at the bottom and pour in the milk, don't stir yet, then pour in the remaining ingredients. Give the liquids a light stir and then whisk them all together just until it is smooth and no lumps remain. Don't over mix it or the batter will get overly thick. This batter will be fairly thick, kind of like a thick cake batter. It should still be smooth though, not stiff. The thick batter is what will yield fluffy pancakes. If it is way too thick, you can add a tiny bit more water, but don't add too much or you will have thinner pancakes.
- Now, important, let the batter sit 10 minutes before cooking. This is necessary to let the ingredients soak in together and allow the starch and baking powder react with the liquids, resulting in more fluffy pancakes. At this same time, heat up your pan on medium-low, closer to low for those same 10 minutes. It's important your pan is hot when you add the batter.
- If using a cookie cutter, place the cookie cutter (I used 3.5 inch one for 1/3 cup batter, if you use larger, your pancakes will be thinner or you will need to pour a bit more batter) on the preheated pan and spray within the circle with nonstick spray. I used coconut oil nonstick spray and it works perfectly. If you don't use spray, these will stick to the pan! This is necessary so the cookie cutter works and the pancakes don't stick. Pour a scant 1/3 cup batter into the circle and lightly smooth out the top. Let them cook about 3 minutes or until the top is starting to look dry before you flip them. You can peak underneath to see if it's browned. If they are cooking too fast, slightly turn down the heat. Gently pull off the cookie cutter with tongs and flip the pancake. Otherwise, if not using a cookie cutter, just pour onto your pan or pancake griddle, lightly smoothing out the top, but not spreading out the batter too much. The more you spread out the batter, the thinner your pancake. The pancakes will still be delicious and fluffy without a cookie cutter, just not quite as tall.
- Serve with delicious maple syrup!
Notes
- COCONUT MILK: DO NOT use the Polar brand, it is all stabilizers and additives and not pure coconut milk, it will yield dense/gummy pancakes. I love the Sprouts brand "lite" coconut milk, it works great. Just make sure if the milk is separated and chunky, to blend it first before measuring.
- ALMOND FLOUR: The key to these fluffy pancakes is also the texture. Almond flour brands vary greatly in how fine they are, this can affect how thick the batter turns out. As well, how fluffy your pancakes turn out. Make sure to use a superfine one for best results.
Please don’t recommend Thai coconut milk. https://investigations.peta.org/thai-coconut-milk-cruelt
I edited it! Yes, this is an older post from years back. I’ve updated it.
I made these for breakfast yesterday and it was like biting into a cloud. It reminds me of angel food cake but 100 times better. I feel like stalking up on coconut milk jars because of how phenomenal the pancakes are. I would eat these over premade any day.
This thrills me to hear Katelyn!! Yay!
is it needed for the baking powder to be aluminum free or is it more like a health thing? I have two things of baking powder but they both have aluminum in them.
No, it should be fine! Sorry for just seeing this!
I have tried a lot of vegan gluten free pancakes, these are the best! I followed the recipe exactly and used a scale to measure. Yum.
Yay, love hearing that!
These ingredients and ratios are fantastic. Thanks for spreading the scale gospel; I only use baking recipes by weight. I subbed brown rice flour and oat milk and they turned out well. I can see how using finer white rice flour and using flavorful coconut milk as written would have made them even better, but even using what I had on hand made some pretty good pancakes.
Thank you so much Trace!!
Every.single.recipe. Has been delicious and worked exactly how you described! These pancakes were no exception. Thank you for your hard work and dedication to making such yummy foods for us vegans and gluten free peeps!
Greetings to you! Do you think I can use more flour instead of a starch or a gum? I am allergic and cannot use anything like this. Usually, they say you can use more flour. I will be using quinoa flour instead of the rice. It’s supposed to be a good sub. Any information will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for all of your hard work & I do not mean to be a problem. Take care.
I just made these after bookmarking this recipe quite a while ago (it took me a while to source potato starch). The only thing I did differently was to sub rice malt syrup for the maple syrup. And I accidentally used an extra 5g of apple cider vinegar, which I couldn’t taste at all.
They turned out really great! I didn’t have a cookie cutter to use for the cooking process but they were still really fluffy, not chewy or anything. I probably wouldn’t know they were gluten-free if I hadn’t made them myself. And they didn’t fall apart when being flipped like other gluten-free pancakes I’ve tried to make in the past.
I will definitely be using this recipe again. Thanks Brandi 🙂
I do not have potato starch at home can be replaced with cornflour?
Best GF/V recipe!!! I used soy milk and half brown rice flour:cassava, added a pinch of cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. I usually can’t find good tasting, fluffy pancakes but these tasted just like the real deal. I made the batter a bit thinner.
Yay, that is so wonderful to hear Rebecca, thank you!
I made these today in a smaller 3″ cookie cuter version and they were perfect. I usually don’t like pancakes because they always fall flat but followed the instructions and they came out perfect.
My son is allergic to nuts- what would be the best replacement for the almond flour?
There is none for these. Make these instead. https://thevegan8.com/vegan-fluffy-pancakes/
Hi! Would it be possible to make these without the rice flour- just almond and potato starch?
Hi Tam, no, the rice flour is needed for the texture. Omitting it would yield very dense, mushy pancakes.
Can these be frozen? I love them so much and sometime I just want to pop one out of the freezer to heat up. I thought of making 2 batches at once…on to eat and one to freeze. Do you know if they freeze well?
Hi Laura, so happy to hear you love these so much! I’ve honestly never tried freezing these in particular, but typically things frozen that contain starch, especially potato starch in larger amounts don’t freeze well because when thawed, they become much more dry and crumbly. But, again, I’ve not tried these, so they might be okay, so I would just try freezing one to see and make sure to wrap it really tightly a few times to minimize them getting too dry hopefully!