Vegan Buckwheat Pancakes {GF, DF}
These fluffy vegan buckwheat pancakes are perfect for any weekend brunch! Completely gluten free and refined sugar free, these pancakes are absolutely decadent!

These vegan buckwheat pancakes are so fluffy, so easy, and so customizable, you’re going to be making them every weekend for brunch, breakfast, or freeze them to enjoy throughout the week!
Made with ground flax seed (or chia seed if that’s all you have on hand!), these vegan buckwheat pancakes are made with the simplest of ingredients and completely refined sugar free!
This is one of my favorite vegan breakfast recipes, which I rotate with my vegan buttermilk pancakes, vegan banana pancakes, vegan lemon-ricotta pancakes, or vegan oat flour pancakes, depending on what I’m in the mood for!
Vegan Buckwheat Pancakes Inspiration:
So you might be wondering what sparked the idea for these gluten free vegan pancakes! Well, over the past few weeks, I’ve been experimenting with making my own pancake mix, completely vegan, but had a hard time figuring out the right ratios.
For some reason, making pancakes from scratch always intimidated me. I grew up with the Bisquick pancake mix or the frozen Aunt Jemima pancakes, so doing things from scratch was never my forte when it came to pancakes!
Last year, Jared and I went to a pretty popular vegan restaurant, Cafe Gratitude (literally has my name written all over it…I mean, GRATITUDE?! Talk about being on brand with the Banana Diaries!).
Both mornings that we went there (2 out of the 4 mornings we were there), I ordered the vegan buckwheat pancakes made with ground flax seed.
OH. MY. GOODNESS. My heart was just blown away (and not just because it’s called the open-hearted pancake stack!). These gluten free vegan pancakes were just out of this world!
At first I was a bit intimidated by a recipe with buckwheat flour, but I saw there was an ingredient list online for all of their meals, so I stealthily looked up what was in these vegan buckwheat pancakes. All ingredients that I know and love, plus it was extraordinarily simple!
And I knew I could make it even simpler. These copy-cat Cafe Gratitude healthy buckwheat pancakes are even EASIER than the famous ones at the restaurant and I think even better, both in terms of ingredients and flavor!
Even Jared couldn’t keep his hands off the plate that I made, and he’s not a sweets person!
So let’s dive into what makes these vegan buckwheat pancakes so special!
What are vegan buckwheat pancakes made of?
What I love about these buckwheat pancakes is that the ingredients are so incredibly simple (and kid friendly!). All you’ll need is:
- Buckwheat flour: make sure that it’s not toasted, or else it will alter the taste drastically! Now, what makes these pancakes different than Cafe Gratitude’s vegan buckwheat pancakes is that instead of using a mix of gluten free flours, this recipe only calls for buckwheat flour. And no xanthan gum!
- Ground flax seed
- Coconut milk: I highly recommend using either a light coconut milk or full fat coconut milk, but steer clear of the traditional refrigerated coconut milks. This is because those coconut milks are typically too watered down, and you need the fats from the light and/or regular coconut milk (light coconut milk has more fat than the traditional refrigerated large canister coconut milks) to fluff up these vegan buckwheat pancakes.
- Apple cider vinegar: you could also use half of a lemon here, but don’t skip this ingredient! Any sort of acid, like apple cider vinegar (you could also use white vinegar), is crucial in order to replicate buttermilk.
- Maple Syrup
How incredibly simple is that?! These are the base ingredients that you’ll need, and then of course add on whichever toppings you’d like.
How to make buckwheat pancakes from scratch
Don’t let the fact that this might be a new flour scare you that these pancakes are even the slightest bit complicated.
It’s essentially like making a box mix of pancakes, except just a few more steps!
All you’ll need to do is:
- Whisk together the dry ingredients. That will be the buckwheat flour, flaxseed, baking powder, and sea salt.
- Pour in the wet ingredients and combine everything together. That will be mixing in the vegan “buttermilk” and maple syrup.
- Make pancakes!
Of course, I go into way more detail in the recipe card, but that’s the basic gist of the recipe.
The one pre-step you’ll need to do is make the vegan “buttermilk” for 5 minutes beforehand. That just means combining the dairy-free milk (I recommend coconut milk) with apple cider vinegar.
Allow the mixture to curdle (about 5 minutes) before you begin.
Now, for actually making the pancakes, I highly recommend using a pancake griddle if you have one. It just makes it go a lot faster. However, you can definitely use a skillet pan (which is what I do when I don’t use the griddle and have more time…or am lazy about cleaning ha!).
Then you get to customize your toppings, for the ultimate plant-based breakfast recipe!
What to top vegan pancakes with:
Okay, so I’m always a huge fan of topping with vegan chocolate chips. It’s my go-to every weekend morning (if you watch my Instagram stories, you’ll see that very clearly haha!).
But of course, you could be a bit more creative:
- vegan chocolate chips + homemade cashew butter (the ultimate combo!)
- fresh berries + coconut cream
- chopped nuts + maple syrup
- banana + blueberries (always my favorite combo)
- peanut butter + fresh berries
- vegan butter + maple syrup
- fresh stone fruit + coconut cream
The options are endless!
I hope you love these pancakes using coconut milk as much as I do! If you make them, let me know in the comments section down below.
As always, I love to see your beautiful creations on Instagram and Pinterest, so be sure to tag me there.
Happy pancake flipping!
More Healthy Vegan Breakfast Recipes:
Vegan Protein Overnight Oats (over 30 grams of protein!)
Want to save this recipe for later? Add it to your favorite recipe board on Pinterest!
Fluffy Vegan Buckwheat Pancakes with Coconut Milk
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 5 5″ pancakes 1x
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
These fluffy and delicious vegan buckwheat pancakes are perfect for any weekend breakfast or brunch! The pancake batter comes together quickly and is made with buckwheat flour, canned coconut milk, and maple syrup. This recipe is also totally gluten free and refined sugar free. Top the pancakes with vegan chocolate chips, a drizzle of maple syrup, cashew butter, or whatever your favorite pancake topping is, and enjoy!
Ingredients
- 1 cup buckwheat flour (not toasted)
- 1 cup coconut milk (light or full fat)
- 2 tsp apple cider vinegar or 1/2 lemon ( )
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 2 tbsp ground flaxseed
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- 1 tbsp coconut oil (for coating the pan)
Instructions
- Mix together coconut milk and apple cider vinegar/lemon juice in measuring cup and set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together buckwheat flour, baking powder, flaxseed, and sea salt.
- Pour coconut milk mixture, maple syrup, and vanilla extract into flour mixture and whisk until completely mixed.
- Preheat a large skillet with coconut oil and wait 2 minutes for the oil to completely heat. Reduce to medium heat.
- Pour about 1/3 cup of batter onto the pan in a round circle. Cook for 1-2 minutes.
- Flip and let cook for 30 seconds-1 minutes.
- Plate and repeat for the remaining batter.
- Serve with favorite toppings and enjoy!
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 pancake
- Calories: 156
- Sugar: 10.3 g
- Sodium: 161.8 mg
- Fat: 3.1 g
- Carbohydrates: 30.4 g
- Protein: 4.1 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
Best vegan GF pancakes I’ve had. Not gummy. They are FLUFFY
Aw I’m so happy to hear this!! All about the fluff 🙂
The perfect stack! I think they truly are better than Cafe Gratitude! 😉
Aw haha you’re too kind!
I am so excited about these pancakes. I’ve had such bad luck with vegan GF pancakes, and this recipe has brought them back into my life. I’m so grateful. Thank you!
Aw I am SO happy to hear this!!! I hope you absolutely love them!! Thank you so much for trying them out, and have a beautiful day!
Yum! I will absolutely make these again. I didn’t have apple cider vinegar so I used white and it was still perfect. They tasted like they were made with Greek yogurt but there is no dairy. I made 4 thick pancakes using a ring mold and I loved how they looked. Served with sliced bananas.
This is awesome!!! So glad you loved it!! Thank you for the review 🙂
Very excited to try! I have the Cafe Gratitude cookbook and noticed you upped the flax and added maple syrup how does it compare to the original recipe? Also will you post a reel? Thank you <3
Hi Gauri!! Aw thank you!! SO I actually made this recipe before they publicly published their buckwheat pancakes recipe to the world, so I was just going off of the flavors I was tasting while enjoying a stack 🙂 To me, these taste VERY similar to the OG recipe, but I had developed it before they even shared that recipe, so I imagine that their recipe is the exact one they use in the kitchen! But I’m definitely planning on making a Reel soon of them 🙂
Thank you so much! I will be sure to look out for the reel.Quesiton will you make the recipe they released and compare which one you like better?
I will definitely try it, yes!
Please let me know how it turns out!
Love love this recipe! These always turn out fluffy!! I’ve been adding a scoop of protein to it and adding a little more coconut milk. Not to mention a great healthy option!! I’ve tried it with date syrup and still works great (:
so I made them today and I use soy milk instead of coconut milk because I’m reducing fat intake and they came out wonderful! I have made buckwheat pancakes before that came out terrible, these were a very good surprise in the other direction. I definitely recommend the recipe.
This is wonderfuL! I’m so happy to hear you loved them 🙂 Enjoy!!
Update! I finally figured out what I did wrong. I actually used baking soda instead of baking powder. I can’t believe I did that. I have to throw stroll the whole batch away. 😔 Back to square one.