Red Lentil "Pro-age" Pancakes - The 4 ingredient miracle meal
They may help you live longer
I have been eating these pancakes for breakfast all week —They are so delicious, so good for me, so inexpensive, so easy to make, and so easy to create upon. They just hit my JOY SPOT aka J-spot.
In fact, the pancake recipe I am giving you today is just a juju’ed version of the two ingredient red lentil flatbreads or dosas that are all over social media these days. I just added salt and ground flax seed to the batter and that’s it. The flax seed acts as an egg and provides fiber, omega-3 fats and linked to a reduction of heart disease and type 2 diabetes, both of which run in my family so I am all about it.
Longevity linked to eating legumes and whole grains & weight loss
I don’t know understand the quest for the fountain of youth. Why not a quest for happy age-ing instead.
Did you know that eating lentils, grains, and nuts is linked to a longer life span by up to 10-13 years. Everybody seems to want to be 10 years younger, well, if you measure age backwards by how much time you have left instead of how much time you have lived, that is like being 10 years younger. Therefore, these pancakes are pro-age because they give you more time to age healthfully.
There are a few random controlled studied on this and I will leave the links beneath the recipe… There are likely more studies and there will likely be more in the future, so keep an eye out for them if you are interested.
I wish I got better pictures of these pancakes, but I didn’t even think to share them with you until I realized that I had been noshing on them for breakfast 7 days straight, which means I believe in them, which also means I would be remiss if I did not share the good news.
Also, I know I mentioned that I was only going to only make things with zucchini in them for the next 2 weeks to celebrate zucchini season, well…if you shred and drain a 1/4 cup - 1/2 cup of zucchini, they would be great in these pancakes as a savory or sweet treat depending on whether you add herbs or spices, or maple syrup.
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Red Lentil Pancakes
Ingredients:
-14 ounce bag of red lentils
- Soaking water
- 3 cups of water for the batter
-1 or 2 tablespoons of ground flax seed (the more you add, the more eggy the texture
Directions:
making the batter
-Remove lentils from bag, washed and sorted through and then soaked in water over night. This could be in the fridge or on the kitchen counter.
-Once soaked, drain, rinse, put in blender and add 3 cups of water water. You can add or remove water depending on how thick you want your pancakes. If you want them to be more crepe like, add more water. These won’t ever be fluffy pancakes. I make mine like Swedish pancakes
-Add a 1-2 tablespoons of ground flax seed and a pinch of salt
-Blend until fully smooth and let rest in the fridge for a few hours or overnight. Overnight is better
cooking the pancakes
I make mine on a griddle or well seasoned cast-iron. You can probably used any pan, and I would imagine you could use a non-stick and not even have to use any oil at all. I actually did get away with making a few pancakes without oil on my griddle, but you just have to make sure they are cooked through over medium heat. With other pancakes, you wait until all the air bubbles pop and the edges are dry, but with these, you want the whole top surface of the pancake to dry before you flip them. I also like to take my spatula and loosen the edges first. That said, these aren’t super delicate pancakes, they will hold up as long as you cook them through. They are surprisingly easy to make.
Options:
I topped mine with almond butter, bananas, and cinnamon. I really love the combo of strawberries and almond butter too.
You can add fruit and shredded vegetables to the batter and they will hold up fine, just make sure to squeeze the excess water out of your shreds first. Be creative! Why not? these are as cheap as the cost of a coloring book, why not scribble a little, go outside the lines, metaphorical paint the sky pink.
If you leave the flax seed out, they will be more like flat bread.
Storing:
I make the batter and leave it in the fridge and ladle batter from it all week whenever I want pancakes and it works out great. You can even put the batter in a milk carton to be poured on demand.
But, if you have an air fryer, this is the best way to store them and reheat them:
Stack them on a plate with parchment paper in between each pancake and covered. Air fry them by demand at 400 degrees for just a few minutes. In fact, they are so good this way with their crispy edges and they don’t get stiff or dry out like other pancakes. You could
Bed time reading
Eating lentils and whole grains could see you live 10 years longer
Estimating Impact of food choices on life expectancy: A modeling study
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003889#sec009
The Broad Study: Increased quality of life, lower BMI, decrease in cholesterol and diabetes risk through eating a whole grain, plant based diet
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5380896/