Cooking With Kids: Protein-Packed Berry Pancakes

As a doctor and a mother, I’m always looking for ways to sneak “healthy” into the kids’ meals. This morning, Babygirl and I mixed up some high-protein berry pancakes, which sounds healthy, and probably would have been even more so, except that she insists on dipping each individual bite into her custom maple-syrup-and-melted-butter sauce.

For the parents out there who want to know how to turn pancakes into a breakfast you can feel good about, here’s my EASY recipe:

First, start with a high-protein pancake mix, like Kodiak Power Cakes (and no, I do not get money from those guys, it’s just a good example). Then, when you mix it up, use milk instead of water. Throw in a good amount of frozen berries, like blueberries. We used a mix of blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries.

Kids can handle everything up to this step:

Meanwhile, you’ve been heating your pancake pan on “low” heat for at least five minutes. When you’re ready to make these pancakes, swipe some butter on there to grease the surface, or use a spray canola oil. Use a measuring cup or ladle to pour out pancakes of your chosen size, and my trick is, cover them so that they cook more evenly:

You know they’re ready to flip when they lose their wet sheen and get kind of dull, as well as a little bubbly:

Serve’em hot. Watch your kids happily inhale their yummy meal of protein and fiber (and, perhaps, a small lake of maple syrup with globs of butter). But feel good about it!