Frugal Recipes: “Instant” Pancake Mix

I don’t know about you, but breakfast always winds up being kind of a haze every single morning. I am not a morning person and my lack of early morning inspiration is painfully obvious when you look at our daily breakfasts. I have found a few ways to streamline the process however. One in particular has really made making a warm filling breakfast super simple and painless. Even on my worst mornings, I can easily add a few wet ingredients to dry and make stellar pancakes for the little bellies in our family.

How do I do this? Well I pre mix the dry ingredients during a more alert and caffeine supported moment, so that in the mornings all I have to do is add the wet ingredients and heat!

It’s super easy and it really doesn’t take much effort or pre planning at all. If you like, you can even totally make the pancakes ahead of time and freeze them, reheating each morning. While you are at it, be sure to check out my freezer breakfast burritos too!

Here’s how I streamline breakfast:

“Instant” Homemade Pancake Mix

Supplies:

• Brown paper bag or plastic container with index card
• sandwich baggies with zipper

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Directions:

1. Decide how many bags you want to pre-make. Lay out the bags and start adding all the dry ingredients to each baggie (flour, sugar, baking power, baking soda, salt). Seal the baggies and put them in your brown paper bag or plastic container
2. Write the wet ingredients on an index card or right on the brown bag (no guarantee you’ll be able to find the recipe in the morning! Best to keep it right next to the ingredients!)
3. When you are ready to make the pancakes, add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until moistened
4. Spray a nonstick skillet with cooking spray and make whatever size pancakes you desire
5. Enjoy!

Use whatever pancake recipe you wish. This is just a really basic one, but I often add to it or change the white flour to half wheat. If you think about it, you are really just making your own instant pancake mix! For much less then you would ever buy in stores.

Do you have any shortcuts for breakfast? Tell me about them in the comments!