Cranberry Pancakes with Leftover Cranberry Sauce

Holidays yield A LOT of food, so why not clean out your fridge with these leftover cranberry sauce pancakes! Super fun, and they can be made using homemade or store-bought batter :)

A little personal history on cranberry sauce and this recipe

Hello, readers! Kacey from The Cookie Writer back again to share another leftovers recipe. I’m big on cleaning out the fridge and not wasting food, so these leftover cranberry sauce pancakes just made sense :)

Pancakes are big in our house, mainly for my daughter that is. She could eat them every day for breakfast if I allowed it. Store-bought or homemade, they are a really simple breakfast. I also have no problem making them in advance and serving them over the course of two days. Reheated pancakes never hurt anyone :)

With the holiday season here and people panicking about everything, we want easy and relatable foods. I hated cranberry sauce growing up, but it wasn’t until I was much older that I realized our cranberry sauce was coming from a can. I eat canned stuff ALL THE TIME, so trust me, I am not bashing canned foods, I just didn’t like the consistency. Truth is, I didn’t even know homemade cranberry sauce existed (wow, kind of embarrassing to admit!)

It was my husband’s grandmother who introduced me to homemade cranberry sauce and gave me her secret: No matter what, she always added at least 1/4 cup extra sugar to her recipe. No surprise as she always had a homemade pie ready for her husband when he came home from working in the mines!

Why I love this Cranberry Sauce Pancake Recipe

I love coming up with new cranberry sauce recipes! And my love for cranberry juice is never diminishing, so let’s just say these leftover cranberry sauce pancakes were very hard to resist. (I couldn’t leave them all to my daughter!)

What I love most about this recipe is how versatile it is. You can use any filling you like: strawberries, compote, jams, etc. You can also decide if you want to make the batter from scratch or go with a store-bought brand. Either way, you will surely love this spin on a classic!

The Perfect Thanksgiving, Christmas and Holiday Season Breakfast Recipe

These cranberry pancakes using leftover cranberry sauce are the perfect breakfast recipe for the holdiay season. We make them the weekend after Thanksgiving and because they are such a hit we also make them again when the kids are home from school between Christmas and New Years. The cranberry flavor is so sutible for Thanksgiving and the bright red color (especially with some added food coloring) is perfect for Christmas. I like to add a little whipped cream and powdered sugar along with some chopped mint leaves to really make it feel like the holidays.

Cranberry Pancake Recipe Tips, Tricks and Shortcuts

This recipe is pretty straight forward and easy to make, however, I know around the holidays even the simplest recipe can seem like a lot of work. Especially when you are cooking for a large number of hungry family members of various ages. So in order to make this holiday breakast recipe even easier I have some tips, tricks and shortcuts for you.

• Use store bought pancakes mix. Simply make the pancakes according to the package instructions and replace 1/3 of the milk (or water) with cranberry sauce. Depending on the consitency you like your pancake batter you can always add a splash more milk if needed.
• No cranberry sauce, no problem. If you have dried cranberries you can soak them in hot water for 1-2 minutes to rehydrate them and then strain them. You can then add the cranberries to the pancakes the same you would blueberries or bananas.
• Use cranberry syrup on top of regular pancakes. I like to make some cranberry syrup around the holidays and a really easy way to turn plain pancakes into cranberry pancakes is to drizzle them with cranberry syrup instead of maple syrup.
• Don’t like cranberries, try strawberries. You can make a strawberry glaze and use it to replace the cranberry sauce in this recipe.

Cranberry Pancakes with Leftover Cranberry Sauce

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Double up on the cranberry sauce for these easy pancakes! Perfect breakfast recipe for the holidays, or you can use your favorite jelly any time of year!

• Total Time: 25 minutes
• Yield: 10 1x

Ingredients

Units USM Scale 1x2x3x

• 3/4 cup milk or buttermilk
• 1 tablespoon vinegar omit if using buttermilk
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 egg room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 tablespoons butter melted (plus more for cooking)
• 1/2 cup leftover cranberry sauce + more for topping
• red food coloring optional

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Instructions

1. If using plain milk, combine the milk and vinegar. Set aside for about 5 minutes to create homemade buttermilk.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, add the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and sugar. Whisk to combine.
3. Into the buttermilk, whisk in egg, melted butter, and vanilla until combined. Stir in cranberry sauce. Add some red food coloring if desired.
4. Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture. Mix until combined.
5. Heat a large frying pan over medium-low heat. Add in some butter or coconut oil (I prefer the coconut oil) and allow it to melt. Once the pan is nice and hot, add 1/4 cup portions of batter to the pan. Cook until the underneath side is nice and golden. Flip, and do the same for the remaining side. Cook until no batter remains.
6. Stack the pancakes and serve with additional cranberry sauce if desired!

Notes

For a shortcut, use pancake mix instead of making the batter from scratch.

• Author: Andi
• Prep Time: 10
• Cook Time: 15

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