How To Freeze + Reheat Your Own Pancakes
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It can be a handy convenience to have some frozen pancakes in the freezer for breakfast on a busy morning. But if you don’t want to pay the grocery store price for a box of frozen pancakes, here’s a frugal alternative you can use instead – just make and freeze your own pancakes!
How To Freeze Pancakes For Later
Having some pancakes in the freezer starts by making some pancakes ahead of time when you have the opportunity or by making a double batch when you’re making pancakes for a meal and just saving some of them to freeze for later. If you need a recipe for making homemade pancakes, you can try my homemade pancake mix or you can use the recipe coming up below.
Once the pancake batter of your choice is mixed together, start cooking your pancakes! I always use my electric griddle for this job (heated to 275 degrees) and pour out the batter onto the griddle using my 1/4 cup size measuring cup.
Once the batter is on the griddle, let it set for a couple of minutes until you see bubbles forming. Then flip the pancakes over and let the other side cook for a minute or two as well.
Next take the pancakes off the griddle and put them on a flat surface (I use cookie sheets) so they can cool down. Keep doing this until you’ve cooked up all the pancake batter into pancakes (the recipe below will make about 14 pancakes).
Now it’s time to get the pancakes into the freezer to be frozen. The main thing to remember is to keep them apart so that the pancakes won’t be sticking together and freeze together in one big lump. If you have room, you can put the cookie sheets with the pancakes all laying separately directly into the freezer.
Because I have a narrow side-by-side type fridge and it’s kind of hard to get a cookie sheet in there, I instead make small stacks of pancakes and cut little squares of parchment paper to put between them. This is another good strategy to keep the pancakes separated as the freeze. Then let your pancakes sit in the freezer for 3 to 4 hours, or until they are frozen, and then you can do the final packaging.
Packaging Your Frozen Pancakes
An easy option for packaging your frozen pancakes is to use the quart size freezer bags. Your frozen pancakes should keep well in the freezer for at least 2 to 3 months. It’s a good idea to label the bags with the date too.
Because I like to re-use my freezer bags whenever possible, I usually don’t write directly on the bag and instead use a piece of removable post-it labeling tape. I love this labeling tape and use it all the time on various containers in my freezer.
Plastic freezer bags work well for storing pancakes in the freezer but other options such as square freezer containers could work too.
How To Reheat Your Frozen Pancakes
When it’s time to enjoy the fruits of your earlier labor and have a quick and easy pancake, all you need to do is put one or two pancakes on a plate and heat in the microwave. One minute of heating time will probably do the trick!
And because reheating the pancakes goes so quickly, it frees up a little time to make something like this quick and healthy 2 ingredient blueberry pancake topping to put on them too (just blueberries and apple juice heated for a few minutes on the stove!)
The main thing to remember about freezing your own homemade pancakes is simply to keep them separated as they are freezing. Either spread them out on a baking sheet and pop them in the freezer, or stack them with parchment paper or wax paper between them. Once they are frozen individually, you can package them together in bags or containers for longer storage. It’s very simple to do and can be a money saver too!
How To Freeze and Reheat Pancakes
Equipment:
- Cookie sheet or baking sheet
- Parchment Paper
- Freezer Bags or other Freezer Container
Ingredients:
To Make Pancakes From Scratch:
- 1½ cups Flour
- 2 Tbl Sugar
- 2 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 Egg
- 1¼ to 1½ cups Milk
Instructions:
To Make The Pancakes:
- Mix all the pancake ingredients together in a mixing bowl, adding the milk last and gradually until you have a pancake batter that is somewhat thick but still pourable.
- For each pancake, pour about 1/4 cup of the batter onto a preheated pan or a griddle set at 275 degrees. Cook on the first side for a couple minutes until bubbles form, and then flip and cook on the second side for about a minute.
- Place pancakes on a baking sheet (or other flat surface), each laying individually (do not stack them) and let them cool.
To Freeze Pancakes:
- To freeze the pancakes the most important thing to remember is to keep them separated so they don't all freeze together in a lump. If you have room in the freezer, you can put the cookie sheet with the cooled pancakes directly into the freezer.
- Another option is to stack the pancakes with small squares of parchment paper between them to keep them from sticking together as they freeze.
- Let the pancakes freeze like this individually for 3 to 4 hours or until frozen.
- Once the pancakes are frozen you can put them into the packaging containers of your choice, labeling them with the date. They should be good in the freezer for 2 to 3 months.
Reheating Your Frozen Pancakes:
- To reheat your pancakes, put one or two frozen pancakes on a microwave safe plate and heat for 1 minute, with additional 15 second increments of heating if needed.
I love this!… because I am not one who wants to cook every day. Let alone breakfast before the kids head out to school.
Yes, a little work ahead of time cooking and freezing some pancakes can definitely pay off in the future on busy mornings!