Transform Your Leftover Sweet Potatoes Into A Delicious Pancake Stack

Sweet potato pancakes: they sound like they should be a sweet potato version of a classic latkes recipe, but they're not. Instead, they give your regular morning pancakes a run for their money. Aside from serving up admirable stacks of flapjacks, using sweet potatoes in your pancake recipe allows you to get rid of some leftovers you have left hanging out in the fridge. This stack of sweet spud deliciousness calls for 1 ½ cups of sweet potatoes, plus 1 cup of all-purpose flour. This combo creates the foundation for the batter. A ½ cup of sour cream and ¾ cup of milk replace the buttermilk that normally goes into a basic buttermilk pancake recipe.

A large egg, a few tablespoons of butter, ½ teaspoon of baking soda, ¾ teaspoon of baking powder, and ¼ teaspoon of salt provide binders, the necessary oils, and the leavening agents. Add 1 ½ tablespoons of maple syrup, as well as a dash of nutmeg and cinnamon infuse your short stack with sweetness. As with most quick breads recipes, this calls for the wet ingredients to be mixed together first, and then the dry ingredients to get their turn in a separate bowl.

It isn't unusual for most people to discover mid-recipe that they're missing some key ingredients, like eggs or milk. If this is your conundrum, sweet potato pancakes may still be in your future. If it's eggs you're missing, you have a couple of options at your disposal. Applesauce, bananas, flax egg, the nut butter of your choice, or a vegan egg substitute would put sweet potato pancakes back on your breakfast menu.

You might try buttermilk instead of sour cream and milk if you're out of one or both of those ingredients. The same rationale applies to using plain Greek yogurt as a sour cream substitute. (Actually, Greek yogurt's a pretty fine substitute for the egg, too.) Pumpkin pie spice can stand in for nutmeg and cinnamon, and if you're concocting these hot cakes the day after Turkey Day, you probably have some of that autumn-flavored spice in the cupboard already. 

Finally, the original sweet potato pancake recipe calls for kosher salt. Substituting pink Himalayan salt for the kosher salt adds up to 84 trace elements and minerals to your dishes, (per Healthline). Use the pink stuff if you need a little more oomph in your daily mineral count.

Given that there's maple syrup in the sweet potato recipe, it makes sense to pour a generous supply of this on top of your stack of pancakes, too. However, lots of other toppings also add flavor and sweetness to this breakfast treat. Nut butters, like peanut butter or almond butter, bring more protein into the mix and add plenty of nutty flavor to boot.

Or toss a cup or two of frozen berries into a saucepan, add some sugar, and heat until a syrup forms. Pour over your pancakes to add seasonal fruit flavors, plus some key antioxidants, to your morning stack. Whipped cream, sugared pecans, sunflower seeds, and chocolate chips turn this dish into either a very sweet breakfast or a fun dessert to try. And speaking of chocolate chips, they taste yummy on the inside of the sweet potato pancakes, too. Just pour some into the batter before you fry up the pancakes.

Anyone who has ever had sweet potato hash knows that these versatile tubers also taste great in savory recipes. Sweet potato fritters combine the fill-your-tummy heartiness of the sweet potatoes with savory flavors, like garlic, onion, salt, and paprika. These ingredients turn your sweet breakfast into something a bit more umami. With a sweet potato fritters recipe, you have the option of grating up some fresh sweet spuds, or using your leftovers. They bake in the oven for between 25 and 30 minutes, or fry on the stovetop in as little as 10, depending on the recipe you use. Top them with your choice of herbs and mayo. Thyme, parsley, basil, rosemary, and oregano count among the herb options to top this dish with.

Serve them with scrambled, fried, or poached eggs, stuffed mushrooms, applesauce, or a side of vegetables or spinach. Consider topping them with flavored cream cheese, like salmon or onion cream cheese, or add a layer of guacamole instead of mayo and herbs.