Chickpea flour is the secret to making these delicious, savoury vegan cheese and tomato crêpes. Get the full recipe below.
Savoury pancakes
Savoury pancakes and crêpes are a fantastic light lunch or dinner. I love that the pancakes are thin and delicate, but just substantial enough to hold your favourite filling.
French pancakes (or crêpes) get their lacy appearance because the batter is made with buckwheat flour. Buckwheat is actually not a variety of wheat at all. In fact, buckwheat flour is made from the seeds of the buckwheat plant. It's considered a healthy ingredient as it's easy to digest.
But, for this crêpe recipe I like to use an alternative flour: chickpea flour also known as gram flour.
I like chickpea flour instead of buckwheat as I prefer its sweet, nutty flavour. Chickpea flour is also high in protein and fibre, and a good source of lots of different minerals and vitamins that are vital for a healthy body.
Once the pancake is made, I like to keep fillings simple. Cheese is always a good base and you can then add your favourite veggies. The vegan cheese and fresh heirloom tomatoes found in this recipe pair together beautifully. Vegan cheese and tomato is such a classic flavour combination you can't really go wrong.
How to make Vegan Cheese and Tomato Crêpes
There are just a handful of steps and just one key piece of kit that you will need to master in order to make these crêpes.
That piece of kit is a crêpe pan. Crêpe pans are a fantastic pan to have in your kitchen as they are non-stick and have low sides. This means that it's really easy to flip your pancakes without any mishaps. So get your crêpe pan ready and lets begin mixing the batter.
First make a well in the flour and whisk in the milk. To make sure there are no lumps drizzle the milk in slowly while constantly whisking. Once you have a wonderfully smooth batter its time to cook.
You don't want to add too much oil to the pan, especially if you're using a good quality, non-stick crêpe pan. There's no need to be worried about them sticking and too much fat will make them greasy.
Pour in just enough batter to coat the bottom of the pan in a perfect circle then cook on a medium-high heat.
Once it's just golden on the bottom and you can see there are no wet patches on the top of the crêpe it's time to flip. This won't take long at all. Just cook the second side until it's also golden and you're good to start filling!
The recipe
Vegan Cheese and Tomato Crêpes.
Equipment
- 1 Crêpe pan or large flat bottomed frying pan
Ingredients
- 100 grams chickpea flour also known as gram flour
- 4 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 2 teaspoon onion powder
- 2 teaspoon garlic powder
- salt and pepper to taste
- 300 ml water
- 100 grams vegan cheese grated
- 4 heirloom tomatoes thinly sliced
Instructions
- Whisk together the chickpea flour, nutritional yeast, onion powder, garlic powder and salt and pepper so that they are well combined.
- Slowly add the water to the flour mix, whisking well so that you have a smooth batter.
- Oil a crêpe (or frying) pan and put on a medium heat.
- Once the pan is hot, pour the batter into the pan and make sure it's evenly spread.
- Cook for 3-5 minutes until the top of the crêpe is no longer wet and the underside has begun to brown and the edges crisp.
- Using a spatula, carefully loosen the crêpe and flip it over.
- Cook for another 3-5 minutes until it is lightly browned and there is no wet batter left.
- Serve onto hot plates and while still warm sprinkle over the cheese over the whole pancake.
- Arrange the tomato slices over one side of the pancake and then fold the other side over.
- Serve hot.
Nutrition
More savoury pancake recipes
The pancake recipe roundup
For the full range of pancake recipes on the blog check out my pancake recipe round up.
Leave a Reply