Gluten Free Strawberry Pancakes (Vegan)

These gluten free and vegan Strawberry Chocolate Pancakes are perfect for Valentine’s Day or a spring or summer breakfast! These are naturally flavored and colored, dairy free, and cane sugar-free as well. And they are made with whole grains and simple ingredients.

February is already here and Valentine’s Day is coming up and everything is coming up hearts and in every shade of pink and red. It’s kind of fun to make everything pink in February, including our pink gluten free strawberry pancakes!

I decided to make a breakfast recipe that’s perfect for serving your loved ones on Valentine’s Day: strawberry pancakes with chocolate maple syrup! These pancakes are such a beautiful pink color from strawberries and the natural pink food color derived from beets.

These strawberry pancakes fit multiple food allergies (gluten free, dairy free, peaute free, soy free) and happen to be egg free and vegan as well!

Why you’ll love these allergy friendly strawberry pancakes

These strawberry pancakes are a fun breakfast to serve on Valentine’s Day or any spring or summer day you want to enjoy seasonal strawberries!

Our pink gluten-free pancakes are naturally flavored with real strawberries and we added a little natural pink color as well. This recipe is low-sugar, too, since the pancake part of the recipe is made without sugar.

We also opted to make our pancakes whole grain as well with whole sorghum flour vs a pancake mix so they are a healthier option. I recommend using the Authentic Foods superfine sorghum flour for the best texture and taste in our sorghum flour recipes.

How to make our gluten free strawberry pancakes

These strawberry pancakes are a pretty easy recipe to make with just a couple of steps. The only additional step from regular pancakes is pureeing some strawberries.

Here are the steps to make our pink strawberry pancakes (the full recipe card is at the end of the post, this is just an overview):

1. Preheat a non-stick griddle or non-stick skillet over medium-high heat (about 375 degrees if you’re using an electric griddle).
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: sorghum flour, ground flaxseed, baking powder, salt, and natural food coloring powder. Whisk until combined and set aside.
3. If using a natural color powder, add with the dry ingredients. If using a natural liquid color, add with the wet ingredients.
4. Wash your fresh strawberries, remove the stems, and cut them into quarters. Measure out 1 cup of quartered strawberries and place the strawberries in a small blender, NutriBullet, or small food processor with 1/4 cup water and blend until smooth and pureed.
5. Add the strawberry puree, rice milk (or other dairy free milk like almond milk), stevia drops, and light tasting olive oil to the flour mixture and stir to combine. Melted coconut oil or melted vegan butter will also work here. This pancake batter is a bit thicker to make shapes like hearts, but if you like thinner pancakes, you can add a little more dairy free milk to the batter.
6. Pour the pancake batter onto the pre-heated griddle or skillet by 1/4 or 1/3 cupfuls.
7. Cook the pancakes on the heated griddle until golden on each side.
8. Top with the chocolate syrup and even more fresh strawberries. Or you can top with other kinds of fresh berries.
9. Store any leftover pancakes in an airtight container or bag once cooled. These can be stored for up to 3 days.

We poured some of our pancakes into circles and some into heart shapes as well for a little extra fun 🙂 Top these with a little Sunbutter or peanut butter and strawberry jam for a PB&J-style breakfast treat.

Options for natural food coloring

We added a little bit of natural red/pink coloring to this recipe to enhance the pink from the strawberries in these pancakes. It is completely optional, but your pancakes won’t be quite as pink without it.

Between the strawberries and a little touch of natural pink food color, these pancakes have the perfect shade of pink and it’s all natural so you don’t have to worry about any artificial colors in your food. This is great news for families avoiding red dyes in their foods.

For several years, I had been using the McCormick natural food color powder since it was a natural food coloring that didn’t cost a ton of money and my local Walmart carried it. Unfortunately McCormick discontinued making it, which was frustrating since it was so easy for us to find locally and I loved using it.

But we did find a few other options for natural food colors that we use to sometimes add a little extra color to our strawberry recipes or our mint recipes.

Some of these options we haven’t tried yet, so we’re not sure how the colors work in baked recipes. But make sure that you check the label on any food colorings you use since some may be made in facilities with allergens and we can’t guarantee any of these products work for your food allergy situation.

• Watkins liquid natural food colors: we are currently using this brand now and it seems to work well so far. It comes in 4 colors you can mix: red/pink, yellow, green, and blue. These colors do have polysorbate 80 as a stabilizer.
• Supernatural plant-based food color: this is a powder-based coloring.
• Suncore coloring powders: these are natural and plant-based options, but they come in larger bags that cost quite a bit more. They have beautiful colors in different shades from plants (like butterfly pea powder, pandan leaf, etc.). Might be worth buying if you’re planning on coloring a lot of food for big batches and need a variety of different shades.
• Color Garden pure natural food colors: this appears to be a liquid coloring.
• 365 by Whole Foods natural food coloring: this one is a liquid and also contains polysorbate 80 just FYI if you’re avoiding that.

Check out our other gluten free pancake and waffle recipes:

• Gluten Free Dairy Free Buttermilk Pancakes
• Gluten Free Chocolate Waffles
• Dairy Free Buckwheat Pancakes
• Gluten Free Apple Cider Pancakes