If you need an easy, delicious recipe for your sourdough discard, or you just want to make something for breakfast with your sourdough starter, try these sheet pan pancakes!

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If you have had your sourdough starter for more than a week, you have probably already thought about making pancakes.

These were the first food I ever made with my sourdough starter, and we still make them nearly every week for a couple of really good reasons:

1. Taste – sourdough pancakes are so good.
2. Reduce Food Waste – use the sourdough starter discard to prevent food waste and make something delicious at the same time!
3. Ease – sheet pan pancakes are perfect for large families, big eaters, make-ahead meal prepping, and people who are just TIRED OF FLIPPING PANCAKES ALREADY

There are a ton of sourdough discard recipes online, but I wanted to give you something extra. You can use this recipe to make regular pancakes, of course. But sheet pan pancakes are a huge time saver at our house. They make real food breakfasts that are much simpler in our modern lives.

Sourdough Pancakes

At the risk of being cliche, we are that family with the weekend pancake tradition.

Pancakes are fun to make and easy to get the kids involved. They’re made with real food, and the sourdough pancakes feel easier on our stomachs than white flour pancakes or even whole wheat flour pancakes (although we still make those when we don’t want that sourdough tang in our pancakes).

Because we have some gluten-intolerance in our family, sourdough pancakes make life better.

This pancake recipe works perfectly between batches of the Easiest Sourdough Bread Ever and the Easiest Sourdough Sandwich Bread.

Sourdough Discard

If you have been working with sourdough for very long, you know you end up with discard.

It’s called discard because when you feed your starter, you only use a small spoonful of the old starter, then you discard the rest of the old starter. This ensures your starter stays a manageable size because you have to feed it more the bigger it gets.

But you know we’re not just going to toss the discard.

There are a ton of ways to use sourdough discard, but our favorite is a classic standby recipe that many of you ask for whenever I share it on Instagram Stories.

Here is How I Collect Sourdough Discard:

Every time I feed my sourdough starter, I add the discard to a jar I keep in the fridge. When the jar is full (usually in 1-2 weeks depending on how often I feed my starter), it’s time to make pancakes.

Pancakes are an easy use for sourdough discard. Since discard is the old used up sourdough starter, making pancakes means you aren’t relying on the starter to do it’s normal starter thing: rise and proof the dough.

Instead, in this recipe discard is just a water and flour mixture you can add to regular pancake ingredients so you don’t waste food.

Sheet Pan Pancakes

Okay, you can use this recipe to make regular sourdough pancakes. And they are delicious and perfect!

But I don’t love flipping pancakes, or spending all day in the kitchen, so I typically give my family two options:

1. I make the batter and everyone cooks and flips their own pancakes.
2. I make sheet pan pancakes.

Apparently no one else in our family loves flipping pancakes either, because I usually end up making sheet pan pancakes.

Sheet pan pancakes are perfect for large families, big eaters, make ahead meal prepping, and people who are just TIRED OF FLIPPING PANCAKES ALREADY.

You can make a batch and freeze them, make a batch and toss them in the fridge for breakfasts for the week, or do what I do:

Make a batch, leave the kitchen for 5 minutes, then come back and wonder how on earth people could have eaten a triple batch of pancakes that fast.

Whatever works for you.

Easy Breakfast

While homemade pancakes aren’t difficult, I understand that they are a step above the boxed mix. And sourdough is a whole other animal.

But I promise: If you’re making sourdough starter, pancakes are a piece of cake – er – pancake.

In this recipe, there is an optional overnight soaking step, which will make sense if you’re already into traditional baking and sourdough. But really, besides that, these are just a regular pancakes recipe with some sourdough stirred in.

Easy Real Food Breakfast

Real food breakfasts can be a chore. We are typically an oatmeal and eggs family because it’s a budget-friendly, fairly allergy-friendly option.

However, pancakes are delicious, and making the sheet pan version makes it easy to make ahead or cook up a whole batch in a few minutes.

I love real food, but I also love doing other things with my life, so anyway I can simplify real food for my family and avoid the kitchen is a win for me.

Easy Sourdough Recipe

These are it. They started from a recipe I found on Cultures for Health (a great place to go for any sourdough recipe!) but I discovered that I liked the texture when they were thinner, and I preferred to use the discard.

These pancakes are extremely flexible. You can make them with whole wheat or white flour, butter or dairy-free oil, soak them overnight for optimum sourdough-ness – or stir them up quickly because you forgot to think ahead.

These Sheet Pan Sourdough Pancakes Are:

• Simple
• Flexible
• Sourdough
• Yummy
• No weird ingredients (besides sourdough starter)
• Possibly good for gluten-intolerance (everyone is different!)
• Dairy-free option
• Make ahead
• Freezer-friendly
• Real food
• Reduce food waste

Sheet Pan Pancakes Hack

In order to prevent sticking, grease your baking sheets really well. Generally speaking, butter works best for this. If you are dairy-free, coconut oil is the next best choice, in my opinion. But sometimes it still sticks.

Parchment paper works great for this recipe (not wax paper – parchment paper). While I typically try to avoid disposables in the kitchen, sometimes parchment paper just does the trick. You can reuse it multiple times, and I store the used ones in the freezer in between pancakes batches.

Here’s a tip! If your parchment paper won’t lie flat, crinkle it up in a ball first, then spread it out.

Dairy-Free Sourdough Pancakes

If you are dairy-free, use dairy-free milk or water instead of milk. Instead of butter, try oil. Coconut oil and avocado oil are my favorites.

You can also substitute up to half of the oil with applesauce or pumpkin puree. Don’t substitute all of the oil unless you like the taste of fat-free baked goods or you are oil-free.

Egg-Free Sourdough Pancakes

I’ve made these before with flax eggs, and they were okay, but not my favorite. They worked in a pinch.

If you try this recipe, let us know! Leave a comment, rate it, and tag a photo #cheapskatecook and @cheapskatecook on Instagram. 

Sourdough Tips:

While this post is not a tutorial about how to make your own sourdough starter, I want to point you to one of the queens of traditional sourdough baking, my friend Wardee, from Traditional Cooking School.

My friend Wardee shares A LOT of information (and videos!) about healthy sourdough. Here are some of her tips:

• How to Start a Sourdough Starter
• Healthiest Bread Ever (free webclass!)
• 11 Tips for Lighter, Less Dense Sourdough
• Sourdough A to Z (eBook & Video)

I demonstrated how I feed my sourdough starter LIVE on Instagram and Facebook here:

• Watch the Facebook replay here!
• And I shared a very short demo of how I feed my sourdough starter on IGTV.

My best advice: Give yourself grace, keep trying, and you will succeed. Like any new skill – such as staying 6 feet apart, not touching your face, washing your hands (apparently that’s new too?) – you will get better and better until making sourdough bread is second nature.

My Favorite Sourdough Recipes:

• Easiest Sourdough Bread Ever
• Easy Sourdough Sandwich Bread

More Real Food Breakfasts:

• Simple Allergy-Free Baked Oatmeal
• 5-Ingredient Homemade Breakfast Sausage
• Egg & Cheese Muffins
• Crispy Baked Home Fries
• Instant Pot Pumpkin Spice Oatmeal
• Sneaky Veggie Baked Oatmeal
• Whole Grain Pancakes