Travel Bites: Cornmeal Pancakes – Savory & Sweet!

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Welcome to the second installment of Travel Bites!

If you missed the first one be sure to check it out: My go-to around the world salad

This week we’re featuring sweet & savory cornmeal pancakes inspired by our time in Guatemala with Cooperative for Education!

When we were in Antigua I ate the best pancakes I have ever tasted – blue corn pancakes. When we came home I did a search, on Pinterest of course, and came up with this recipe.

I changed up the recipe a bit and while these pancakes aren’t quite the same as the ones we had in Guatemala they were pretty tasty anyway!

The great thing about this recipe is that it is very basic (you can get cornmeal just about anywhere in the world), it’s simple to make and is very budget friendly!

These cornmeal pancakes are a perfect on the road recipe!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 c. fine or medium cornmeal
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 c. milk, or more as needed (I used almond milk and it worked fine.)

For the Savory version (which is my favorite):

• 3 slices bacon, fried crispy and crumbled – I kept this recipe vegetarian so I used Fakin’ Bacon instead of the real thing
• 1/4 c. chopped green onions
• 5 cherry tomatoes sliced (I decided to add this for a bit more flavor.)

(Note: The original recipe requested 2 Tbsp. bacon drippings – which I omitted from my version.)

For sweet version:

• 1 tsp. grated orange peel
• 1 sliced banana (I added this to the recipe.)
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 Tbsp. butter, melted

Directions:

Combine the cornmeal, salt, and 1 1/2 cups boiling water in a bowl and let it sit until the cornmeal absorbs the water and softens – for my recipe this only took a couple minutes.

Stir in the milk until the batter becomes more spreadable. (It will still be thick.)

For the sweet version: Stir in the butter, vanilla, orange peel and banana. Feel free to add in any other fruit you might like.

For the savory version: Stir in the Fakin’ bacon (or real bacon), green onions & tomatoes.

Heat up a large non-stick pan and add a drizzle of oil to the pan. (You definitely want to use a non-stick pan for this recipe. The first time I tried this I didn’t do that and they stuck to the pan.) You can now spoon the batter onto the pan but I actually found it much easier to form the pancakes with my hands and then drop them onto the pan. Cook for about 4 minutes until edges and underside are golden brown and then turn and cook on the other side until golden. I had to flip them a couple times to get the cooked thoroughly without burning.

On the sweet version maple syrup tastes great but jam & honey taste even better! The savory pancakes don’t really need much but you could add a little salt and pepper, a slice of cheese, a dollop of salsa or a bit of hot sauce. Bon appetit!

If you like this recipe you can pin any of the photos you see here to Pinterest and for your pinning pleasure I also made the two Pinterest specific images below:

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*Please remember all photos on this website, unless otherwise noted, are copyrighted and property of Beers and Beans Travel Website, Nariko’ s Nest Weddings & Bethany Salvon. Please do not use them without my permission. If you do want to use one of them please contact me first because I do love to share and I would be flattered. Thanks!