Forget Plain Pancakes And Give Your Stack A Bolder Flavor With This Japanese Ingredient

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Whether it's breakfast for dinner or a simple snack, an easy pancake recipe comes together with minimal ingredients and effort. A traditional stack of pancakes is full of comforting flavors, including rich maple syrup and a warm, buttery taste. If you're looking for a way to enhance your usual pancakes, there's a simple addition that will yield unforgettable results. Using either miso paste or powder will add a new level of complexity to your favorite pancake recipe, and incorporating it couldn't be simpler.

The general taste of miso is salty and umami, with its level of intensity depending on the color and type of miso you're using. Though it might seem an odd choice to pair savory miso with a sweet short stack, your pancakes will benefit from the additional boost of a contrasting ingredient. Miso will effectively cut the excess sweetness and expand the overall flavor profile of your pancakes.

You can easily prepare a miso-infused butter to mix into the dry ingredients for your pancakes, which deepens in flavor even more if you take care to brown the mixture first. Additionally, there are other options to use miso in your pancake syrup or other toppings for an extra punch of umami. Don't rule out the possibilities for savory pancake-like flaky scallion pancakes either.

It's important to first identify just how much miso you want in your pancakes and how to achieve the delicate balance between both sweet and savory elements. Note that a lighter colored miso will be milder, which can be a more subtle way of incorporating it into your pancake batter to start. It's easiest to melt it into the butter before combining the wet and dry ingredients to create your pancake batter.

To make a basic miso compound butter, start with 1 tablespoon of white miso paste and 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter and mix until fully combined. If you want to brown your butter first, melt a half cup of butter in a light-colored saucepan on the stovetop over medium heat and make sure to stir and move it around constantly. You can mix in your preferred type of miso, such as Roland Foods Organic Miso Paste, into the butter while browning.

If you want a more robust helping of miso in your pancakes, combine it with either amber or dark grade maple syrup for a rich and memorable flavor. Drizzle the syrup over a stack of buttermilk pancakes infused with miso butter. On the savory side, whip up a batch of scallion pancakes infused with miso butter and top them with furikake flakes, sesame seeds, and chili paste. Any way you choose to use miso in your pancakes will be delicious.