When looking for a healthy breakfast, there are an abundance of options on the market. Two of the most common breakfast items are pancakes and waffles. Depending on how each of these items are prepared, they can both deliver health benefits. Regarding each of these items, moderation and portion size is essential to ensure a healthy breakfast. This article will compare pancakes and waffles and determine which one is the healthier breakfast option.

What Are Pancakes?

Pancakes are made from a batter and cooked on a skillet or griddle. Pancakes typically are thin and flat. Pancakes need to be flipped to ensure both sides are cooked properly.

What Are Pancakes' Health Benefits?

The batter of pancakes contains milk, which provides protein and calcium. Eggs provide additional protein. If pancakes are made with whole wheat or buckwheat flour, their health benefits will increase. When using these whole grains, pancakes present numerous health benefits, including rich in fiber, vitamins, antioxidants and minerals. Due to the additional fiber, whole wheat pancakes will help you feel fuller longer than white flour pancakes.

Make pancakes even healthier and more satisfying by adding flaxseed, which increases the overall fiber content of the pancake. Your average 6 inch pancake has approximately 175 calories.

What Are Waffles?

Waffles are made from a batter consisting of flour, eggs, sugar, butter, milk and baking powder. The baking powder helps the waffle acquire the fluffy texture. Waffles are cooked on a waffle iron and can come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The waffle iron creates pockets or indentions throughout the dough. Both sides of a waffle are cooked at the same time on a waffle iron.

What Are Waffles' Health Benefits?

The batter of a waffle and a pancake are very similar and therefore promote similar health benefits. To increase the nutritional value of your waffle, consider making the batter from whole grain flour. Another option would be utilizing egg whites instead of whole eggs. This would reduce the fat, cholesterol and caloric value of this dish.

Add fruit, such as banana and nuts or seeds to your waffle batter to increase the overall nutritional value of a waffle. These additions will increase the waffles' healthy fats, vitamins, fiber and minerals. Your average 6 inch waffle has approximately 220 calories.

What about the Extras?

Rarely do people eat plain pancakes or waffles. These items both are topped with syrup, butter, whipped cream, fruit, sauces or powder sugar. All of these items can quickly add up to unnecessary calories. The best topping in that list would be fruit. Make sure to select whole fruits instead of sugary fruit syrup. Another option would be to switch your syrup to light syrup, which has reduced calories. If you enjoy jam or jelly on your pancakes or waffles, chose a low sugar or sugar-free option.

Which Is the Better Choice?

Without any altercations to the typical recipe, pancakes have 20% less calories than waffles due to their small nature. Because pancakes are individually cooked on a grilled or skillet, one is able to control the size of a pancake. The size of a waffle is already predetermined due to the waffle iron.