Make Ahead Pancake Casserole

Making breakfast for your family can be a chore, but it doesn’t have to be. This make ahead pancake casserole will make your mornings run a lot smoother.

All you have to do is put the ingredients together the night before, and in the morning all you have to do is pop it in the oven. Plus, it's insanely tasty.

Growing up, I ate a lot of casseroles. My mom would make them for dinner on weeknights, and they were always so comforting and filling. I still love to eat casseroles today, especially during the colder months when I need something hearty and satisfying.

Plus they're easy and save money! And breakfast casseroles are no different! This is sure to become one of your favorite breakfast recipes.

This pancake casserole is a favorite in our house because you can throw it together the night before, and have a hot and fresh pancake breakfast with nearly zero effort in the morning.

Now the one thing I do make for this recipe in the morning is the streusel topping, which is technically optional, but oh my word. It's my favorite part of the whole recipe.

Trust me on this, it's worth the extra few minutes.

Ingredients

So for this particular recipe, we're going to break up the ingredients into 3 sets. One for the pancakes. The second part for the casserole batter. And then the third, the delicious streusel topping!

For the Pancakes

• All Purpose Flour
• Granulated Sugar: Brown sugar would work too, but may taste more "sweet."
• Baking Powder
• Baking Soda
• Salt: A tiny bit of salt brings out the flavors of sweet foods.
• Whole Buttermilk: Buttermilk adds a bit of tang to the pancakes and the acid helps break down the gluten of the flour, creating softer pancakes. If you don't have buttermilk, I have a few suggestions for alternatives below.
• Eggs
• Unsalted Butter: Unsalted butter lets you control the amount of salt in the recipe. If are using salted butter, omit the additional salt mentioned above. You'll also be using room temperature butter for this part of the recipe.

Casserole

• Eggs
• Heavy Cream: Makes for a rich, delicious batter.
• Whole Milk
• Granulated Sugar
• Vanilla Extract: I prefer pure vanilla extra, it's expensive but lasts a long while and adds a delicious flavor to all your recipes

Streusel Topping

• All Purpose Flour
• Pecans: Adds a delicious flavor and texture to the top of your pancakes
• Brown Sugar: Granulated sugar would work, it's just not as moist, so add a tad bit more butter.
• Ground Cinnamon
• Salt
• Unsalted Butter: This time the butter should be cold.
• Pure Maple Syrup: There is nothing like the real deal. The flavors are insanely good in real maple syrup.

Instructions

To start, you'll be making a batch of fluffy buttermilk pancakes to line up in your casserole dish.

We provided a quick and easy pancake recipe you can whip up from scratch, but if you'd rather use a pancake mix that would work too.

Start by combining all the dry ingredients from the pancakes, like the flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda, and salt.

Then whisk the buttermilk and eggs together.

Stir the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture, until they are just barely combined.

Gently stir the softened butter into the batter. It's ok if it's a bit lumpy right now.

Once your pancake batter is finished make your pancakes using about ¼ cup of batter for each one.

Keeping making the pancakes until all of your batter is gone.

Let your pancakes cool down and then cut each one in half with a large knife.

Arrange the pancakes with in your baking dish with the cut sides down against the casserole dish.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream, milk, sugar and vanilla extract.

Slowly pour the egg mixture over the pancakes and cover. Put into the refrigerator over night. 

In the morning it's time to bake your pancake casserole!

When you're ready, preheat the oven to 350F and remove the casserole from the fridge.

It's now time to make the streusel crumb topping.

In a small bowl whisk together the flour, pecans, brown sugar, cinnamon and alt. Use a pastry blender or your bare hands to cut up the cold butter.

Sprinkle the streusel mix over the pancake casserole and bake uncovered for roughly an hour.

You want to make sure the pancakes are set in the middle and that all of the liquid has cooked into the pancakes.

Slice up and serve warm with maple syrup.

Hint: The pancakes will absorb a lot of that liquid overnight, when you bake it it'll form one big delicious pancake-cake.

Substitutions

• Buttermilk - If you don't have buttermilk on hand, you can make some buttermilk at home using regular milk and an acid like lemon juice or vinegar. Simply substitute the buttermilk with regular milk and add 1 tablespoon of your acid to each cup of milk you need.
• Heavy Cream - If you don't have heavy cream on hand, you can substitute each cup of the cream with ¾ cup of milk and ¼ cup of melted, unsalted butter. So 1 Cup of Heavy cream = ¾ cup of milk + ¼ cup melted butter.

Storage

Once you've baked the pancake casserole, it'll keep in a sealed container or ziplock bag for up to 5 days in the fridge.

I haven't tried freezing it myself, but I have frozen lots of pancakes. I thinking slicing it up into individual ziplock bags would work well for freezing.