Article by Emily Saladino

With Food Network Kitchen’s easy pancakes recipe, you can mix, flip and serve up a fluffy, golden stack in about 20 minutes. Plus, once you learn how to make pancakes from scratch, you can customize them with different flours, flavors and mix-ins. Here’s how to get the breakfast of your dreams on the table in no time at all.

How to Make Pancakes Like a Pro

Pancakes falling flat? Stuck to the pan? Not anymore. Perfectly fluffy homemade pancakes are a snap with these step-by-step tips from Food Network Kitchen.

Room-temperature eggs and milk make fluffier pancakes. When you whisk room-temperature eggs and milk into the batter, they emulsify and trap air better than when they’re cold, which leads to fluffier pancakes.

Stop whisking the pancakes batter as soon as it forms. After you combine the wet and dry ingredients, stop whisking as soon as the batter comes together and you no longer see dry patches of flour. This keeps the pancakes light and airy.

Give the pancakes space to cook. When pancakes overlap, they're difficult to flip and cook unevenly. Depending on the size of your griddle or skillet, cook two or three 1/4-cup portions of pancake batter at a time. Keep the cooked pancakes warm on a platter beneath tented aluminum foil.

Know when to flip the pancakes. Look for small bubbles on the surface of the uncooked side of each pancake, then flip them quickly and confidently with a spatula when the underside is golden brown.

Melt more butter in the pan as you cook. As soon as the skillet or griddle looks dry, add another pat of butter. Not only does the melted butter give the pancakes lots of rich flavor, but also it also makes them easier to flip.

Add fruit, nuts or chocolate chips while the pancakes cook. Slice the fruit or chop the nuts before you start cooking the pancakes. Sprinkle a small portion onto the surface of each pancake as it cooks and just after bubbles form, then flip it and cook the pancakes for 1 minute more.

Basic Pancakes Recipe Variations

You can riff on this basic pancakes recipe to make all sorts of variations. Some of our favorites include:

Banana pancakes: Cut 3 ripe bananas into 1/3-inch slices. Ladle the pancake batter into the pan, then press 4 to 5 slices firmly onto the uncooked top of each pancake as soon as you start to see bubbles appear on the surface.

Blueberry pancakes: Measure 3/4 cup of blueberries. Firmly press 5 to 7 blueberries into the top of each pancake as it cooks in the pan.

Chocolate pancakes: Substitute 1/2 cup of cocoa powder for 1/2 cup of the flour.

Chocolate chip pancakes: Measure 3/4 cup of chocolate chips. Sprinkle 5 to 7 chips onto the top of each pancake as it cooks in the pan.

How to Reheat Pancakes

Store cooked pancakes without toppings like syrup or jam in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week. To reheat the pancakes, place them in a single layer on a baking sheet and cover the sheet loosely with aluminum foil. Bake for 3 to 4 minutes in a 350-degrees-Fahrenheit oven.

If you have just one or two pancakes to reheat and don’t want to turn on the oven, pop them in the toaster. Turn the dial to its lightest setting and start checking the pancakes at 60 to 90 seconds to keep them from overcooking. This method only works with plain pancakes—fruit or mix-ins can melt and damage your toaster or even become a fire safety risk.

Can You Freeze Pancakes?

You can freeze fully cooked pancakes and enjoy them weeks later. Arrange the cooled pancakes on a baking sheet, making sure they don’t overlap, then put the sheet in the freezer so it lies flat. Freeze for 3 hours. Remove the frozen pancakes and wrap them tightly in plastic wrap, then again in aluminum foil. Freeze for up to 3 weeks. To defrost, thaw overnight in the fridge and reheat in an oven preheated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Our recipe developers don’t recommend freezing pancakes batter, however. The air pockets that form when baking powder is combined with the wet ingredients deflate over time, so frozen batter will create flat, not fluffy pancakes.