Multi-grain waffles with strawberries
Treat yourself with this healthy comfort food topped with fresh berries.
There are so many things you can do with fresh strawberries when they are in season. I bought a whole flat so I could use some right away and freeze the rest for later desserts and smoothies.
They made a luscious topping for a healthy version of multi-grain waffles I found in a cookbook by Eating Well — Comfort Foods Made Healthy. They weren't kidding. Crunchy, tasty hot waffles with berries were indeed very comforting on a cold weekend morning.
Everyone's waffle iron is a different size thus it's hard to translate serving size into the number of waffles. The recipe serves 8 if everyone gets 32 square inches of average thickness waffles (2 squares from an 8 inch by 8-inch waffle iron divided into 4 squares).
Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 4 cups strawberries, hulled and sliced
- 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 2 cups nonfat buttermilk (I didn't have any, so I added 2 tablespoons lemon juice to 2 cups of skim milk, and it worked just fine)
- 1/2 cup rolled oats
- 2/3 cup whole-wheat flour
- 2/3 cup all-purpose flour (You could use 1 1/3 cups of white whole-wheat flour instead of the 2 flours)
- 1/4 cup wheat germ or cornmeal (I used cornmeal because I had some)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
- 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon canola oil
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Directions
- Combine the strawberries with the granulated sugar and let them sit for about a half-hour until they release some juice.
- Preheat your waffle iron. Mix the buttermilk with the oats and let stand for about 15 minutes.
- Whisk the flours, wheat germ or cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Stir the eggs, brown sugar, oil, and vanilla into the buttermilk-oat mixture.
- Add the wet stuff to the dry stuff and mix just until everything is moistened.
- The recipe said that about 2/3 of a cup of batter covers the 8 by 8-inch waffle iron. Mine is bigger so I use about 1/3 of a cup for each square. They also suggested coating the waffle iron with cooking spray before preheating. Mine is nonstick so I didn't use any spray and the waffles came out just fine.
- Cook each one until the steaming slows down a lot — about 4 to 5 minutes to get golden brown, crunchy waffles. Keep warm in the oven while you cook the rest.
- Serve hot with the strawberry topping.
I froze leftover waffles to reheat in the toaster another day. In my opinion, the commercial frozen waffles don't even come close.
Nutrition information (per serving)
- Calories: 213
- Total fat: 4 g
- Saturated fat: 1 mg
- Trans fat: 0 g
- Cholesterol: 55 mg
- Sodium: 329 mg
- Total carbohydrate: 36 g
- Dietary fiber: 4 g
- Protein: 8 g