I make these easy banana-oatmeal pancakes whenever I want a healthy breakfast in minutes

You can find the full recipe, from Ambitious Kitchen's Monique, here.

On her blog, Monique says she came up with the recipe in 2019, and that her "mission in life is to become the Queen of Healthy Pancakes." Based on this recipe, I'd say her mission is accomplished. And according to her Instagram, Monique has a cookbook coming out in fall 2024 with more recipes. (Monique did not respond to Insider's request for comment.)

Back to my favorite pancakes, they are indeed healthy without any butter, flour, or sugar, and still taste delicious. Though admittedly, I like to serve them doused in maple syrup.

Here's what you'll need for the batter for nine pancakes total (approximately three servings):

• 2 bananas, preferably medium ripe (I've used almost completely brown bananas, and found it adds more sweetness)
• 2 eggs
• 1.5 cups of rolled oats
• 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (I sometimes use almond-coconut milk, which adds a hint more flavor)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsps baking powder
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Besides that, you'll need olive oil on hand for cooking, but, according to the Ambitious Kitchen recipe, coconut oil or vegan butter are fine alternatives.

What's great about this recipe is that there are no real steps to making the batter. It's pretty much one and done.

The recipe calls for blending on a high setting, but mine — a hybrid food processor/blender from Cuisinart — doesn't have that capability. So I use the food-processor function to break up the ingredients more before switching to purée mode to create a smooth batter.

To check the mixture is smooth before pouring it into my pan, I turn off the blender and lift some up with a spoon and let it fall back into the blender; if there are any clumps, I'll blitz it for a few more seconds.

Full disclosure, I was a little too liberal with my olive oil, but I wiped some out of the pan and found that worked well, even if some pooled in one area of the griddle.

The recipe suggests waiting for the pancakes to "slightly puff up and you see a few bubbles along the edges."

I tend to adjust the timing based on how the pancakes are looking, gently lifting the edge with a spatula to check the color underneath. If it's a golden brown, that means the pancake is ready to flip; if it's dark brown, it's cooking a little too fast and you'll want to lower the heat. Turn the heat down to medium-low if that's the case.

The recipe says to wipe your griddle clean each time and add oil before cooking the next pancakes in your batch, but I'd added enough oil to my pan at the start that it didn't affect my results in this case.

I'm also a lazy cook and hate to make more work for myself, so I generally avoid wiping out the pan when transferring ingredients unless I really have to.

While I topped my pancakes with remaining banana and maple syrup (of course), the Ambitious Kitchen recipe shows them adorned with pecans.

I don't usually have pecans at home, but in the past, I've added chopped walnuts, a dollop of Greek yogurt, and honey — and would highly recommend this combo. You could add any other fruit you like, too.

A sprinkle of cinnamon is also a nice touch, and adds a hint more sweetness.

I can never seem to achieve the appropriate thickness with regular pancakes when I make them at home, but I've made these a few times now and found they turn out to be a good size every time.

For a healthy recipe, they don't necessarily taste like it — a pro in my book! If someone made these pancakes for you, you'd never guess they were made without sugar. For me, they have just the right amount of sweetness, thanks to the ripe bananas. And I find you can't taste the oatmeal at all. It's really like eating dessert for breakfast, except an hour later you could do a workout if you want.

Despite feeling like a decadent breakfast, they're light — fluffy on the inside, without being too cakey. And they surrender beautifully to a fork while holding their shape, no knife necessary.

Whatever I'm making, whether it's my grandmother's Greek orzo or Mary Berry's scones, I like to make sure I have leftovers. Thankfully, these pancakes are good to eat days or even months after.

I've frozen these pancakes before, but also found refrigerating them on a plate wrapped in foil works well as long as you eat them a day or two after you've made them. I reheated my refrigerated pancakes the day after I made them in the microwave (I've found 40 seconds to a minute will do the trick), and they tasted almost as good as the day before.

If you're freezing them, Ambitious Kitchen has a clever tip to keep the pancakes apart: Lay them out on a baking sheet, pop them in the freezer for a half hour, then freeze them, stacked, in a container for up to three months. You can reheat them in the microwave; depending on your microwave, it should take 30 seconds to a minute to get them warm.

However you eat them, enjoy — and try to get Jack Johnson's "Banana Pancakes" out of your head. I'm still working on it.