Simple and delicious: Vegan spinach crepes that are easy to flip

Creating delicious vegan crepes can often be daunting, as it’s sometimes hard to get them thin enough yet still remain soft and tasty.

But don’t worry – in this blog post, I’ll show you how to make vegan spinach crepes that are perfectly thin, deliciously flavorful and best of all – they don’t fall apart. I guarantee these will quickly become your family favorite dish when craving a comforting yet light meal.

Craving crepes but have no cooking experience? No problem! Check out my helpful hints on making delicious, homemade crepes.

For this recipe, I was inspired by Vegan Lovlie’s vegan crepe recipe. If you’ve never cooked big crepes before, you should watch her video on how to pour the batter onto a pan with a ladle, so that you get the same size and even round form every time. I had never seen anyone do it like that – but it really works!

this recipe

This recipe is also available in Finnish in my other blog, Melkein vegaani.

In this article

• Equipment
• Important! How to activate Aquafaba
• How to make the batter
• Cooking hints & tips
• Recipe

Equipment

For this recipe you will need:

• a whisk – to make the batter smooth and to activate the aquafaba
• 1-2 flat crepe pans or coated frying pans with low edges
• a thin plastic spatula
• a ladle – to make it easy to dose the batter

Important! How to activate Aquafaba

For a long time, I was looking for a recipe for vegan spinach crepes that are big, thin, crunchy and yet easy to handle. Without eggs, it’s difficult! Finally, aquafaba came to the rescue.

Aquafaba is chickpea stock, that is, the slightly cloudy yellowish liquid that is usually poured out. However, you should definitely save the stock and use it for baking, because it keeps many vegan pastries from falling apart.

A word of caution though: aquafaba is not as effective as egg, so the end result is never completely what you are used to.

About 3 tablespoons of aquafaba is equivalent to one egg in, for example, crepe batter. One can of chickpeas gives you about 1.5 deciliters of aquafaba, which you can use to make one portion of these crepes.

Tip: If you have leftover aquafaba and you can’t immediately think of another use, you can also freeze it.

How to make the batter

This crepe batter is quite thin and on purpose – we want the crepes to be big but thin.

Start by thawing the spinach, for example, in the microwave.

Add the dry ingredients to a large bowl and mix them well together: wheat flour, soy flour, chickpea flour, corn starch, salt and black pepper.

Then add about half of the plant milk and mix the batter until smooth.

Add the rest of the plant milk, oil, water, thawed spinach and aquafaba.

Activate aquafaba by whipping the batter for a couple of minutes before use. It’s good workout for your arms!

Cooking hints & tips

The recipe makes about 20 large crepes, or a big pile of small ones. If you have several crepe or frying pans, you should use all of them. I always fry in two flat pans at the same time, which halves the time spent on cooking.

Heat the pan to medium heat. If you use too high a heat, the crepe will color too quickly but will not have time to cook from the inside.

Add a small dollop of vegan margarine to the pan and let it melt. Spread the melted margarine evenly over the entire pan. Also baking spray is really handy for cooking crepes – just spray a bit of oil on the pan before adding a new batch of batter.

Next, use a ladle to add a small amount of batter to the center of the pan. You should cook the first crepes small, because the pan has not yet heated up properly. And remember that the first couple of crepes often fail. You have to be especially patient with them.

The less experience you have in cooking crepes, the smaller crepes you should make. I almost never make crepes that cover the entire pan from edge to edge. Smaller crepes are always easier to handle and easier to turn.

Melt a small dollop of vegan margarine (or baking spray) in a pan before cooking each new crepe, or at least after every second or third one. The more often you add margarine, the easier it is to get the crepes out of the pan without tearing.

When the crepe has hardened on top and the bottom edges begin to brown properly, as in the picture below, it’s time to turn it:

Before flipping, you can carefully try with a spatula under the pan in different places to see if it comes off the pan easily. When the bottom is properly browned, it is easy to turn.

Tip: Try to make the crepes as thin as possible. The one shown in the picture above is even a bit too thick for my taste. I usually cook thin lace-edged crepes. The thinner the batter is, the crispier it becomes when cooked, and then it is easy to flip. Thick crepes require a very long baking time and are easily left raw in the middle.

The most essential thing in the success of cooking crepes is successful cooking of the first side. You should be patient at this point, because this is a critical stage. Fortunately, it doesn’t take nearly as much time to cook the other side.

Note! The egg-free and plant milk-based crepe batter does not brown as quickly as traditional crepe batter, so the baking time may be longer.

Serving suggestions

In Finland, it’s customary to serve spinach crepes with lingonberry mush or jam. But my kids prefer to have strawberry jam with them, so feel free to serve these crepes with any jam you like 😄

Since this is a savory recipe, I usually serve these crepes with one or more of the following, so that it’s a proper dinner:

• mashed potatoes
• vegan steaks or nuggets
• steamed vegetables
• salad

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