Wanna know how to make the whole family happy at the table and give them a dose of whole grains with a vegetable serving?! Healthy Whole Wheat Pumpkin Crepes, my friends – guaranteed smiles!

Breakfast, lunch or dinner – we do crepes for any and all. In this recipe, I’ve married my kiddos love for crepes and my love for whole grains and vegetables. This Fall version of our families favorite weekly dish adds in pumpkin and Fall spices to make them even more nutritious and delicious.

Here is the funny thing, though – if I were to tell my kids we were having “crepes”, they would have no idea what I was making. You see, in our house, we call this original French delicacy “squishy pancakes“. I can’t quite trace back to when or why crepes inherited such a non-French name for our family, but I can always guarantee cheers of excitement when I say, “come for squishy pancakes!”

Our favorite way to eat squishy pancakes? Filled with lightly sweetened homemade yogurt, fruit and drizzled with some homemade chocolate sauce – where I simply heat together some cocoa powder and pure maple syrup.

It is plate-lickin’ good!

I usually always double or triple the batch to make some to pack in their lunches that week. It’s their favorite lunch of the week and seems to make all the school kids crazy jealous.

Having made crepes for years, I was delighted when I found that if I subbed the white flour for white whole wheat flour, (affiliate link) my kids didn’t notice a thing, and gobbled them all the same. Then upon finding extra pumpkin puree in my fridge, I wondered if I could sneak this sweet vegetable into the recipe and still find 8 thumbs up.

Sure enough, it was a hit!

CREPE FILLING OPTIONS

Having made crepes for a long time, we’ve experimented with a variety of filling and topping options. Here are some of our favorites:

Sweetened and whipped creme cheese filling
Yogurt
Peanut butter and jam
Berry jam and chocolate sauce
Bananas
Strawberries
Rasberries
Blueberries
Peaches
Maple Syrup
Lemon or Lime juice with powdered sugar
Melted Butter
Scrambled eggs and cheese

CREPE TOPPING OPTIONS

Granola
Maple Syrup
Chocolate Sauce
Cinnamon and Sugar
Warm berries/Warm Apples
Powdered Sugar
Salsa (with eggs inside)
Coconut Sugar

The possibilities for crepes are limitless, but still delicious in their most basic form.

HOW TO COOK CREPES

If you don’t have a crepe maker, don’t let this recipe stop you! I prefer to just use a hot pan or skillet to make these thin pancakes. To save on time, I prefer an electric skillet where I can make 2 at a time.

I pour about a fist size of batter onto the skillet and quickly lift the skillet and swirl the batter around by tilting the skillet around until the batter is evenly spread.

When bubbles start to form and the sides can be easily lifted, they are ready to flip. Cook them until they are golden brown.

This recipe is a little thicker then my original. Crepes are meant to be thin, but I found to add in the pumpkin, I needed a bit more flour and less liquid so they were not pumpkin-mushy. The ratios in the recipe below seemed to work out great!

TIPS FOR SERVING CREPES TO FAMILY

I’ve learned some tricks to the trade for serving crepes to the fam. Rather than try to pass all the toppings at the dinner table, serve these babies open bar style. Make up a few with the same fillings and toppings and plate them up as they come. When they finish their first serving, they will surely be back for more. It’s a fun and lively way to appease everyones desires.

I’ll roll them or fold them, depending on my mood 😉

I hope you’ll give this Fall version a try! Let me know if there is any interest for my most basic whole wheat version and I might be able to share that as well!

Need more pumpkin recipes? Try my Healthy Pumpkin Dip!