Whole Wheat Waffles with Strawberry Vanilla Sauce

My husband loves waffles. I have not made them for a few years now because I didn't want to use white flour or sugar, nor did I want to cover them in syrup. I decided I would try to take one of his favorite weekend breakfast foods and see if I could make it into something I would feel good about him eating.

Yesterday I made a strawberry sauce that I sweetened with agave and that was both easy and tasted good. It was a simple matter of pureeing the strawberries and agave and then cooking it down until they became a nice thick sauce. This sauce would be great over vanilla soy ice cream.

This morning I tried making waffles with whole wheat pastry flour and sweetening the batter with agave. To my surprise the healthy waffles turned out great. I admit I was concerned that these waffles would not meet the expectations of my waffle aficionado husband. He thought they had a good texture and nice whole wheat flavor. We both decided the waffles could be used either in sweet or savory applications.

Why did I choose strawberry sauce for the waffles? Strawberries are one of those fruits that I can’t seem to get enough of when they are in season. I love their juicy deep berry flavor. Strawberries are also high in vitamin C and are anti-inflammatory. They have been found to help protect us against cancer and atherosclerosis. In is nice when something that tastes so good is also good for you.

I love sauces of all types, and fruit based sauces are no exception. Most of the sauces that you can buy are full of sugar, or worse, high fructose corn syrup. So I make my own fruit sauces.

This strawberry and vanilla sauce is sweetened with a little agave so that we don’t have that same insulin spike you get with sugar based sauces.

Strawberry and Vanilla Sauce Sweetened with Agave
makes about 2 cups

Ingredients:

1 pound of fresh strawberries, pulsed in a food processor
¼ cup of agave nectar
1 teaspoon of good vanilla extract
pinch of kosher salt
½ cup of water

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in your blender and process until it is smooth. Move strawberry mixture to a heavy bottom pot and cook over low heat, stirring every few minutes, until the sauce is a nice thick consistency. Allow sauce to cool and little and serve. Store leftover sauce in a glass jar with a lid. Freeze the portion you won’t use in a week.

Whole Wheat Waffles sweetened with Agave
Makes enough batter for about 2 big waffles – serves 2

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon of sea salt
8 ounces soymilk (can be vanilla or plain)
1 tablespoon canola oil
4 teaspoons of agave

Directions:

Preheat your waffle iron and spray with nonstick spray if it isn’t a nonstick waffle iron. In a medium bowl, mix everything together and whisk gently until incorporated. If you keep your flour in the freezer to extend its life you may need to add a little extra soymilk to achieve a nice batter

Pour mixture into waffle iron and cook until golden.

Serve with a little earth balance, strawberry sauce and sliced almonds.

Nutritional Information (per waffle doesn't include the sauce):

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 439.45
Calories From Fat (21%) - 94.14

Total Fat - 10.7g
Saturated Fat - 1.04g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 478.97mg
Potassium - 516.55mg
Total Carbohydrates - 75.42g
Fiber - 12.6g
Sugar - 5.25g
Protein - 16.12g

Comments:

This is a nice basic waffle. I will be playing around with this recipe this weekend to see how I can enhance the flavor. I am considering adding chopped nuts or a little oats to the batter. I may also add some spice to the batter. Overall the waffle recipe exceeded my expectations. I wasn't sure what would happen with all my healthy changes but the waffles were great.

The strawberry sauce is full of strawberry flavor, and the vanilla is a noticeable background note. The sauce is not very sweet, which is my preference. I try to keep our agave consumption to a minimum. If you like things sweet you can do what my husband did and drizzle a little agave on the waffle.