By Inspired by traditional French crepes, these high protein crepes without protein powder can be enjoyed sweet or savory. Ready in just 15 minutes and packed with 14 grams of protein per crepe, you can't go wrong with a Nutella and strawberries crepe or a ham and egg.
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Dan, when he ate this crepe, "I feel like I'm in France, and I ate a lot of crepes when I was in France." Followed by, "I would never know there's cottage cheese in here. That's crazy!" So, when I say if you don't like cottage cheese, you'll still like these protein crepes - I mean it!
oat flour vs rolled oats
I've tried this with both rolled oats and oat flour. While they both work, oat flour resulted in a much better texture. The crepes hold together much better than the ones with rolled oats.
here's what you'll need
- The crepes: Grab low-fat cottage cheese, eggs, egg whites, oat flour, vanilla, and salt.
- Sweet filling: You can use this cottage cheese mousse or this protein chocolate mousse without protein powder. Pair with berries for fiber.
- Savory filling: For a savory filling, I like to do 2 slices of white cheddar, 2 pieces of ham, and an egg on top. This all gets folded into the crepe in an envelope fold. Don't worry; we'll go over the different folding methods below.
more filling ideas
The sky's the limit when it comes to fillings. Here are just a few favorites:
- Apples & cinnamon sauteed in coconut oil and paired with a Greek yogurt and maple syrup filling.
- Classic crepe suzette with cottage cheese blended with honey, orange juice, and orange zest.
- Peaches and cream with a filling of blended cottage cheese mixed with honey and vanilla, topped with diced peaches and chopped pistachios.
- Banana fosters with the same Nutella filling (or a maple one) and then topped with banana's sauted in maple syrup and cinnamon, like in our high protein oatmeal.
step-by-step: how to nail these protein crepes
- Blend everything together for a solid minute, stopping to scrape down the sides and making sure there are no curds visible.
- If using a non-stick pan, you do not need butter or oil. If you use these, the batter actually is too slick and doesn't always stay in one place.
- Lift & swirl! Pour the batter into the center of the pan, then lift it and swirl to spread the batter to the edges of the pan.
- Pick your filling: If you go the savory route, crack the egg into the center, fold, and then cover with a lid to cook the egg.
quick recipe video
how to fold a crepe
The classic fold
For this fold, you simply fold the crepe in half and then half again to create a triangle.
The envelope fold
This fold is a little trickier. You fold in opposite sides over the top 1-2", then fold the remaining sides in the same amount, as shown below.
how important is a non-stick pan?
It's pretty important. The entire process of making crepes relys on it not sticking to the pan, otherwise you have no crepes. If you aren't confident in your non-stick pan, add a bit of butter. Not too much though, otherwise the crepe will fry instead of cooking.
Recipe
High Protein Crepes Without Protein Powder (sweet or savory)
Equipment
- 1 crepe pan or 12" non-stick skillet
Ingredients
Crepe Batter
- 1.5 cup low fat cottage cheese (2%)
- 2 large eggs
- ½ c egg whites
- ¾ cup oat flour (you can do whole rolled oats too but the batter doesn't stay together quite as well)
- 1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste (omit for savory, if you don't have vanilla bean paste, do not use vanilla extract in this quantity! Use maple syrup or honey instead)
- 1 tablespoon butter (as needed to grease the pan)
Nutella & Strawberries
- ½ c nutella (can reduce to ⅓ cup for a bit less sweet)
- ½ cup cottage cheese
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 8 strawberries (diced)
Before you start!
If you make this recipe, please take a moment to leave us a review. We love to hear from you!
Instructions
- I want to make it so clear (because if you look at the reviews you will see people have issues will the batter sticking) that for crepes, being they are ultra thin, you MUST use a non stick pan or a good amount of butter. There is a technique involved with crepes and if you've never made them before, I highly encourage you to watch the video, look at my photos, or go find another video, because otherwise this recipe will fail. With the pans I show in the video, I've never had issues with the batter sticking so please be aware of this before starting.Heat a non-stick pan over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon butter to the pan if your non-stick isn't the most non-stick pan.
- Add 1.5 cup low fat cottage cheese, 2 large eggs, ¾ cup oat flour, 1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste, ½ c egg whiteso a blender or food processor. Blend until all the curds are gone. This usually takes about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides as needed.Let the batter rest for about 10 minutes so the oats can absorb the liquid to create a slightly thicker batter-like consistency.
- Pour about ¾ cup of the batter (¼th of the batter) into the center of the pan. Lift the handle and swirl gently to push the batter to the edges, creating a thin crepe. Cook until the edges start to curl up and bubbles appear. Flip and cook another minute. Remove and repeat with the rest of the batter.If you're using a pan smaller than 12", use less batter. And if you pour the batter in and it seems like too much, simply dump some out and back into your bowl. The pan should be hot enough that the batter begins to set as soon as it's poured.
- Make your filling of choice.Sweet: Blend together the ½ c nutella, ½ cup cottage cheese, ½ teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon milk, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract until no curds remain and it's nice and smooth. Spread 2 tablespoon on one half of the crepe, fold in half, then spread 1 tablespoon on half of that, and fold again for a classic triangle fold. Top with 8 strawberries that are diced.Savory: Take the pan off the heat, reduce the heat to low, and place a crepe back in the pan. Place 2 slices of cheese in the center of the crepe, top with 2 slices of ham, then crack an egg in the center. If the egg slides off that's ok. Carefully fold over opposite sides of the crepe to contain the egg and push it back to the center. Then, fold over the remaining edges to create an envelope fold. Place the pan back on the hot stovetop and cover with a glass lid. Cook until the egg is cooked to your liking.Alternatively, you can fry an egg and just heat the ham and cheese. Add the egg after the cheese has melted to avoid dealing with a raw egg.
Video
Notes
Looking for more information?
Additional substitution information can be found above in the substitution section of this post.
Nutrition Disclaimer
Nutritional information is an estimate and for informational purposes only.
Nutrition
This recipe is inspired by Amee's Savory Dish cottage cheese crepes.
These did nottttt turn out no matter what I did . Batter was wet
Sorry to hear that! The batter is meant to be quite wet so it can be swirled into a thin crepe. With the oats, it's super important to let the batter sit for a minute for the oats to absorb the liquid though.
it seems you're not familiar with the consistency of a crepe batter. I've made this recipe and it works very well. there's a lot more information in the blog post showing the batter consistency and how to create crepes.
I hope you'll consider changing your rating so other people aren't discouraged from trying this fantastic recipe.
Love this recipe! A crepe pan or high quality non stick pan is essential for good outcome. I've used them in sweet and savory dishes. It worked well with both. I love that no protein powder is needed.
Hey Jackie, so glad to hear you like it! And yes, a crepe pan or high quality non stick is very important. Thanks for sharing!
I used a skillet and that worked well. You do have to spread it out with a spatula to get it thin enough. But it worked great to make mini crepes for a speedy breakfast for little kids.
Thanks for the tip!
These come out perfectly every time. And the protein chocolate filling is literally the best!
perfect! I wasn't having any luck finding a gluten-free crepe batter that didn't use protein powder. this one is fantastic! thanks for sharing. I've even made it using Greek yogurt instead of cottage cheese. I had to reduce the Greek yogurt by 15%, but it's still holds together and browns very nicely.
Thanks so much for the great review!
perfect! I was struggling to find a gluten-free crepe batter that didn't include protein powder. these are great. thank you!
That's fantastic to hear!
Easy to follow and adjust portion sizes. Cooks easily and has a good consistency!
Great!
I was too lazy to dirty the blender so just mixed it up in a bowl with whole wheat flour instead of oats and it worked out great!
That’s awesome!!
Stuck really bad and taste gross!
I'm very curious if you used a non-stick pan or have ever made crepes? Because a non stick pan or a bit of butter in the pan is absolutely necessary for crepes because of how thin they are. Did you use vanilla extract instead of vanilla bean paste? Because extract in that quantity would be way to powerful and almost taste like alcohol while vanilla bean paste sweetens it.
I NEVER leave comments or rate recipes but this one was so good! I made sure to use plenty of butter so they didn't stick. You would never guess they were high protein and added sugar free! This recipe was a big hit with my toddlers too!!! Adding to my recipe rotation for sure!
That's great to hear!!
This was fantastic! We made one of each - Savory & Sweet - and they’re both delicious. We didn’t have any oat flour so we ground our sprouted whole oats in our food processor before we added all the other ingredients and it worked really well. We only have one really good non-stick pan so we learned cleaning it really well in between each of the 4 crepes is essential otherwise flipping doesn’t go so well. Overall, this was a most enjoyable Saturday morning cooking experiment with excellent instructions so we’ll be making them again. Thank you!
That's great to hear!
Made these with 1c of regular flour because i did not have oat. So delicious!! i thought the cottage cheese would make it too salty but it did not. Even my dad complimented them and he is so hard to please. So yum and did not stick AT ALL
That's so awesome to hear! And so glad you didn't have issues with them sticking 🙂