Sourdough Waffles

Sourdough waffles are the most airy and fluffy waffles but still super crisp on the outside. Make the batter for the waffles in the evening and the next morning you’ll get to enjoy such a treat.

sourdough waffles

Sourdough waffles are my absolute favorite way to use my sourdough starter. Besides baking all sorts of sourdough breads, I have experimented the most with waffle recipes.

Even though I love Belgian waffles too, sourdough waffles are far superior. As the batter stands overnight, it becomes so bubbly and active. That translates to lots of bubbles on the inside as the waffles cook. The sourdough also gives the waffles are mildly tart flavor. It’s the perfect recipe to put your sourdough discard to good use.

I always make a big batch because waffles reheat really well and can even be frozen, which is so convenient for easy breakfasts in the future.

Watch the Video of How To Make Sourdough Waffles:

Ingredients:

  • granulated sugar
  • all purpose flour
  • milk + sour cream
    • Instead of using buttermilk, I use whole milk and sour cream. The waffles turn out much more crisp and are not as tart as when using buttermilk.
  • eggs
  • oil or melted butter
    • I use avocado oil, but you can use any other mild oil, coconut oil or even melted butter.
  • salt
  • baking soda
Ingredients For Sourdough Waffles

How To Make the Overnight Sponge

The overnight sponge is really easy to make – all you do is mix all the ingredients in a bowl and let it hang out overnight at room temperature. Of course, that means you have to plan ahead, but it’s really a very simple process. It makes all the difference in the texture of your waffles. Without giving the sponge time to get bubbly, the waffles will be much more dense and heavy. All the air bubbles that are created overnight will make the waffles incredibly airy and tender.

  1. Prepare the overnight sponge. Mix together the milk and sour cream, then add the sourdough starter and sugar. Then add the flour and mix until evenly combined. The batter will be thick and smooth. Cover with plastic wrap or a towel and leave at room temperature for about 12 hours or overnight.
  2. In the morning, the batter will have grown and become bubbly and airy.
Overnight sponge for sourdough waffles, before and after standing at room temperature overnight.

How To Make Sourdough Waffles

  1. Add the eggs and oil to the overnight sponge. In a medium bowl, mix the eggs with the oil, then add to the batter.
  2. Lastly, add the salt and baking soda. Mix to combine.
  3. Heat up the waffle iron and brush with oil on both sides.
  4. Pour the batter into the waffle iron, gently spreading it out. Cook until golden brown and cooked through.
  5. Serve the waffles warm, with your favorite toppings: melted butter, maple syrup, honey, fresh fruit and/or berries, powdered sugar, etc.
Tutorial of how to make sourdough waffles

Helpful Tips and Frequently Asked Questions:

Can you make these waffles without making an overnight sponge?

Technically yes, but you won’t have the same results. It can be really frustrating if you want to have waffles for breakfast and then you read through the recipe and discover that you need to wait for 12 hours – Ugh!
Sourdough really excels when it’s given a time to ferment and create lots of air bubbles. This is what will give the waffles just an airy and light texture. The time will also give the waffles a pleasant tart flavor from the sourdough.
Even though you can still make the batter, make the “sponge” and then just add the remaining ingredients right away and make your waffles, they will be much more dense and not as delicious.

If you want waffles right away, I recommend you use my Belgian Waffle recipe – no waiting or sourdough starter required.

How to get the crispiest waffles:

Make sure to brush the waffle iron grates with oil on both sides EACH time to pour in more waffle batter. This will help to make the waffles as golden and crisp as possible, and help them easily come out of the iron too.
After the waffles are cooked, don’t stack them on top of each other. The warm steam from the other waffles will make your waffles get soft. Instead, serve them right away, or place them in a single layer on a baking sheet with a rack on top. (You can keep them warm while cooking the rest of the waffles in an oven preheated to 200 degrees F.)

Buttermilk vs. Sour Cream + Milk

Most recipes use buttermilk but I chose to use sour cream and milk instead. Sourdough waffles with buttermilk are much less crunchy. They also have a much more distinct tart flavor.
The waffles with milk and sour cream are very crisp and crunchy on the outside but still very tender and airy on the inside.

Can you freeze sourdough waffles?

Absolutely! Waffles freeze really well. Place them in a freezer ziptop bag or an airtight container. I like to place some parchment paper in between the waffles so they don’t stick together. Freeze for 1-3 months.
Then, simply thaw and reheat the waffles in your toaster, air fryer or oven until warmed through.

A closeup picture of sourdough waffles - so airy and tender on the inside, golden and crisp on the outside.
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Sourdough Waffles

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5 from 11 reviews

Sourdough waffles are such a treat – golden and crisp on the outside, airy and fluffy on the inside. The mild tang from the sourdough adds to the rich flavor and makes them irresistible.

  • Author: Olga’s Flavor Factory
  • Prep Time: 12 hours 30 min
  • Cook Time: 20 min
  • Total Time: 12 hours 50 minutes
  • Yield: 7–8 waffles 1x

Ingredients

Scale

Overnight Sponge:

1 cup whole milk

1 cup sour cream

1 cup sourdough starter

1/4 cup granulated sugar (or to taste – you can use less sugar, about 1–2 Tablespoons or use honey instead)

2 cups all purpose flour

Waffles:

all of the overnight sponge

2 large eggs, beaten

1/4 cup oil or melted butter (avocado oil is my favorite), plus additional oil for the waffle iron

1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

Instructions

  1. Make the overnight sponge: Mix together the milk and sour cream until smooth. Add the sourdough starter and sugar and mix to combine. Lastly, add the flour and mix again until you have a thick and smooth batter. Cover and let stand at room temperature overnight, or about 12 hours.
  2. The batter should have risen and become very bubbly.
  3. In a medium bowl, mix the eggs then add the oil and continue mixing until they are smooth and homogenous. Pour into the bowl with the overnight sponge.
  4. Add the salt and baking soda. Mix to combine.
  5. Heat the waffle iron and use additional oil to brush the grates on both sides.
  6. Pour the batter onto the waffle iron, smoothing out slightly. It should cover about 3/4 of the surface of the waffle iron.
  7. Cook until golden brown and cooked through.
  8. Serve the waffles right away with your favorite toppings: melted butter, maple syrup, honey, fresh fruit and/or berries, etc. Store leftover waffles in the refrigerator for 3-5 days or freeze for 1-3 month.

 

Notes

While cooking the waffles, I like to warm the oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit and place the waffles on a baking sheet topped with a rack to keep them warm while I am cooking the next set of waffles.

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28 Comments

  • Anita

    Hi, Olga!
    It would be so great to have your recipes with some sort of converting to grams. I’m outside the US and we don’t use cups here. So when I read the recipe, 1 cup sourdough starter (according to the Internet) equals 220 grams. But that’s a lot! So in my case the recipe would look like 220g sourdough starter; 240g milk; 240g sour cream and 240 flour. Does that look right?



    • olgak7

      I would love to offer something like this, but that would include double the work for me to measure everything out in grams and convert everything. I plan to do that in the future, but at this time, I just don’t have the time for that. I am the only one working on everything behind the scenes, I don’t have a team of people working with me. I have tried to convert things just by using the internet converters, etc. and have found that they are not always accurate. If I do offer my recipes in the metric system, I want it to be as accurate as possible.
      For this particular recipe, you DO need a lot of sourdough starter, about 227 grams. The other ingredients: 240 grams milk, 240 grams sour cream, 240 grams flour.
      If you watch the video, you will see that it makes a lot of batter and you will have 7-8 large and thick waffles.
      Hope this helps:).

      • Anita

        Hi Olga and thank you for your kind reply!
        First off, I am sorry if my previous message offended you in any way, I did not mean to. I did not know the calculation took that much time! I saw some automated calculators on recipe sites and thought it was easy for an algorithm to count everything.
        Secondly, sorry for not getting back to you. I got sick for a couple of weeks and needed to get my thoughts back together after recovering.
        And thirdly, I did try the recipe using your calculations (thank you for checking everything for me!) and the dough worked!
        You are doing a great job and I love your video recipes! Thank you and God bless you!



        • olgak7

          Hi Anita,
          Your comment definitely did not offend me. I am always happy to help in any way that I can and I appreciate that you took the time to write.
          I’m so happy that you tried the recipe and enjoyed it!

  • Sam A

    Hi Olga,

    I’ve made with a slight change. Ok, may be it was major considering it was the flour. I assumed the flour weight at 250 g. Starting with that, I’ve used a combination of AP flour (150 g) and almond flour (100 g). Mix it to blend and proceeded with the recipe. Oh, one more change. Replaced 1/2 of the milk with 1/2 almond milk. Trying to pack as much protein into this as possible. 🙂

    The end result….it came out perfect!!! Actually, I surprised myself. 🙂 Thank for for an awesome recipe.



  • val

    they are sooo soft and soo delicious! it is the best recipe of waffles I’ve ever tried! highly recommend to try it!



  • Olya

    How much buttermilk to add? Your directions are not clear how to substitute buttermilk for milk and/or sourcream.

  • Natalie

    Hi Olga, I am excited to try this recipe soon. One quick question. Have you tried subbing sourcream to Greek yogurt? I have extra Greek yogurt thought to use it if that would work. Thanks

  • Melissa

    Seriously the absolute BEST waffles I have ever made. They are crispy but soft and fluffy on the inside and the taste…oh my. I heated up leftover waffles in the toaster oven and they are just as good as the day I made them. Cannot say enough good things about this recipe!



  • Kathy J

    Olga these are the bomb!!! Used my mostly rye peaked starter leftover and the waffles are crisp with a fluffy interior! This is now my ‘go to’ waffle recipe!!!❤️



  • Svetlana Peskov

    This is the best sourdough waffle recipe I tried. I love how much starter/discard it uses. It’s so hands off and delicious!



  • Marina

    My starter is active right now and I decided to prep these waffles. Since I am combining in the afternoon and you usually let it sit room temperature overnight then mix the rest of the ingredients and bake in the morning should I just stick it in the fridge to slowly poof or should leave it out on the counter, wait until the end of today then stick it in the fridge to cook tomorrow?

  • Angelina Y

    🤩 my search for a sourdough waffles recipe is over! They came out so good. Kind of like a texture of Belgian but better:)
    Thank you for sharing it with us ❤️



    • olgak7

      I’m so happy to hear that, Angelina! I really prefer the sourdough waffles over the Belgian too. Thank you for taking the time to write.

    • olgak7

      Either one will work, Suzi.
      I usually use sourdough starter right out of the refrigerator, as long as I have fed the starter within a week or so before that. You can also use active sourdough starter that you have just fed and it’s bubbly and active.
      Since you are letting it sit overnight at room temperature, it will activate, even if you use it right out of the refrigerator and don’t feed it to “activate” beforehand.

  • CC

    Lovely recipe! I use it all of the time!
    I add cacoa powder to a portion of the mix that I separate out of the main batch so I can have chocolate waffles.

    I also add semi sweet chocolate chips to the separated out main batter portion so I have plain, plain with chocolate chips, chocolate, chocolate with chocolate chips.

    I add my home made vanilla to the main batter mix as well.

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