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Start your day with some delicious overnight sourdough waffles. These babies are light and airy on the inside and crispy on the outside. They are the peak of perfection.
This is an essential recipe for anyone that keeps a sourdough starter. It is also a great excuse to make your own sourdough starter if you don’t already have one.
Overnight Sourdough Waffles
Even if you don’t bake bread with your sourdough starter, it is worth the effort to maintain a starter just so you can make incredible recipes with the portion that you need to discard. Recipes like Sourdough Ricotta Pancakes, Buttery Sourdough Biscuits, or these incredible overnight sourdough waffles.
If you think it is too much trouble to maintain a sourdough starter, then consider keeping the starter in the refrigerator. If you store the sourdough starter in the fridge, you will only have to “feed” it once a week. With this in mind, you could take the sourdough starter out of the fridge on the weekend when you plan to make these sourdough waffles.
Light, Crisp, and Airy Waffles
These waffles are absolutely perfect. They are incredibly light and airy on the inside and perfectly crisp and brown on the outside. Just look at the air pockets in the photo above.
They are so light you might be tempted to have a second helping. After all, if they are full of air, then they must be lighter in calories, right? Well, it is a good excuse to justify having a second helping.
These sourdough waffles keep their texture even after they cool as long as you don’t stack them on top of each other. If you stack them and then set them aside to cool then the steam will soften them.
If you want to make a batch of them just before serving, then it is best to place them on a wire cooling rack. However, the best way to store them as your cooking the rest of the batch is to put them in a warm oven that has been pre-heated to 170°F.
Freezing Waffles After They are Cooked
It is not uncommon for us to make a double batch of these overnight sourdough waffles and freeze the waffles that we do not eat. To properly freeze the waffles, you should allow them to cool completely on a wire rack.
Once they are cooled, place them on a baking sheet and put them in the freezer until they are frozen about 1-1/2 to 2 hours. Next, place the frozen waffles in a freezer safe plastic bag. You can store frozen waffles for 3 months. Pull them out of the freezer for a fast and easy breakfast.
More Sourdough Recipes
There are so many wonderful things to do with sourdough discard! Every time you refresh your starter, instead of throwing away the leftover unfed starter, you can put it to use in all kinds of delicious sourdough recipes.
- Easy Sourdough Bread Recipe
- Sourdough Ricotta Pancakes
- Wild Yeast Sourdough Starter Recipe
- Sourdough Blueberry Scones
- 17 Tantalizing Sourdough Recipes
More Waffle Recipes:
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Overnight Sourdough Waffles
If you make this recipe, please leave a star rating and comment.
Ingredients
The Night Before Cooking:
- 1 cup sourdough starter (240
- grams)
- 1-¼ cups flour, 150 grams
- 1-¼ cups milk, 283 grams
In the Morning:
- 6 tablespoons melted butter
- 2 egg yolks
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 2 egg whites
Instructions
The night before (sourdough sponge):
- Mix the sourdough starter, milk, and flour in a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit on the countertop overnight.
In the morning finish the waffles:
- Preheat your waffle iron.
- Stir in the melted butter, egg yolks, salt, and baking soda.
- Beat the egg whites until they have stiff peaks then gently fold them into the batter.
- Pour the batter onto the preheated waffle iron and bake until crisp and golden, about 3 to 4 minutes.
Notes
- Waffle irons vary in the amount of batter they use so you may end up with a different amount of waffles. The nutrition values are based on 10 waffles.
- As noted above, if you are uncomfortable adding the milk to the overnight sponge, I have provided an alternative recipe in a downloadable PDF just below the recipe card in the blog post.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this recipe? Rate & comment below!
These were really wonderful! Super light and airy and the perfect crisp! Very easy to prepare too!
A keep recipe for sure!
Thank you for your comment, that is great to hear
Do they freeze well?
I want to give friends some:))
Yes they do. They won’t be a crisp when you re-heat them but you can crisp them up in the oven
@Dahn Boquist, You can pop them in the toaster to crisp them too. I usually freeze my waffles and this is how to get them re crispy and warm and yummy.
Great idea, The toaster is perfect for that! Thanks for the comment Kimberly
@Dahn Boquist, the air fryer crisps them nicely ot of the freezer.
Great tip, Ken. Thanks!!
Does it matter what flour you use? Thanks for the question, I updated the recipe card.
I make these with all-purpose flour.
Every time I’ve measured, 1.25 cups of milk = 180 grams (not 280). Not sure if that’s a typo or if you’re using much “heavier” milk than I am (not even sure that’s possible or not!) LOL!
HI Andrea, I triple checked this and the 280 grams is correct for 1.25 cups of milk. I also checked with King Arthurs ingredient weight chart and the measurement complies with theirs. They have 1 cup of milk = 227 grams so according to their measurements 1.25 cups = 283 grams. I am not sure how you are coming up 100 grams short. Are you able to calibrate your scale? Some scales have a calibration feature.
I had every intention on making the waffles from my sourdough discard this morning, I only got as far as making the “Night Before Cooking” but things came up and I couldn’t get to finish them, I hope the “Night Before Cooking” starter will be okay for tomorrow morning now. I didn’t get to the “In The Morning” part and will do that with the starter as well. I know that means the “Night Before Cooking” stuff will have been made to sit overnight for two nights instead of one…. Praying all will be okay in the morning… I did notice that it has risen a little bit as of tonight… 😮 Will let you know how they come out… excited and concerned 😀
Hey Debi, I think you can make this work but I would feed it again. This is just a guess but what I would try doing is removing (and tossing) 1 cup of that batter then feed it with 1/3 cup sourdough starter, 1/3 cup milk, and 1/3 cup flour. Since it isn’t a full feeding, I would stick it in the fridge overnight (also it’s best not to keep it on the counter a second night with the milk) That extra bit of feeding and hibernating it in the fridge should work. In the morning you should just pick right up where you left off in the recipe but you may want to let it sit at room temp for 30 minutes first.
Thank you Dahn, the waffles came out great, very light and fluffy, crisp on the outside and airy insid, it was suggested in an earlier comment that they used vanilla extract so I gave it a try, it gave the waffles just a hint of vanilla flavor. These are my go to waffles now. The sourdough brings back memories of my dad’s sourdough pancakes he used to make when I was a young girl. His was the only pancakes I would eat. ??
Awesome Debi! I’m so thrilled to hear that they turned out great. Thanks for letting me know 🙂
@Dahn Boquist,
Would 15hrs be too long? I mixed the overnight part about noon but will
Not use until am? Any suggestions would be appreciated
I have let it sit that long before without any problems.
I too have tried a few different waffle recipes using my father’s starter that I inherited in 2011 and taking good care of it ever since just how he showed me. I’m not exactly sure how old it is but I cherish it so much. If there ever was an emergency I would get my dad’s starter out first! LOL
This is by far my favorite waffle recipe!
Oh I am so glad you enjoyed this Julie, thank you for the comment
Julie, this is precious! That sourdough starter is better than any starter you could ever make because it came from your father. The best starter is a starter that has been passed on with love. Did you know you can “hibernate” your starter? If you freeze a portion of your starter, you can preserve it for a very long time. That way if something ever happens to your starter, you can pull out the frozen starter and start all over. I freeze a small portion of starter and every 6 months, I thaw it out, feed it, then re-refreeze it. I have never had to use it but it is there just in case. Kind of like a savings bank for sourdough 🙂
Thanks so much for letting me know that! That is one thing I have been concerned about.
You’re welcome Julie, hope you enjoyed the waffles 🙂
I’ve tried a few different sourdough waffle recipes. These are the best.
Gina, thank you so much for your comment. I’m tickled to hear that 🙂
These are fabulous! We tried them yesterday and they really are super easy to make and light as air, my husband was amazed and commented that these are a “do again” recipe! The only change I made was to add a teaspoon of vanilla and we needed to cook ours for 6 minutes but otherwise a perfect recipe to use with our sourdough starter discards. Thank you!
Woo hoo, I love those “do again” recipes! Thanks for the comment Kelly and thanks for telling us about the vanilla, I’m sure it will give other readers an idea. I bet it was yummy! 🙂
Mouth-watering!! Can’t wait to try it!
thanks Marcela, I hope you enjoy it.
Waffles are a recurring thing here, but I’ve never tried it this way. Thanks for the idea!
Thanks Diego, I hope you enjoy them.