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Cheap and Crispy Waffles Recipe (without eggs, without milk)

Continue reading for Cheap and Crispy Waffles recipe notes, tips, and cost breakdown on how to make a full breakfast of waffles, butter, syrup, and bacon for $1.29 or less per person:

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Cheap and Crispy Waffles Recipe Notes:

• This recipe makes 8 large waffles using one cup of batter per waffle.
• I’ve made all the different crispy waffle recipes that called for various combinations of eggs, egg whites, oil, butter, milk, buttermilk…and they all tasted the same. I experimented with taking the waffles down to essentials. To go even further, you can do without the 2 Tbsp of sugar (saving $0.04) since you’re covering the waffles with syrup. It may be possible to get the baking powder down to 1 Tbsp instead of 2 Tbsp (saving $0.20). You can use bacon grease instead of butter (saving $0.50). Using only 2 Tbsp of cornstarch might not be increasing the crispness of these waffles significantly, so I’ll test whether cornstarch is strictly necessary to a crispy waffle (saving $0.08). I might get a better deal on flour than $0.40 per pound. But for now, 19 cents per waffle is pretty great. $10.30 TOTAL/$1.29 per person for a pig-out breakfast for eight adults—with enough calories for each person for the whole day—is amazing.
• I use an old Waring Pro double waffle iron that my parents bought at Costco about 20 years ago. Check the price here for the Cuisinart double waffle maker on Amazon; it looks about as sturdy as my Waring Pro waffle maker and has good reviews.
• The least messy way to make waffles is to use a plastic measuring cup with a handle that hangs inside your mixing bowl. Scoop out 1 cup of waffle batter, scrape the bottom against the inside of the bowl, pour batter into hot waffle iron, and hang the measuring cup back on the of the mixing bowl, with the cup inside and the handle outside. This is the type of measuring cup you need but you can get one much cheaper at Dollar Tree/Walmart.
• I don’t use the ridiculous “gently spoon the flour into the measuring cup one teaspoon at a time and carefully level it off with a knife” technique that started with Food Network making cooking harder than it has to be. I scoop the flour into the measuring cup and level it with my finger, or not at all. I use store brand or organic all-purpose flour, and my cups of flour always measure 5 oz, not 4.25 oz as you’ll see if you look up flour weight per cup. If you are a delicate flour scooper, you’ll end up with only 17 oz of flour in this recipe, not 20, so your batter will be thinner and you’ll probably only get 7 waffles out of it. I use a very old Snapware (same as Lock & Lock) container that holds 10 lbs of flour. I can’t find the XL version anymore, but here’s an airtight container that fits 5 lbs of flour. The shape makes it very easy to scoop flour, the snap lid never gets flour on the edge like a Tupperware-style lid does, and the straight sides are great for maximizing pantry space.
• Cheap and Crispy Waffles can be made ahead two days in advance (store in fridge or on counter in an airtight container). These waffles freeze well, but they take up a lot of room. Reheat waffles in a moderate oven for about 10 minutes from frozen, or about 5 minutes from refrigerated. Don’t microwave the leftovers unless you want chewy waffles.

Cheap and Crispy Waffles Recipe Cost: $1.53 per batch; $0.19 per large waffle.

• $0.50 flour, 4 cups (20 oz)
• $0.08 cornstarch, 2 T
• $0.01 salt, 2 t
• $0.40 baking powder, 2 T (I use Rumford non-aluminum baking powder; Great Value aluminum baking powder at $1.98/8.1 oz costs $0.25 for 2 T.)
• $0.04 sugar, 2 T (cane sugar)
• $0.50 butter, 1 stick. This is based on a regular sale price of $2/lb for butter. The most recent sale price was $1.77 at Safeway (3/2025).
• $1.53 total for 8 waffles.
• $1.53 is for the waffles only. Our family’s required waffle toppings are tons of butter and tons of pancake syrup (nobody here likes maple syrup).
  • $1.00 whipped butter, 2 cups. Whip 1 cup of room temperature butter (2 sticks). Gradually whip in 1 cup of room temperature water and a pinch of salt. You will double the yield of your butter and it melts perfectly into all the waffle holes. 2 cups of whipped butter should more than cover 8 waffles.
  • $0.81 cane sugar, 2 cups and Mapleine, 1/2 tsp. This makes 26 oz of pancake syrup with no corn syrup at 3 cents per ounce. You really do need the Mapleine, not the McCormick or store brand maple extract. The tiniest bit of Mapleine darkens and flavors your homemade pancake syrup. I buy Mapleine at Winco for $2.98 for 59ml. Check Mapleine price here on Amazon. Right now it’s at $0.46 per half teaspoon (24 half teaspoons per bottle). That still makes your homemade cane sugar pancake syrup just $1.14 for 26 ounces, or 4 cents per ounce.

• $3.34 cost for 8 waffles and a crap ton of whipped butter and syrup.
• But you probably don’t just want waffles. We need meat. We like eggs. Since eggs are expensive right now, and sausage and bacon are cheap, we’ll skip the fried eggs.
• $5.98 Jimmy Dean sausage, two 16 oz chubs, makes 12 sausage patties per pound, so 24 sausage patties.
• $6.96 bacon, two pounds, makes about 18 pieces of bacon per pound, so 36 pieces of bacon (I get 72 pieces with two pounds because I cut bacon in half before baking).
• Waffles and Sausage: $9.32. If you truly believe that each person will eat just one waffle and eat three sausage patties, the cost per person is $1.17. Our family of four will eat the lot in one go, so for us the cost is $2.33 per person. It’s hard to scale down the sausage (is anyone going to be happy with one and a half little sausage patties?) so bacon is a better choice:
• Waffles and Bacon (preferred): $10.30. Cost per person at one waffle and 9 half pieces of bacon (or 4 whole pieces of bacon): $1.29 per person. Realistic cost (four people eat it all): $2.58 per person.
• All of the waffles, syrup, butter, and bacon (including bacon grease) add up to 9,826 calories and 173 grams of protein. For 8 people that’s 1,228 calories and 22 grams of protein each. For 4 people that’s 2,456 calories and 43 grams of protein each. Wild. Of course you don’t need oodles of butter and syrup and you’ll use that bacon grease another day (or you can use the bacon grease in place of the butter in the Crispy Waffles recipe to take 50 cents off the cost of the waffles recipe). This breakfast menu can be lowered a lot in cost and calorie consumption with a little restraint. For example, my waffle maker makes quarter lines within the large waffle, so I can easily break the waffles into halves, or four minis. People are more likely to take one half waffle, or two or three quarter-waffles, if they are already cut. Serve half the butter and half the syrup and half the bacon at the table and only get the backup halves of each item when the table allotment runs out. No matter how many pounds of bacon hit the table, there is never any leftover bacon.

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