The Best Store-Bought Pancake Mix Comes From A Music Icon

Store-bought pancake mix is a cost-effective way to whip up a home-cooked breakfast without spending hours waiting for cinnamon rolls to rise, casseroles to cook, etc. But the wrong pancake mix can result in dense, dry, and downright disappointing flapjacks. To help ensure that you only serve up top-notch pancakes and waffles, Chowhound ranked eight store-bought pancake mixes. Topping the list was Patti's Good Life Buttermilk Pancake and Waffle Mix. If you haven't heard of Patti's Good Life, the company was founded in 2008 by vocal icon Patti LaBelle. 

Patti's just-add-water pancake mix made a thinner batter than others, although the resulting pancakes were still nice and fluffy. Moreover, the pancakes tasted slightly salty, which may not initially sound like a recommendation, but gave them a greater complexity than other mixes. This extra savory element was highlighted for making the mix an especially good choice for dishes like chicken and waffles, or for use as an all-purpose baking mix. The only downside to Patti's Good Life pancake mix is that the pancakes can be a little difficult to flip. This should be easily remedied by making sure your pancakes are roughly the same size as your pancake flipper. Furthermore, at just about 10 cents an ounce, the price was right. Clearly, the viral sweet potato pie was no fluke; Patti's Good Life continues to make waves in the culinary retail space by producing affordable, tasty products (although the frozen dinners have been met with mixed reviews).

Patti's Good Life's social media accounts have some fun ideas for using its pancake mix, which LaBelle introduced in 2024, saying that making breakfast with her kids and grandkids inspired her to create it. These inventive ideas include a silver dollar pancake station complete with jams, syrup, nuts, and fruit. Or, for a special birthday twist, bake Fruity Pebbles into the waffles, and top the colorful waffles with whipped cream and an upside-down ice cream cone. Chef Kolby Kash used the mix to make a simple yet delicious-looking cornbread topped with honey-butter sauce, which seems to bear out our assumption that the pancake and waffle mix could also work as an all-purpose baking mix. Of course, even with the best and easiest-to-use pancake mix around, it's still possible to ruin your pancakesw by making mistakes during the cooking process. So, just remember, patience is key: Don't try to cook the first pancake too soon, and don't flip it too hastily.

Interestingly, Patti's was not the only store-bought pancake mix on the ranked list with ties to a musical celebrity. Dolly Parton's Complete Buttermilk Pancake Mix was also present, although it ranked a less-impressive six out of eight. While Dolly's pancakes weren't bad, they were a little too dense and the instructions were confusing. If you have trouble finding Patti's Good Life pancake mix, Krusteaz was the runner-up. And Krusteaz was actually cheaper, coming in at nine cents per ounce.