If you read my blog, you know that sometimes, when Trader Joe’s has produce in bulk for a really good price, I buy it. Then, I am stuck with tons of produce wondering, “what in tarnation am I going to do with all this?”
This is the burden I have to bear as a girl who loves both food and bargains.
So now I find myself with a surplus of blueberries and peaches. So I made these DELICIOUS Banana Blueberry Oat Muffins, made with 100% whole grains and absolutely no refined sugar!
It’s a good thing I bought blueberries in bulk because it took me several attempts to get this right. Baking with whole grains is much different than baking with all-purpose flour.
For one thing, whole grain baked goods can come out fairly dense. I have found that the biggest thing that helps avoid this is to not over-mix the batter.
When you hear cooks on TV saying “stir until just combined,” they mean it. The more you mix, the denser it will be.
So when you add the flour and oats to the wet ingredients, make sure you only just combine it, and then gently fold the blueberries into the batter.
A note about over-ripe bananas: please, please, whenever you have bananas about to go bad, don’t throw them out! Put them in your freezer until you want to use them for muffins, bread, or banana chia seed pancakes.
Freeze them whole, and when you need to use them, microwave for 45 seconds and remove the fruit from the peel. The peel will turn black and look unappetizing, but the inside is soft, sweet, and perfect for baking.
While we are on the subject of freezers, these muffins can be frozen for up to 6 months in an airtight container or bag. When you want one, simply remove from the freezer and microwave for 30 seconds to one minute for a quick and easy breakfast.
To serve, I recommend cutting the muffin in half, spreading butter on it, and grilling cut-side down for a couple of minutes in a cast iron skillet.
Hey, there has to be butter somewhere, right?
The result will be a toasty, buttery, crunchy outside with a soft, warm inside. Yum, I think I will go make one right now!
Of course, they are delicious on their own as well :-)
Now I have to think of something to do with those peaches… peach cobbler?
Any other ideas?
Banana Blueberry Oat Muffins (made with whole wheat flour and honey)
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup coconut oil
- 1/4 cup honey
- 2 eggs
- 2 ripened mashed bananas
- 1/2 cup Greek yogurt or sour cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- pinch ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1.5 cups whole wheat flour pastry flour is best
- 1 cup old fashioned oats
- 1.5 cups fresh blueberries or other berry, see notes about using frozen
- turbinado sugar if desired, for topping muffins
Instructions
- Add coconut oil (1/2 cup) and honey (1/4 cup) to large mixing bowl. If coconut oil is solid, microwave for 15 seconds, until honey and oil are softened.
- Cream together with a mixer on high speed.
- Add eggs (2) and Greek yogurt (1/2 cup). Mix together until very well combined.
- Add the 2 mashed bananas, vanilla (1 teaspoon), cinnamon (1 teaspoon), pinch of nutmeg, baking powder (1 teaspoon), baking soda (1 teaspoon), and salt (1/2 teaspoon). Mix until well combined.
- Add flour and oats- stir until just combined.
- Fold berries (1.5 cups) in to mixture.
- Line a 12-cup muffin pan with liners; fill each cup evenly with mixture.
- Sprinkle the tops of each muffin with turbinado sugar (optional).
- Bake at 375 degrees F for 20-25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.
Video
Notes
- Storage: These muffins can be kept at room temperature in an airtight container for 5 days. They can be frozen in an airtight container or bag for up to 3 months.
- Not a fan of coconut oil? Extra-virgin olive oil can be used instead. Substitute the same amount.
- Honey Substitute: You can also use brown or white sugar, or maple syrup, instead of honey.
- You can use frozen berries for this, but keep in mind, it's likely that the muffins will be more colored blue/purple.
- To make them gluten-free: you can use a gluten-free flour mix substituted with a 1:1 ratio (I have not tried this personally, but I have readers who have substituted with no problem).
- For a dairy-free version, use your favorite dairy-free yogurt.
- The provided nutrition information does not include any added sodium from seasoning to taste, any optional ingredients, and it does not take brands into account. Feel free to calculate it yourself using this calculator or by adding the recipe to Yummly.
Nutrition
Nutrition Information Disclaimer
The provided nutrition information is my best estimate and does not include any added sodium from seasoning to taste, any optional ingredients, and it does not take brands into account. I use an automatic API to calculate this information. Feel free to calculate it yourself using one of these tools:
Lin
I have made these 3 times, and they are so yummy and so easy to make. I used really ripe bananas, olive oil, honey, and all other ingredients as listed. I did omit the nutmeg. We all enjoy them so much. I like splitting them and warming a bit and topping with nut butter and preserves. My 3 year old Grandson loves them too.
Look forward to trying some of your other recipes.
Thank you.
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you liked it!
Rebecca
We had an abundance of blueberries and this recipe is lovely. I’m setting up a 2nd batch right now after sharing the first with all of our neighbors—they all loved these! Only subs I made were to use pumpkin pie spice instead of nutmeg, replacing half of the coconut oil with olive, and adding a dash of maple syrup.
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you liked it! What a fun way to use pumpkin spice – I bet that was super tasty!
Elaine
Delicious!!! My grandsons 5 and 6 years old want more, haha! I love baking them healthy treats, thank you!!
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you liked it!
Bree
These muffins turned out delicious! I changed one thing and that was I substituted the whole wheat pastry flour (don’t have that at my house) for a mixture of unbleached all purpose flour and cornstarch (1 + 3/4 C all purpose flour + 1/4 C cornstarch mixed together, but then I only used a total of 1 + 3/4 C of this mixture in the batter). I would love to be able to modify this recipe so I could sub out the wheat flour all together for something like almond flour or coconut flour, so if anyone has any suggestions on what would work please let me know. Thanks for this amazing recipe!
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you liked it! I haven’t tried it with almond or coconut flour and those flours work completely differently than wheat, so I’d also be interested if anyone has a recipe that works with them.
Vicki
Really good recipe. Appreciate that they are not super sweet.
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you liked it!
Aletha
I am excited to make these today but I am curious as to why it uses coconut oil instead of olive oil considering it is advertised as a healthy recipe? Unlike olive oil, coconut oil is loaded with saturated fat. I will be making that swap for sure. Other than that, it looks delicious and i am excited to try them
Aletha
Sorry, i actually see now that it is not advertised as a healthy recipe, but it sure could be one with all the other healthy ingredients
Elizabeth Lindemann
Thanks for your comment, and I understand your concern! I’ve made these muffins with olive oil many times and it works very well. In fact I did a whole other blueberry muffin recipe with olive oil – https://www.bowlofdelicious.com/healthy-blueberry-muffins/ and I always make banana bread with olive oil as well, it’s a game changer!
Olive oil is so wonderful and healthy. But healthy is rather subjective, isn’t it? Coconut oil is an unrefined, natural oil that does have many nutrients and health benefits. I personally don’t count the presence of saturated fat as a reason to completely eliminate it. In fact, saturated fats are rather controversial – they’ve been rather demonized but there are some schools of thought that they are beneficial and that it’s not quite as black and white as previously believed, as well as that there are actually three kinds of saturated fats all with different benefits. Saturated fats are not to be confused with trans fats, which are very unhealthy.
That said, I’m not a nutritionist and you should always follow the advice of your doctor or nutritionist, but I make it a point to use “real food” on my blog and coconut oil fits that criteria, and this stuff is super interesting to me so I’m always reading up about it!
And for anyone who is concerned about this, truly any oil will work in these muffins, and olive oil is lovely to bake with.
Hope that helps :-)
Lorraine. Clemeny
Absolutely delicious! Great texture!
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you liked it!
Amy
So good! Really lovely texture (fluffy but with some hardiness from the oats) and great flavor– just sweet enough, but not too sweet. I sometimes find blueberry muffins to be bland, and this was not at all. I definitely used coconut oil, as well as fresh blueberries. The only substitute was brown sugar for honey, and half cinnamon half cardamom.
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you liked it! Love the idea of using cardamom, yum!
Chef ViGi
This recipe as perfect as written. No need to change a thing about it! Don’t you get annoyed when people start saying well I didn’t have this so I put this in and then it becomes a completely different recipe? Well you can be assured this is a hit. Everyone enjoyed these but I don’t even care since I think they’re just perfect.
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you liked it! The only time I get annoyed by this is when people change the ingredients and then give the recipe a low rating, hah!
Ayushi
can I substitute steel-cut oats instead of the old fashion oats? Maybe soaking them first would help, but I feel like that would add to the moisture… Please let me know what you think!
Elizabeth Lindemann
I’ve never used steel cut oats for baking this recipe, and you definitely can’t just add them in dry since they won’t soften in time. Soaking them is an interesting idea! I think that could work. If you try it, I’d love to know how it turns out!
Joey Crerar
I was looking for a healthy muffin recipe,found this one, made it and loved them!
I was careful no tto overmix as per your instructions!
They were so good I had to eat two in a row!
Will definitely make again!
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you liked it!
Inna
So delicious I made them for my toddler and she was just as obsessed as me 🤤
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you and your kiddo liked them!
Joey Crerar
Can’t seem to save this recipe to my Pinterst board. Keeps giving me a message to check the URL.
Elizabeth Lindemann
That’s strange! I just tried pinning it myself and it worked. Pinterest has been a little finicky lately. Here’s my pin if you want to save it directly from that: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/208854501461132448/
Jamie
I made these this morning with my toddler and they were so easy! I did 2 cups of blueberries and all-purpose flour since I didn’t have wheat and he loved them
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you and your kiddo liked them! I love making them with my kids too.
Nicki
I made this recipe with whole wheat pastry flour and a few extra blueberries. It is one of the best recipes I am ever made yet! I will definitely come to bowl of delicious again for future recipes! Thank you
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you liked it!
Kathie
I made the recipe exactly how you have it. I usually have to alter recipes with substitutions like coconut oil, whole wheat flour and the like. We had extra bananas so I tripled it. I also used mini muffin tins. It made 96 mini muffins!
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you liked it! Love that it made so many mini muffins!
Lynn
Can you use applesauce in place of oil?
Elizabeth Lindemann
I’ve never tried it, but I think it might work! These muffins are hard to mess up.
Lisa
Wonderful recipe. I have been making these weekly for the last few months since I discovered it. Great on the go snack muffins that are not too sweet. Exactly what I like. Great with butter or peanut butter on top too.
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you liked it!
Cheryl Mandell
We absolutely love your muffins. I have tried many healthy muffins but yours are the BEST. I usually double the recipe and freeze them. What a treat.
Just wondering if you (or anyone else has ever tried to make these with coconut yoghurt, instead of regular yogurt?
Elizabeth Lindemann
I’ve never tried it but I think it would work well! It’s hard to mess this recipe up even with ingredient substitutions.
Cheryl Mandell
Just made these delicious muffins with Lakanto Maple Flavoured Syrup with Monkfruit Sweetener – they taste even better & somewhat less sweet. And way fewer calories than honey.
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you liked them and thanks for sharing your modification!
Hannah
Do you think I could substitute buttermilk for the yogurt? Trying to use what I have at home!
Elizabeth Lindemann
I think that would work! Try using 1/4 cup instead of 1/2 cup since it will be a little more liquidy. Hope that helps!
Dawn L
These were delicious and easy to make. I loved all the fresh blueberries. The recipe calls for 1/4 tsp of cinnamon but the directions say 1 tsp, which do you recommend? I couldn’t taste the banana very well but maybe because I used the 1 tsp of cinnamon. Either way they were yummy,
Elizabeth Lindemann
Oops! It should be 1 teaspoon cinnamon (but that can easily be taken down to 1/2 or 1/4 teaspoon if you only want a hint of cinnamon taste). I’m going to update the directions now. Thanks for bringing this to my attention and glad you liked the recipe!
Lois
Just made your muffins on a cold snowy day, WONDERFUL!!. Feel good about eating two, Thank you. This recipe is a keeper.
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you liked it!
Michel
I don’t have any whole wheat flour. Can I use all purpose?
Thanks!
Elizabeth Lindemann
Yes you can! I recommend adding about 2 tablespoons more of it.
Vijaya
Can I make these with frozen blueberries?
Elizabeth Lindemann
Yes! The muffins might turn purple but frozen blueberries work well.
MICHAEL
Delicious!! I actually searched blueberry banana oatmeal and your recipe came-up. Loved it!
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you liked it!
Jessi
These are very yummy! My go-to healthy blueberry muffin recipe calls for double the honey, so I am super pleased to find a recipe with less sugar. I used almond milk instead of sour cream, which meant that I needed to bake these a little bit longer due to the higher liquid content. Next time if I am not pressed for time I will curdle the almond milk first. This recipe made 12 good sized muffins and 6 mini muffins. I look forward to trying more of your recipes!
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you liked it!
Lisa
Very good recipe. These taste amazing, especially while still warm with a smidge of butter. Mmmm
Elizabeth Lindemann
So glad you liked it!