A clean eating recipe for healthy apple muffins. I am not a good baker – but these are super easy (and forgiving if you mess up a little)! The kids love them for breakfast or snacks. Flavored with cinnamon and maple syrup, they are gluten-free and don’t have any oil, eggs, or butter. What they do have is fiber, protein, and healthy fats from oatmeal, flax and chia seeds! Bake and enjoy!
I woke up one morning to discover that my kids’ healthy breakfast routine was ruined. As a mom – I understand to the depths of my soul how desperately I need a morning routine that runs smoothly. For my personal sanity. But with one quick change of their clever 7 and 4-year-old minds… Our morning routine became a smokin’ hot mess…
Why Did You Choose These Muffins?
I have had a routine – a quick and easy breakfast / morning routine. I frequently included my chocolate chocolate chip muffins. They are healthy muffins that my boys both loved. I would warm these delicious muffins up a bit, let the chocolate get a little melty, and then round it out with a protein and some fruit. We were golden.
I loved the routine, because it was “familiar, easy, and quick.” And then it happened.
My boys decided that – in their reality – my beautiful morning routine was more like “boring and over-used.” Now I had to come up with a different easy, but healthy, breakfast. Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention.
What they don’t tell you is that sometimes invention doesn’t come until you’ve locked yourself in your kitchen for a weekend; consumed a perfectly paired wine for each batter of the successful, mediocre, and failed muffin attempts; and used your beloved family members as human taste-testing guinea pigs for muffin after muffin after muffin.
But that is, in fact, how these healthy apple muffins were born. They are quick and easy for me and delicious for the boys! Score – I’m back in business!
Related Post That You Might Enjoy: The Best Ever Healthy Homemade Blueberry Muffin Recipe
How Can A Muffin Be Healthy? Isn’t That an Oxymoron?
This muffin is different because unlike so many other “healthy” muffin recipes out there, I didn’t just replace oil with mashed bananas and call it a sugar-laden day. Not only did I replace some of the typical muffin health offenders, but I added in true healthy super powers!
Oatmeal is a good source of fiber. But there are other fiber powerhouses out there as well. Just one tablespoon of ground flax has 2 grams of fiber! Ground flax is a nutritional powerhouse because of its high fiber content; it’s rich in Omega-3 fatty acids; and it contains phytochemicals known as lignans which may reduce blood pressure, blood cholesterol, and triglycerides. But wait – there’s more!!
It turns out that chia seeds are awesome for more than home decor. (Who knew, right?) They are a great source of fiber, phosphorus, magnesium, protein, and Omega-3 fatty acids to mention just a few. And there are so many amazing things you can do with these little seeds!
Related Post You May Also Like: Cranberry Peach Cobbler Muffins
So here is our healthy apple muffin recipe that you’ve been waiting for!
My Favorite Things For This Recipe
So, a couple of things that make this recipe so amazing are really high quality vanilla and genuinely pure maple syrup. Pure maple syrup is quite difficult to find. And not being from the northern lands, I can’t swear that I’ve perfected my taste for the real thing. But the one below, I love. It’s terrific and loaded with flavor!
best muffin pan
pure vanilla
genuine maple syrup
no bleach muffin cups
The Healthy Apple Muffin Recipe
Healthy Apple Muffins {Scientifically Tested & Loved By Real Kids}
These healthy apple muffins are so quick and easy to make as well as moist and delicious. And your kids will love them...If you leave them any!
Ingredients
- 1 Ripe Medium to Large Banana, I squeeze them between my fingers and then whisk them smooth. You can also smash them with a fork and then whisk.
- 1 tbsp Sunflower Seed Butter
- 16 oz Applesauce
- 2 tbsp Vanilla, I suggest using the highest quality that you can find.
- 1 tsp Baking Powder, I make mine "heaping." It helps to make this dense muffin fluffier!
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- 2 tsp Cinnamon, Again, the better the quality - the better your end results!
- 1 tsp Apple Pie Seasoning
- 1 2/3 cup Unsweetened Almond Milk, Reduce this to 1 1/2 cups if you increase your maple syrup to 1/2 cup.
- 1/3 cup Grade A Dark Maple Syrup, You could increase this to 1/2 cup depending upon how sweet you want them. If you increase the syrup to 1/2 - reduce your almond milk to 1 1/2 cups.
- 1 1/2 cups Gluten Free (optional) Oats
- 2 cups Oats
- 1 cup Oat Flour
- 1 cup Finely Ground Golden Flax Seeds
- 1/4 cup Chia Seeds
- 2 cups Chopped Apples
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- "Squash" the bananas into a large mixing bowl and then whisk them smooth.
- Whisk in the vanilla and sunflower seed butter.
- Next whisk in the applesauce.
- Next whisk in the baking powder, baking soda, apple pie seasoning, and cinnamon.
- Whisk almond milk and maple syrup into the bowl of wet ingredients.
- The combined almond milk and maple syrup should total 2 cups of liquid. Adjust the almond milk according to the amount of maple syrup used.
- Slowly stir in oats, oat flour, ground flax seeds, and chia seeds.
- Finally, gently fold in chopped apples and raisins (optional).
- Line 2 muffin pans with baking cups. Fill muffin cups about ⅔ full.
- Place muffin pans into your preheated oven. Bake at 350 degrees for 14 minutes. Turn pans and bake for the final 14 minutes.
- *Optional - Sprinkle with a little raw sugar on top.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
24Serving Size:
1 gramsAmount Per Serving: Calories: 128Total Fat: 4gUnsaturated Fat: 0gSodium: 79mgCarbohydrates: 19gFiber: 4gSugar: 7gProtein: 3g
Wrapped in a tiny package, this apple muffin recipe has oats, oat flour, ground flax, chia seeds, and apples. And…this is the best part. THE RECIPE IS VERSATILE! By easy and versatile – I mean, you can’t really mess it up. It’s not as exacting as most baking recipes; no precise measuring here.
Related Post You May Also Like: Healthy Double Chocolate Muffins So Delicious They Taste Like Fudge!
Make Your Own Variations of These Amazing Apple Muffins
You can also easily change it up – you could add blueberries and cashew butter for blueberry muffins. If you don’t have any allergies to nuts – change up the nut butter and see what you get! Changing to almond or cashew butter, substituting figs and increasing the cinnamon sounds awesome to me. Use your imagination and create your own family favorite! But try these apple muffins first!
If you sign up below, you’ll get an exclusive bonus of seven additional ways to change these healthy apple muffins up!
Get Ideas for 11 Variations on This Scrumptious Muffin!
If you want to check out some completely different versions of these muffins that have worked well for us, and more, you can find them all here:
Related Page You May Also Like: The Muffin Recipe That Will Make You Want to Eat Healthy
Let me know how you like apple raisin muffins and I’d love for you to post a comment and let me hear how you changed it up! Also – tell my your favorite kind of muffins!
*I used sunbutter to avoid nut butters, but if you don’t need this to be allergen free, you can substitute in any nut butter. Cashew butter would be delicious!!
*I used Almond Milk because, among all the nut allergies in our house, almond isn’t one of them. But I have made these with coconut milk and it works every bit as well.
Don’t Forget To Pin This So You Can Find It Again!
