Honey oat banana muffins

I was going to call these honey oat banana muffins ‘life changing muffins’ because, as you’ll find out, they’re a game changing recipe for us (and you too, I hope) but I needed a title that gave you an idea of how delicious these healthy vegan muffins are. While they happen to be free of gluten, oil, refined sugar, eggs and dairy they are packed full of flavour, have the perfect crumb and can be made nut free too.

In fact, these healthy oat muffins are made almost entirely from whole foods and the whole family will love them (especially served warm with a slathering of butter).

Honey oat banana muffinsI get it though- there are SO many healthy oat muffin recipes our there, so why bother with these ones? What makes them SO special?

  • They are wholegrain and about as healthy as a muffin can get. The ingredients are whole food based (plus baking powder) and are probably already in your pantry
  • They are naturally sweetened with only ripe banana and honey (or maple syrup)
  • They are free-from most allergens (dairy, eggs, gluten) and can easily be made nut-free too.
  • The recipe requires no fancy ingredients that you need to go to a health food store for- no gums, fancy flours or starches.
  • Most importantly they TATSE great. The flavour is very wholesome a perfect mix of oats, banana, honey and tahini.
  • The texture is what a healthy muffin should be- light, fluffy, moist and the perfect crumb.

Honey oat banana muffins

Honey oat banana muffinsIngredient list to make the best honey oat banana muffins

  • Rolled oats. We grind whole rolled oats into a course flour using your blender or food processor, though you can use oat flour instead. If you need gluten free oat muffins ensure you buy certified gluten free oats like these ones.
  • Blanched almond meal. If you need a nut free version simply increase the amount of rolled oats by 60g. Adding almond meal helps to balance out the crumb and create a lighter finish, but the straight-oat version is delicious too.
  • Salt and baking powder. baking staples. Please ensure you choose gluten free baking powder if necessary.
  • Ripe banana. You want the brown spotty ones that have a sweet smell for this recipe, especially as the only other sweetener is 1/3 cup honey or maple syrup. Choosing ripe banana will be a game changer in your muffins, ensuring lots of natural sweetness and a prominent banana flavour.
  • Milk of choice. Use whatever milk you like. For a plant based option I like to choose a milk like this one, or I also adore this nut milk base for whipping up your own additive-free nut milk. All milks (plant or cows) will work for this recipe, just ensure you choose boxed (not canned) milk.
  • Apple cider vinegar. The chemical reaction between the baking powder and vinegar is very important in these honey and oat muffins, responsible for creating light and fluffy muffins. You can use white vinegar but malt vinegar may be too strongly flavoured.
  • Hulled tahini. Tahini adds a nuttiness to the flavour profile and essential fat that creates a tender final crumb. It is important when choosing tahini to find one that is fresh (old tahini can be bitter) and drippy or pourable in consistency. You could use any roasted, runny or pourable nut or seed butter in place of tahini.
  • Honey. The combination of honey, oats and banana is something else, though if you don’t eat honey I have tried and tested these with use maple syrup and it works wonderfully. Choose a runny honey, not a raw one, and where possible source out a local honey to you supporting your native bee populations (and produce- I buy mine from our local organic blueberry farm). I am very excited to bring you this honey-sweetened banana muffin recipe as it has been a very popular request.
  • Pure vanilla extract. I would call this an optional ingredient, however if you omit it 1 tsp ground cinnamon would be a great addition.

Honey oat banana muffins sliced open

Honey oat banana muffinsSome top tips for perfecting your light and fluffy honey oat banana muffins

I find this recipe very forgiving and baking small muffins (instead of a loaf) poses much less issues. I have not had a bad batch of these muffins, but sometimes when working with a gluten, oil and sugar free recipe you can have fails. So here are some handy tips to avoid that;

  1. Allow your muffins to cool completely before cutting into them. In all honesty I have eaten these muffins straight from the oven and they are perfect, but the best practice with gluten free baking is to all complete cooling before digging in. If you read this post on my banana oat loaf you will find lots of handy tips to avoid a gummy oat based baking recipe.
  2. Use a metal muffin tray with liners over silicone muffin trays. Baking with silicone is easy but I get better results when using (my vintage) aluminium muffin trays (which is hardly surprising since aluminium offers far superior heat conduction). I bought cheap, lovely trays of Etsy years ago and never looked back.
  3. Ensure your baking powder is in date, and if it has been opened for more than 6 months replace it.
  4. Use kitchen scales, except when measuring small amounts (teaspoon-tablespoon). Scales are far more accurate and take away the variables of how we measure dry ingredients. they are a relatively cheap kitchen appliance and so useful.

Honey oat banana muffins with butterLooking for more delicious vegan banana baking recipes?

We hope you enjoy these life changing honey oat banana muffins as much as we do. We would be so grateful if you left a review or any questions below as it helps others readers find this recipe too.

Honey oat banana muffins

Honey oat banana muffins

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Honey oat banana muffins

Honey oat banana muffins

  • Author: Jade Woodd
  • Prep Time: 10 mins
  • Cook Time: 25 mins
  • Total Time: 35 minutes
  • Yield: 12-16 1x
  • Category: Breakfast, snacks
  • Method: Baking
  • Cuisine: Australian
  • Diet: Vegan

Description

These one-bowl honey oat banana muffins are sweetened naturally with fruit, and free from gluten, oil, dairy and eggs and make the perfect on-the-go breakfast or snack.


Ingredients

Scale
  • 312g (1 1/4 cups mashed) banana
  • 166ml (2/3 cup) milk of choice
  • 100g (1/3 cup) hulled tahini
  • 2 tsp apple cider or white vinegar
  • 110g (1/3 cup) runny honey (see notes)
  • 1 tsp pure vanilla extract, optional but recommended
  • 240g (2 cups) rolled oats, certified gluten free if needed (see notes)
  • 60g (1/2 cup) blanched almond meal (see notes)
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp fine salt

Instructions

  1. I recommend using scales for this recipe to get consistent results. I am using Australian standard cup sizes (250ml) and follow the spoon and scrap method of filling.
  2. Preheat the oven to 180C. This recipe will make 12 (large/jumbo size)-16 (standard size) muffins depending on your muffin tray size. The batter will keep well to bake these in batches over a 2 hour period. Line your tray with patty pans, or if using a silicone baking tray set aside for use later.
  3. In a large mixing bowl add the banana, milk, tahini, vinegar, honey and vanilla. Use a stick blender to blitz everything together until very smooth. Alternatively you could add these ingredients to a blender first, and pour into your mixing bowl. If neither of these options are available to you first add the banana to the mixing bowl and mash very well. Add the remaining ingredients listed and hand whisk together until uniform.
  4. Add rolled oats to a large blender and blend until a flour is formed. In a high-powered blender this should only take 30 seconds, however some blenders will take longer. You can also do this step in a food processor, thermomix or mini blender. Add this oat flour to your wet ingredients along with the remaining dry ingredients. Using a wooden spoon combine well. It is better to slightly over mix this recipe than under mix it, so don’t be afraid to combine the batter well.
  5. Optional- lightly sprinkle the top of the muffin with extra rolled oats and a tiny drizzle of honey or maple syrup. This is just for looks, so it can be skipped.
  6. Spoon batter between your prepared muffin trays and bake for 20-25mins or until lightly golden brown on top and cooked through when tested with a skewer. Using the skewer as a testing point, insert the skewer into the middle of a muffin. It should have moist crumbs attached, but no wet batter.
  7. Once the muffins are cooked, turn off the oven and open the door completely. Stand for 3-4 minutes before transferring the tray to a wire rack. Allow the honey oat muffins to cool for a further 5 minutes before removing each muffin on the tray and transferring to a wire rack to completely cool.

These muffins can be eaten warm, served with butter, honey, nut butter or just as is. To store allow them to completely cool and then store in an airtight container in the pantry. They will last for 3-4 days.

To freeze. Individually wrap each muffin is plastic wrap and freeze. Defrost gently in the fridge for a few hours or microwave in 15s increments if you prefer. They are best eaten with 2 weeks of freezing.


Notes

 

  • Honey can be exchange  for 100g (1/3 cup) maple syrup or your preferred liquid sweetener.
  • Oats can be exchanged for oat flour but ensure you measure by weight (240g) not volume
  • You can substitute almond meal for an extra 60g rolled oats. The almond meal does improve the texture but I have tried and tested the recipe with using only rolled oats and its still good.

To make this recipe NUT FREE

  • Exchange almond milk for your preferred boxed milk- soy, coconut, rice or other, and
  • Exchange almond meal for an extra 60g rolled oats. When blending the original amount of rolled oats into a flour please blend this extra 60g of oats too.

Keywords: Honey, oat and banana muffins, healthy muffin

25 Comments
  1. Looking forward to teying this recipe.
    Respectfully though, aluminum is scientifically correlated with Alzheimers so I try to avoid it and exclusively use my (pampered chef) stoneware muffin pans and cookie sheets (a.k.a. bar pans) and pizza stones that bake up beautifully!

    1. Hi Cherie,

      Glad you’re looking forward to trying the recipe. Yes I am very aware of the issues with aluminium however I still use aluminium for muffins because I use patty pans to create a barrier between the metal and the food. Aluminium is actually quite inert unless you add a very acidic medium (eg tomato based), so i absolutely avoid it for pots and frypans. Since it is such a good heat conductor I still recommend it for baking but only when it’s lined.

      I do love the sound of the stoneware tray- what is the coating made from?

  2. These muffins were delicious, thank you for making your recipes available.
    I followed your tip of using an extra 60 grams of almond meal (120 grams in total) I also substituted buckwheat flour for the oats.
    I used my Thermomix, added bananas and all wet ingredients mixed on speed 4 one minute then added dry ingredients and mixed for 50 seconds speed 4 . Poured into muffin papers and baked as per instructions
    Delicious. Thank you

    1. Hi Jennifer,

      Thank you so much for the feedback and changes you made. So helpful for others 🙂

      Happy baking!

  3. 100% Yummy!
    Danke für das tolle Rezept.
    Danke auch für die Gramm Angaben.
    Viele Grüße,
    Jesse-Gabriel
    100% yummy!
    Thanks for the great recipe.
    Thanks also for the gram information.
    Many greetings,
    Jesse-Gabriel

  4. Hi Jade,
    Hope you are getting along ok in lockdown. Thank you so much for this fantastic recipe. Gosh they really are life changing! We’ve made twice already this week and I have sent your recipe on to friends and family. Such a great healthy muffin, perfect for on the go breakfasts, as well as having store cupboard ingredients.
    Thanks again! Can’t wait for your next muffin recipe!
    Sophie

    1. This review really brightened my day Sophie. I really wanted to create that perfect healthy muffin, and it makes me so happy that you loved it. Xx

  5. Hi Jade,
    You are a star, this recipe is awesome, thank you so much. Really appreciate all you do, love your posts and all your hard work. I substituted tahini with homemade almond butter, used regular So Good Soy Milk, maple syrup instead of honey, followed your proportions and they turned out perfect. Added a tsp of Wattle Seed powder for flavour. The mixture was delicious even before baking so I knew the muffins would turn out perfect and they did. Thanks again!
    Vanya

    1. Oh my goodness, what as sweet review. I love wattle seed, and now I am dying to try these with that amazing native flavour added. Thanks Vanya!

  6. My entire family loves these muffins! Totally unintentionally (and mostly because I am terrible at reading instructions) I didn’t blend the oats into a flour. They still came out delicious! And everyone actually enjoyed a bit of texture.

    1. Hi Jeanne,

      Oh I love this, and its wonderful to know you can skip blending the oats. So helpful 🙂

  7. Could you explain why to use “runny” honey please. I have raw honey that is not crystallized, would this work? It is pretty viscous.

    1. I think it would work fine, as long as it is not crystallised. Honey that is too stiff may affect the final texture, however.

  8. I saved this recipe months ago and finally baked them this morning. I used maple syrup in place of honey and they are the bomb. Best banana muffins I’ve ever made and I’ve made a lot. And healthy makes me happy. The tahini is such a lovely subtle taste that takes these to such a great place. Thanks so much for this recipe. My 2 yr old grandson is on his second as I type.

  9. I saved this recipe months ago and finally baked them this morning. I used maple syrup in place of honey and they are the bomb. Best banana muffins I’ve ever made and I’ve made a lot. And healthy makes me happy. The tahini is such a lovely subtle taste that takes these to such a great place. Thanks so much for this recipe. My 2 yr old grandson is on his second as I type.

    1. Hi Debbie, Gosh, thanks for such a lovely review- it makes me feel so happy (and grateful) to share this recipe with you. I love them with honey too. Yum! Love hearing your little man is enjoying them too.

  10. A quick and and an easy recipe with a fantastic result. These muffins are perfect for breakfast or as snack. Even tastier with peanut butter and homemade raspberry jam.

  11. Hi Jade, I just made the honey oat banana muffins, talk about delicious, mine didn’t look half as good as. yours . But they tasted really good and between the banana and the honey you really don’t need any more sweetener. Definitely will keep making these. Thanks for all you do… ps luv your site.

    1. Thank you for the feedback Linda! I’ve had a bit of experience making these look pretty, hehe, but really all that matters is taste in my opinion!

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