Puffy, moist whole grain banana muffins sans eggs and dairy! Made with tons of banana for classic flavor, sweetened with a touch of maple syrup, and amped up with flax for a fiber boost. My kids love these for a nourishing breakfast, especially with chocolate chips or slathered in peanut butter.
When you got to make muffins and the grocery store has sad empty shelves where the eggs once lived, I gotchu. When you're not eating eggs because you're allergic or vegan or you hate them or WHATEVER, I gotchu.
Today we're celebrating better-for-you banana muffs that come together in a cinch in one bowl, egg and dairy free. Nourishing! Tasty! Easy! Flawless, I tell you.
Like its little sis Vegan Blueberry Banana Muffins and its big bro Vegan Chocolate Banana Muffins, this is one of those staple morning or snack recipes you'll keep coming back to. Pinky swear.
These ingredients make all the difference
- Banana: I've made these countless times and it's always clear that overripe mashed banana is the key to moisture, flavor, and texture! I use verrrry spotty or even *black* ones for the strongest banana flavor.
- White whole wheat flour: I like how it's less "wheaty" (King Arthur is my fave) but if you can't easily find it, I've tested these with 1 cup of all purpose flour and ¾ cup whole wheat flour (or 100% all purpose flour).
- Flax: The dietitian in me love a bit of ground flax for healthy fats and fiber, which most of us are lacking. It's a star of these muffins by design not just for binding power but to amp up the nutrition.
- Extra virgin olive oil: Liquid gold, and chock full of antioxidants yes but I love olive oil in this muffin recipe because to me, it actually heightens the flavors.
- DIY buttermilk: I found in testing that you get a better (chunkier) buttermilk with a higher protein milk. It's key here since the vinegar reacts with the baking soda to yield a super fluffy muffin.
Let's make 'em!
A couple tips from recipe testing
I've been baking these beauts for yeeeeears and I've learned a few tidbits along the testing and perfecting journey.
- You can use ½ cup maple syrup for sweeter, more bakery-esque muffins.
- Chocolate chips make these even better. I've also added a big handful of chopped walnuts and it's absolutely delish.
- The flour is flexible as long as you're using a wheat flour like all purpose, whole wheat, or spelt (versus almond flour, etc).
I hope you're as obsessed with these muffins as I am!
I'd be super grateful if you'd take a moment to leave a quick star rating and review below. Comments mean the world to me and your honest feedback helps me to continue to share recipes you'll crave!
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Whole Wheat Vegan Banana Muffins (with Flax!)
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 12 muffins 1x
- Category: Snacks
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
Puffy, moist whole grain banana muffins sans eggs and dairy! Made with tons of banana for epic flavor, sweetened with a touch of maple syrup, and amped up with flax for a fiber boost. My kids love these for a nourishing breakfast, especially with chocolate chips or slathered in peanut butter.
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup non-dairy milk (I used unsweetened soy milk)
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 ½ cups very overripe bananas, mashed
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
- ⅓ cup pure maple syrup
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 1 ¾ cups white whole wheat flour, spooned and leveled
- ¼ cup ground flaxseed
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ¼ tsp fine sea salt
- optional: ½ cup chocolate chips or walnuts, or 1 cup blueberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray or use paper liners.
- Place milk and vinegar in a small bowl. Stir and set aside.
- Place bananas in a large mixing bowl. Use a potato masher or fork to mash them well. Measure out 1 ½ cups. Add oil, maple syrup, vanilla, and milk mixture, whisking to combine.
- Sprinkle in flour, flax, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until just barely combined (you should still see streaks of flour). Gently fold in in any add-ins, being careful not to over-mix.
- Use a ¼ measuring cup to fill muffin tin. Bake for 23-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool muffins on a wire rack for 15 minutes before removing from tin to cool completely. I put flaky salt on everything so feel free to ride that vibe! Store in an airtight container on the counter for up to 3 days. I don't recommend putting them in the fridge as they'll dry out. These freeze well, too!
Marian Rankin says
I simply had very ripe bananas and found this recipe to use them up....but they only measured 3/4 c, so I googled substitutes for bananas and went with applesauce. 1/2 ww flour, 1/2 white, made buttermilk with lemon jce as out of apple cider vinegar. Everything else the same as the recipe. Added 1/2 choc. chips and 1/2 raisins.
Baked them at 450 x 5 min, then 350 x 20 min. Tested centers and done at 205.degrees.
Amazing! Light, moist, so yummy.
You come through again....:)
Alexis Joseph, MS, RD says
Wow those sound so good, you nailed it! I so appreciate you trying my recipes and sharing your kind feedback. Thank you, Marian!
Sloane says
Hi! I just made these muffins and they are so good! However, you have maple syrup on your ingredients list but I can't find it in the recipe at all. I even had another person look it over just make sure. I think I should add the maple syrup in with the wet ingredients, but I'm hoping you could update the recipe for other people.
Thank you so much!
Alexis Joseph, MS, RD says
I'm so glad to hear you liked them, Sloane! Thanks for catching that--yep it just gets added to the rest of the wet ingredients. Let me know what I can do to make it a 5 star recipe!