The best Healthy Carrot Muffins with applesauce, oatmeal or oat bran, whole wheat flour and honey. Your family will love when you add them to your healthy muffin recipes!
Carrot baked goods always turn out so delicious and moist! Like my healthy carrot cake, healthy carrot cake bars, or almond flour carrot cake.
Table of contents
Healthy carrot muffins are naturally sweetened, moist and fluffy! With no added sugar plus loaded with nuts and raisins, these carrot muffins make for a healthy breakfast recipe or afternoon snack.
Carrots are amazing in baked goods; they make muffins sweet and moist with no need to add a cup of refined sugar and oil. Try them next in carrot cake baked oatmeal!
These oatmeal carrot muffins are a nutrition power house! Not to mention even my kids can make them for healthy snacks and then enjoy with a glass of cold milk.
What Makes These Oatmeal Carrot Muffins Healthy?
- Whole grain flour is not stripped of essential vitamins and nutrients like all purpose flour, plus the addition of oats or oat brans adds fiber!
- Applesauce is being used in place of oil resulting in a low fat muffin!
- Muffins are naturally sweetened without the use of white refined sugar.
- Carrots are known for being high in vitamin A, plus because of their sweet taste, these hearty muffins are similar in taste to carrot cake!
Ingredients for Healthy Carrot Muffins
- Carrots: You will need approximately 2-3 large carrots or 5-6 small/medium sized. I prefer to buy organic carrots. Use the small side of your grater or a vegetable peeler to shred carrots.
- Applesauce: Adds moisture instead of using oil, I prefer to use unsweetened to keep these healthy carrot muffins lower in sugar. Instead of applesauce you can use plain regular or Greek yogurt.
- Honey or maple syrup: This ingredient adds a bit of sweetness without refined sugar.
- Eggs: Adds lift and binding.
- Baking essentials and spices: Vanilla extract, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
- Whole wheat flour: I much prefer using whole wheat flour or spelt flour in baking. If you avoid gluten, check out these basic almond flour muffins made with almond flour.
- Oat bran or oats: Adds healthy fiber for aiding in digestion. I love using oats in these healthy strawberry muffins, too!
- Add-ins: I love to use raisins and walnuts for a healthy carrot cake muffin taste, but feel free to use your favorite dried fruit or nut.
How to Make Healthy Carrot Muffins
There is a full recipe card below.
1. Combine liquid and leavening agents: First, whisk eggs in a large mixing bowl. Then, add applesauce, maple syrup, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix well to fully combine.
2. Add carrots: Stir in grated carrots. Please don’t squeeze shredded carrots. The wonderful juice will ensure your muffins are flavorful and moist.
3. Add dry ingredients: Now it’s time to incorporate dry ingredients one by one. First, add oat bran or oats. Then add whole wheat flour; gently mix until combined. Do not over mix!
4. Stir in raisins and nuts.
5. Bake for 25 minutes: Place batter evenly into a muffin tin. The muffins are done when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
6. Cool and enjoy: I always let my muffins cool for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
Variations
Want to customize healthy carrot muffins to your tastes and what you have on hand? Feel free to try these options!
- Tropical muffins: Add 1/2 cup chopped (gently squeezed if from a can) pineapple chunks and 1/4 cup coconut flakes.
- Different warming spices: Use ground cloves or ground allspice vs. the normal carrot cake warming spices called for in this recipe.
- Sweeter muffins: Sprinkle with coarse sugar before baking!
- Topping: After muffins have cooled, use drizzle from healthy coffee cake to make take these from healthy carrot muffins to healthy carrot cake muffins!
- Frosting: Transform your muffins into dessert with healthy Greek yogurt frosting!
FAQs
I have not tried but I believe so. Muffins will rise less and will have more hearty chewy texture. Please do not confuse with steel cut oats though.
Baking is a science and gluten free flour like almond flour or coconut flour will not bake the same, so I do not recommend this substitution. Try these healthy strawberry oatmeal bars with an almond flour crust!
You can’t use liquid stevia because it will throw off dry and wet ingredients ratio and muffins will not turn out. The same goes for any dry sweetener.
You can bake bigger or smaller muffins but increase and decrease bake time accordingly for this healthy breakfast idea. Always do a toothpick test.
For a vegan egg free option learn how to make a flax egg or chia egg.
Yes! Just omit the nuts or add in some sunflower seeds.
I usually keep them on the counter for a few days. At that point, if any are left (happened only once here), I pop them into the fridge to prevent dry and stale carrot muffins. You can also freeze muffins up to 3 months. In fact, you can freeze any muffins like savory broccoli cheese egg muffins or sweet banana applesauce muffins!
More Healthy Muffins Recipes
- Healthy pumpkin muffins
- Cranberry orange muffins
- Healthy chocolate muffins
- Healthy chocolate chip muffins
- Healthy blueberry muffins
- Healthy morning glory muffins
Browse through all my favorite healthy muffin recipes!
Best Healthy Carrot Muffins with Applesauce
Ingredients
- 2 large eggs
- 3/4 cup applesauce unsweetened
- 1/3 cup maple syrup or honey
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 cups grated carrots packed
- 1 cup oat bran or quick/rolled oats
- 1 cup whole wheat or spelt flour
- 1/3 cup raisins or chopped dates not packed
- 1/3 cup nuts coarsely chopped (walnuts (I used cheaper pieces rather than whole), pecans, hazelnuts)
- Cooking spray I use Misto
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and spray non-stick 12 muffin tin with cooking spray. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, add eggs and whisk for 15 seconds. Add applesauce, maple syrup, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, baking soda, salt and whisk well to combine.
- Add carrots and stir a few times. Add oat bran or oats and whole wheat flour; gently mix until combined. Do not over mix. Stir in raisins and nuts.
- Distribute batter evenly between 12 openings of a tin (I used a regular ice cream scoop) and bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Let muffins cool for a few minutes and transfer to a cooling rack to cool off completely.
Store: Refrigerate in a glass airtight container for up to 1 week.
Freeze: In an airtight container up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in refrigerator or on counter for 3-4 hours.
Video
Notes
- Can I use quick cooking steel cut oats: I have not tried but I believe so. Muffins will rise less and will have more hearty chewy texture. Please do not confuse with steel cut oats though.
- Yogurt: Instead of applesauce you can use plain regular or Greek yogurt.
- Jumbo or mini muffins: You can bake bigger or smaller muffins but increase and decrease bake time accordingly. Always do a toothpick test.
- Can I use almond flour? Baking is a science and gluten free flour like almond flour or coconut flour will not bake the same, so I do not recommend this substitution.
- Can I use liquid stevia or erythritol? You can’t use liquid stevia because it will throw off dry and wet ingredients ratio and muffins will not turn out. The same goes for any dry sweetener.
- Egg free: Try how to make a flax egg or chia egg.
Nutrition
Recipes and images are a copyright of ifoodreal.com. It is against the law to republish recipes without permission. Nutritional info is approximate.
These are wonderful! They are requested by my husband over and over again. I add a little homemade cream cheese frosting for a special dessert.
I am so happy to hear this, Monica!
Can banana be substituted for applesauce?
I don’t see a reason why not.
My husband says these were his new favorite go-to muffin! I made them gluten free and because I didn’t have nutmeg, added a dash of ginger instead, I also lightly roasted my walnuts before I put them in the batter… sooo good! Plan on writing this one down for my recipe box! Also, prayers for your homeland!
So glad it was a hit! Yum on the ginger, that sounds like an amazing addition. Thank you as well.
Amazing. Though took about 25 minutes longer to come in a convection oven but that was not a big deal. They didn’t rise much bigger than what was poured into each muffin tin but again delicious and moist they are.
So glad you enjoyed these muffins, Andy!
I made these muffins last week. Really good! Grandkids liked, too. So healthy. I will make again. Thanks!
So glad they and you enjoyed them!
Thanks for this nice customizable recipe. I doubled the recipe and used half eggs, half flax eggs, half honey half maple syrup, half applesauce half yogurt. Also went ahead and used wheat bran instead of oat. Could be that the wheat bran was more absorbent because I baked for 22 minutes and found that to be a bit too long, outside of muffins got a bit hard. But definitely worth trying again.
Thanks for sharing how you made them Kelsey!
Hi, I love your muffin recipe so much! I’d love to add some veggies to this, how would zucchini work with this?
The recipe has not been tested with zucchini, but it may work to replace some of the shredded carrots with shredded zucchini. I would start at 1/2 cup of zucchini as it is more ‘watery’ than carrots. You may also want to give your zucchini shreds just a light squeeze to remove some (not all) of the liquid. You may also like Healthy Zucchini Muffins.
Thank you, I will try that! 🙂
The muffins taste great! I did find that using the exact quantities in the recipe I only got 10 regular sized muffins. I will make them again and increase the quantities by 20-25%.
So glad you enjoyed them!
I subbed in pumpkin purée for the apple sauce and it was super moist and delicious. Bursting with Fall flavor. Great recipe!
what a great substitution, perfect for fall!
I’ve been looking for a carrot muffin for a quick breakfast and this one is the best by far! Very moist and flavorful and you don’t even need to pop them in the microwave for a few seconds. Also, I like that the recipe only uses one bowl since that’s how I always do it anyway.