Healthy Blueberry Muffins are fluffy, moist, and pack as many blueberries as possible! Make ahead or eat fresh out of the oven for a nutritious breakfast or snack.
We also love these almond flour blueberry muffins and cottage cheese blueberry muffins.
Reader’s Review
Excellent! I rarely have a recipe hit the target first time. I followed exactly, they were perfect – light, delicious, not too sweet, not heavy. Best recipe! I’ll be trying other recipes you have now. Thank you for sharing.
Diana
These healthy blueberry muffins come out moist, light and so fluffy every time! With no refined sugar and nutrient dense ingredients, I can feel good about feeding these muffins to my family for healthy breakfast or snack.
Both kids and adults love these, and you will love them too!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Whole grain flour: By using 100% whole wheat or spelt flour these healthy muffins are full of nutrients plus fiber.
- Naturally sweetened: Skip the refined white sugar, this healthy blueberry muffin recipe uses maple syrup or honey which means less sugar than your giant coffee shop muffins.
- Low oil: Unsweetened applesauce not only keeps them moist, it lowers the use of heavy oils for lighter, better for you blueberry muffin!
- Delicious: Usually, I prefer to eat my berries fresh, however these blueberry muffins deserve even the priciest supermarket January blueberries!
Ingredients for Healthy Blueberry Muffins
- Flour: You can use whole wheat flour or spelt flour. See FAQs below for more options.
- Blueberries: I made these muffins with fresh blueberries but frozen blueberries can be used with great success.
- Applesauce: I use unsweetened applesauce but if sweetened is all you can find, that works. Your muffins will be sweeter. Here is a great Instant Pot applesauce recipe.
- Eggs: 2 large eggs from refrigerator, no need for room temperature ones. Provide lift and binding.
- Any oil: Healthy widely available options are avocado oil, melted coconut oil, grapeseed oil or extra virgin olive oil.
- Liquid sweetener: I love the maple flavor of maple syrup but honey or agave work too. Please do not use any dry sweetener because it will throw off muffin batter consistency and recipe will not work.
- Vanilla extract: Use pure vanilla extract and not artificial for the best flavor.
- Cinnamon: Adds a warm taste and light spice. Can always add a bit of nutmeg too.
- Baking staples: Baking powder and baking soda for texture, and salt to bring out flavors of all other ingredients.
How to Make Healthy Blueberry Muffins
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F and line muffin tin with parchment paper liners or use a silicone muffin pan.
- Combine wet ingredients and leavening agents: In a large bowl, add eggs, applesauce, maple syrup, oil, vanilla, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and whisk well. Ensure the baking powder and soda have completely dissolved.
- Add dry ingredients: Add flour and stir gently just until mixed, don’t overdo it. You can also let batter sit for 3 minutes to absorb the moisture, then give 1-2 final stirs.
- Add berries: Mix blueberries with 1 tablespoon of flour to prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the muffins. Add to the batter and stir a few times just enough to incorporate into the muffin batter.
- Bake: Using trigger cookie dough scoop, fill muffin tin with muffin batter. Bake for 10 minutes at 425 F, reduce heat to 375 F and bake for another 10 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool in the muffin pan for 30 minutes before transferring onto a wire rack to cool more.
Tips for Best Results
- Mix batter only until combined: Do not over mix your batter as additional gluten will develop and result in dense muffins. A few patches of flour are OK and better than perfectly smooth batter.
- Keep an eye on muffins while they bake: All ovens vary and I recommend to check your muffins 3 minutes to the end. If toothpick comes out clean, time to remove the muffins. They keep cooking with residual heat in a muffin tin.
- Let them cool completely: These muffins are delicate, light, and fluffy. If you don’t let them cool patiently for 30 minutes, they will deform and fall apart a bit.
- Mini muffins: You can make mini blueberry muffins and bake for 11-13 minutes. Do a toothpick test.
How to Store and Freeze
To store: In our house, a batch of these blueberry muffins won’t last more than 2 days because they are so good! Store them in an airtight container placed in a cool dry place for 3-4 days.
To freeze: Bake and cool muffins completely. Then arrange them in a single layer in resealable plastic bag or any container with a lid. Place in the freezer for up to 3 months.
To reheat: Thaw on a counter for a few hours. Warm up in the oven at 350 F or microwave for 30 seconds for that freshly baked experience.
Storage Tip
Don’t miss my detailed posts how to store muffins and how to freeze muffins to make sure your leftover muffins stay fresh longer.
FAQs
I tested this recipe only with whole wheat flour or spelt flour. Whole wheat pastry flour or white whole wheat flour should work as well. You may use about 2 3/4 cups or 3 cups all-purpose flour but muffins will be less sweet. I think gluten-free flour is more dry and will need adjustment of the recipe. Baking is a science and it’s best to follow the recipe.
Yes, to make these muffins egg-free and also vegan, you can use an equivalent amount of flax eggs or chia seed eggs and be sure to use maple syrup.
Yes, while you can use an equal amount of plain regular yogurt or Greek yogurt instead of applesauce, be prepared for less sweet muffins. You can try to add a few more tablespoons of sweetener with hopes this won’t offset the batter consistency. I recommend to use applesauce though.
Yes, no need to thaw the frozen blueberries. If you are worried about them turning your batter blue, rinse them a few times under cold water, then gently pat dry. Fold them gently into your muffin batter and give a few stirs. Once you notice some blueberry streaks, stop stirring to prevent further bleeding.
More Blueberry Recipes You’ll Love
- Healthy lemon blueberry muffins
- Healthy lemon blueberry bread
- Healthy blueberry banana muffins
- Healthy blueberry breakfast cake
- Healthy blueberry pancakes
- Blueberry Greek yogurt scones
- Blueberry fritters
Healthy Blueberry Muffins
Equipment
Video
Ingredients
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup applesauce, unsweetened
- 1/2 cup maple syrup or honey
- 1/3 cup avocado oil or coconut oil, melted
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 1/3 cups spelt flour or whole wheat flour, plus 1 tablespoon for dusting
- 1 1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F and line muffin tin with parchment paper muffin liners or use silicone muffin pan (I used both and didn't spray anything).
- In a large mixing bowl, add eggs, applesauce, maple syrup, oil, vanilla, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk well to combine, making sure baking powder and soda have dissolved. Add flour and stir gently to mix. Do not over mix.
- In a small bowl, toss blueberries with 1 tablespoon flour, add to the batter and give a few stirs.
- Using large ice cream scoop, fill 12 openings of a muffin pan with batter. Bake for 10 minutes, reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees F, and bake for another 10 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and let muffins cool for at least 30 minutes before transferring onto a cooling rack to cool more or enjoy.
Notes
- Store: Store in an airtight container in a cool dry place for up to 3 – 4 days.
- Freeze: Bake and cool muffins completely. Arrange in a single layer in a resealable plastic bag or any container with a lid. Freeze for up to 3 months.
- Do not overmix batter: Stir a few times, let batter sit and stir again. A few dry flour patches are fine.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
What would be the timing for mini muffins vs regular size?
Bake for 11-13 minutes and do a toothpick test.
Delicious recipe! I used olive oil instead of avocado or coconut. I used half white flour and half whole wheat flour.
So glad you loved it! Olive oil and the half white, half whole wheat combo sound perfect. Thanks for sharing your tweaks!
I’d like to know what I cousins use instead of applesauce?
You could use yogurt but muffins will be less sweet. Or mashed banana.
I used yoghurt instead of applesauce. YUMMY!!!!
Perfection, enjoy!
Can you use butter instead of oil? I also don’t use honey or syrup in recipes and was wondering what an alternative would be?
You can use melted butter. Instead of honey or maple syrup you need to use any other liquid sweetener. I don’t think dry sweetener will work as it will throw off the consistency of batter.
Great recipe! Classic blueberry muffin but not overly sweet. Just made a few changes based on preference. Swapped one flax egg, used half apple sauce and half yogurt, and used half ap flour. This gave me 17 regular sized muffins. I baked them in metal tins with silicone liners, in which case 17 minutes was good for bake time.
Perfect, glad you made it your own and it worked!
Hi! These taste delicious! I added nuts to them, and tried an apple pecan, and banana walnut version too. They took much longer to cook through, and were kinda mushy inside and dried out on the outside. Any idea what I did wrong and how to fix it?
Hi Patty. This muffin batter is meant to be used with blueberries. The problems you have encountered are because you added more fruit and thus moisture. I have lots of healthy muffins recipes and I recommend to pick healthy banana muffins and add walnuts or healthy apple muffins and add pecans.:)