Start your day off right with Healthy Oatmeal Muffins! Gluten free, refined sugar free, and dairy free these protein packed healthy muffins are moist, delicious and tastes just like a baked bowl of oats!
Looking for more baked oatmeal goodies? Try my baked oatmeal bars, banana oatmeal bars, and healthy banana oatmeal cookies.
Table of contents
These healthy oatmeal muffins are a convenient baked, pre-portioned way of eating your morning oatmeal!
They’re gluten free, dairy free, sweetened with maple syrup, and laced with the warm flavor of cinnamon. Try healthy carrot cake baked oatmeal, next!
Made with both rolled oats and oat flour, these muffins are kept nice and moist thanks to the addition of mashed bananas. These are the perfect high fiber, protein-packed, portable way to start your day!
Looking for more ways to use bananas in healthy muffins? Try healthy banana zucchini muffins or chocolate chip banana muffins. Bananas are a great natural sweetener to replace sugar in healthier baked goods.
What Makes These Baked Oatmeal Cups Healthy?
- Oats: Provide a ton of fiber as a gluten free whole grain and have antioxidants as well as vitamins and minerals. Oats are also said to help regulate blood sugar, support a healthy gut with good bacteria, and improve digestion.
- Bananas: They’re great for binding, texture, and taste. But they also deliver a ton of potassium among other benefits in these healthy oatmeal muffins.
- Your choice of milk: Just like a regular bowl of oatmeal, choose what milk is right for you. Make it dairy free or not!
- Hearty and satisfying: When something this filling and satiating is around to grab-n-go, you’ll find yourself snacking less and feeling less hungry overall.
- Looking for something with more protein? Check out my banana oat protein muffins and high protein muffins.
Love bananas like I do? Check out these 10 healthy banana snacks, easy recipes for banana lovers!
Ingredients for Healthy Oatmeal Muffins
- Bananas: Mashed bananas, the riper they are the sweeter they are. Overripe bananas are perfect for healthy banana pancakes.
- Milk: Keeping it dairy free, I like to use almond milk. You can use whichever milk you prefer!
- Sweetener: Maple syrup and honey have different flavors but both add a delicious sweetness, pair well with bananas and cinnamon, and deliver nutritional benefits.
- Oil: Any oil will work as an added fat to maintain moisture and texture.
- Rolled oats: I like old-fashioned rolled oats for texture, especially when I keep some for sprinkling on top. It really does remind me of my morning bowl of oats! I go over oat types and their texture in healthy overnight oats.
- Oat flour: The flour that creates the structure of these healthy oatmeal muffins. It’s mild in flavor and isn’t too heavy.
- Baking staples: Vanilla extract, baking powder, baking soda, salt.
What bananas to use? Any soft ripe bananas will do! Avoid under ripe green skin ones and use ones that range in color from yellow to brown and spotty.
How to Make Oat Flour
Are you wondering what is oat flour? It is just ground oats and super easy to make at home!
Place your oats in a food processor or high-power blender and pulse away. Then sift it through a fine mesh strainer to get rid of larger pieces of oats. You should end up with fine oat powder.
How to Make Healthy Oatmeal Muffins
- Prep: Preheat the oven to 375F degrees and line your muffin tin with parchment paper liners. Spray with cooking spray.
- Mash bananas: In a large mixing bowl, mash bananas with a fork or masher. You’ll find the riper and softer they are the easier they mash to a smoother consistency.
- Add all ingredients except oats and flour: To the same bowl, add the milk, maple syrup, oil, vanilla, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk everything to combine well.
- Hydrate the oats: To the muffin batter, add in the oats and the oat flour. Stir to mix well and allow the batter to sit for 10 minutes.
Why do we need the batter to rest? Hydrating the oats softens them up making them easier to chew and digest. We also want to give the batter time to activate its leavening agents to help with texture since we’re not using a traditional all-purpose or whole wheat flour.
- Scoop and bake: Fill the muffin pan with equal amounts of batter in each prepared cup and sprinkle extra oats on top if you wish. Bake on the middle rack for 17 minutes.
- Cool: Remove healthy oatmeal muffins from the oven and let them cool for 5 minutes before serving.
Oatmeal Cup Flavor Variations
- Applesauce: Swap the bananas for 1 cup applesauce and 2 Tbsp of maple syrup or honey.
- Warming spices: Swap the cinnamon for pumpkin pie spice, apple pie spice, nutmeg, gingerbread, or even a chai spice mix.
- Healthy add-ins: Keep these healthy oatmeal muffins tasting like your favorite bowl of oatmeal and add some hemp hearts, chia seeds, or flaked coconut on top!
- Extra flavor: Chocolate chips or blueberries would be great in these.
- Citrus zest: Try lemon zest with poppy seeds for a lemon poppyseed version or orange zest with cranberries (like I do in cranberry orange muffins)!
- Decadent: Add in cacao powder and cacao nibs or dark chocolate chips. Next, make healthy oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips for dessert!
- Add some nuts or dried fruit: Chopped walnuts, pecans, slivered almonds, raisins, cranberries, dried dates, gogi berries, or mangoes.
- Nut butter: A small amount of peanut butter, almond butter, cashew butter would taste great and add additional protein!
Tips for Best Results
- Don’t skip the spray. Muffins that don’t have a lot of fat tend to stick to the liners more easily and spraying with non-stick cooking spray is a must!
- Making homemade oat flour: Is both cost-effective and so easy. Buy oats in bulk and make flour anytime you need it.
- Any yellow bananas will do: There’s no need to wait for your bananas to get overly ripe. You can use dark yellow bananas, as long as you can mash ’em!
FAQs
For a different texture, you could try Instant Oats. Quick oats are softer and ready to absorb liquids quicker than old-fashioned oats, so you’ll find they have a different texture.
Try these healthy oatmeal muffins with 1 cup whole wheat flour as a substitute for the oat flour. Different flours have different properties so this may upset the ratio of wet to dry ingredients.
I haven’t made these with anything else but the oat flour because when I do decide to make muffins with whole wheat flour, I usually make healthy banana oatmeal muffins or any of my other whole grain muffins!
They may remind you of baked oatmeal if you’ve ever made that. Almost cake-like, a bit denser and heartier than a regular muffin. They’re moist but not as light and fluffy.
Though I haven’t tested this, I don’t see why they couldn’t easily be made into bars too!
Spread the batter into a 9-inch pan and bake for about 25-30 minutes until golden brown all over. Allow them a chance to firm up in the fridge. Again, this hasn’t been tested yet, but let me know if you decide to try it out. You might want to try healthy apple oatmeal bars instead!
How to Serve Oatmeal Breakfast Muffins?
I love baking muffins as a way to meal prep not only breakfasts but for healthy snacks, too. Then, when they’re done, I grab a large bowl or basket and place them on the counter for everyone to grab throughout the day!
- For big breakfasts or brunch, I like to make sure I have a few things to choose from. Egg muffins and sweet potato egg breakfast casserole are a couple of household favorites.
- For quick easy breakfasts serve with a bowl of strawberry yogurt or plain yogurt.
- Top them with a pat of butter and drizzling of warm honey. You could also slather them with peanut butter, almond butter, or pumpkin seed butter.
How to Store Leftovers?
Store: Healthy oatmeal muffins are best kept in an airtight glass container in a cool dry place for up to 4 days. You could also keep them in the fridge for about 1 week.
Freeze: Make 2 batches and freeze an entire batch for later! They freeze well for up to 3 months so you’ll have plenty of time to enjoy them.
More Healthy Breakfasts to Try
- Healthy breakfast sandwich
- Instant Pot egg bites
- Broccoli cheese egg muffins
- Overnight oats
- Air fryer breakfast casserole
- Healthy apple muffins
- Oat flour banana muffins
Browse through all my healthy muffin recipes!
Healthy Oatmeal Muffins
Ingredients
- 2 large ripe bananas 1 cup mashed
- 3/4 cup any milk I used unsweetened almond milk
- 1/3 cup maple syrup or honey
- 2 tbsp any oil
- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup rolled oats more for topping
- 1 1/3 cups oat flour about 1 2/3 – 2 cups oats grinded
- Cooking spray I use Misto
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F, line 12 muffin tin with parchment paper liners and spray with cooking spray. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, add bananas and mash with a fork or a masher. Add milk, maple syrup, oil, vanilla extract, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt; whisk well to combine.
- Add oats and oat flour, stir to mix and let batter sit for 10 minutes for oats to hydrate.
- Using large ice cream scoop, fill 12 openings with batter and garnish with more oats, if desired. Bake on a middle rack for 17 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven, let muffins cool for 5 minutes and enjoy.
Notes
- Store: Store in a glass airtight container in a cool dry place for up to 3 – 4 days or in a fridge for up to a week.
- Freeze: Store in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
- Bananas can be yellow and not over ripen. Or you can use 1 cup applesauce + 2 tbsp maple syrup or honey instead of bananas.
- Make your own oat flour: Grind about 1 2/3 – 2 cups of oats in a food processor or high speed blender until it resembles oat flour texture and then measure out 1 1/3 cups.
- Quick (instant) oats: I am sure you can use instant oats, the texture of muffins will be slightly different.
Are you using a cupcake pan or a muffin pan for this recipe?
Regular sized muffin pan (with 12 muffin cups).
I made 1/2 the recipe and only got 4 muffins 3”x2”. That’s why I asked if you used a cupcake pan. Recipe was very good and will surely make again. I’m wondering if some protein powder could be used in it?
Oh, I am sure you could try them in a cupcake pan if you would like. Protein powder can be ‘thirsty’ but you could start with a small amount and see how it goes or try adding small amount of nut butter for added protein. Banana protein muffins could be another muffin to try, those are made with protein powder.
Can you add fresh berries to the batter?
Yes, sure!
I have made this more times than I can count.
The recipe is perfect as it is, but even if you tweak it a little bit, it works.
I’ve used spelt flakes, barley flakes, rye flakes, or a combination instead of the oats. I’ve used up oat and wheat bran for extra fiber. I’ve replaced the bananas (although this version is my favorite) with pumpkin puree, beets puree, carrots, and it has worked beautifully every time. Soy milk work, so does almond and even whey.
These have become my absolute favorite breakfast muffins.
Thanks for another great recipe, Olena.
Hi Susana! It means so much to me that you truly enjoy this muffin recipe. Thanks for sharing all your tips and variations too!
TBH i was skeptical when i made the batter cos it looked like overnight oats XP But they turned out really well! & i love how simple it is! Great recipe 😀
LOVE THIS. My slight differences: 3 bananas (instead of 2 to make super moist muffins), semi-sweet chocolate chips, and approximately 1/2 teaspoon of coconut manna (coconut butter) on top of each muffin when they are warm out of the oven as a sort of “icing”. I also ensure I take the muffins out of the oven when they are golden brown, no risk of uncooked eggs as there are no eggs in this recipe. I love how easy this recipe is, and the best part- NO FLOUR!!! That is the #1 thing I search for in snacks, as I feel I don’t really need flour in my life. I would rather get my carbs from sweet potatoes, lentils, chick peas, etc. I realize oats have carbs but I just prefer eating less (i.e., no flour recipes) as I feel much better when I eat less carbs. Overall- AWESOME recipe. ifoodreal is the #1 website I search recipes on as I love your approach to recipes and health. Keep the amazing recipes coming 🙂
Aw. Thank you and you are welcome, Chelsey!
Very easy to make and tasty too.
I made a few changes:
Cinnamon – more than 1/2 tsp ( closer to 3/4 tsp).
Used olive oil in place of coconut oil.
Added 1 dark square of Trader Joe’s 70% chocolate
Chopped finely with large handful of walnut halves
Sounds like you made the best oatmeal muffins in the world!
These muffins were SO good.
I make these instead of oatmeal for breakfast every other week.
Great recipe. My 2 year old son who usually doesn’t eat oats or banana liked this very much. Thanks.
That is the best review you can get for the recipe.:)
Wow! I’m making these this week. I have one of those apple trees too! I never thought to make apple sauce. Sheesh. I will now!
Yeah, organic apples you can’t eat. What a waste! Applesauce is delish though! Glad I posted it.:)