These Chocolate Banana Muffins are one of our all-time favorite baked goods. And while they taste like a treat, they are chock full of nutrition and whole grains—even spinach if you decide to add it! They’re a perfect breakfast or snack option for the whole family.
Chocolate Banana Muffins
These moist little muffins have a base of oats, bananas, eggs, and either cocoa or cacao powder. They are gluten-free if you use certified gluten-free oats and they’re nut-free. But best of all, the baked muffins are super moist, which makes them easy for toddlers to eat.
TIP: We like these muffins warm out of the oven for breakfast or chilled for a snack or lunch. Heck, you could even smear on a little honey-sweetened cream cheese and call them cupcakes!
Healthy Oatmeal Muffins
I like adding rolled oats to muffin recipes like this one because they almost dissolve right into the batter when they bake. But, even though they are texturally not that obvious, they add fiber and B vitamins.
And help to make the muffins a little bit more filling—which can help keep those little bodies from running on empty so quickly!
Ingredients You Need
To make this recipe you’ll need:
- very ripe bananas (the more black spots the better)
- eggs
- melted and slightly cooled butter OR almond butter
- honey or maple syrup
- pure vanilla extract
- oats
- whole wheat flour
- cocoa powder
- baking powder
- baking soda
- salt
- chocolate chips, optional
TIP: You can add a handful of baby spinach when blending the wet ingredients to add a veggie into the mix if you use a blender!
Step-by-Step Instructions
Here’s a look at the process of making these healthy mini muffins. Scroll down to get the full recipe.
- Preheat oven and grease a mini muffin tin well. Mash the banana smooth.
- Add the wet ingredients to a bowl.
- Add the dry ingredients to a bowl.
- Stir each bowl together.
- Add the wet to the dry to combine the batter.
- Divide among a muffin tin and bake!
- Blend the wet ingredients well in a blender.
- Stir in the rest of the ingredients and divide batter among a greased mini muffin tin.
- Bake and cool on a wire rack. Serve at room temperature, slightly warm, or chilled.
TIP: You can blend the wet ingredients, including the banana, in a blender and then stir in the dry ingredients if you prefer. This is the way I prefer to do it if I’m adding spinach.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can store these at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 24 hours or in the fridge for up to 5 days. Heat briefly to serve from warm to make them nice and moist!
To make these gluten-free, use cup-for-cup gluten free flour blend and certified gluten-free rolled oats.
To add spinach, you can blend the bananas, baby spinach, and the rest of the wet ingredients in a blender. Then stir in the dry ingredients and proceed with the recipe.
Healthy Mini Muffins for Toddlers
However you decide to enjoy them with your toddlers, we think you’ll like them lots. And for what it’s worth, my 7 year old LOVES these muffins. Which was surprising to me since they are less sweet than some other muffins she likes, but I’ll take it.
(Need a banana muffin without eggs? This allergy-friendly Vegan Banana Mini Muffin recipe or my Sugar-Free Banana Muffins are great options.)
Tips to Make the Best Chocolate Banana Muffins
- Mini muffin tins sometimes have a tendency to stick, so be sure to grease them well.
- I like this mini muffin tin from Wilton.
- Very ripe, with black spots, bananas have the most natural sweetness and will make these muffins taste best.
- Stir in 1/4-⅓ cup mini chocolate chips for added deliciousness!
- Top with nut butter, cream cheese, or a drizzle of honey if you’d like.
- Add a big handful of baby spinach to the blender and blend well with the rest of the wet ingredients to add some veggies to these muffins.
I’d love to hear your feedback if you try this recipe, so comment below to share!
Favorite Chocolate Banana Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups sliced very-ripe-with-black-spots bananas (from about 3 medium bananas)
- 3 eggs
- 1/4 cup melted and slightly cooled butter OR almond butter
- 1/4 cup honey or maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups lightly packed baby spinach (optional)
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
- 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup chocolate chips (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease a mini muffin tin.
- Mash the banana well.
- Stir together the wet ingredients, including the mashed banana
- Stir together the dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
- (Or, to do this step with a blender, place the bananas, eggs, butter, honey, and vanilla into a blender. Add the spinach if you plan to use it. Blend well.)
- Stir the oats, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and chocolate chips, if using, to the wet ingredients
- Fill prepared muffin tin about to the edge of each cup.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out cleanly. Use a paring knife to remove from the pan and cool on a wire rack.
- Serve at room temperature, slightly warm, or chilled.
Notes
- Store in the fridge for up to 5 days in an airtight container or in a zip top freezer bag for up to 3 months.
- To make these as full size muffins: Use about ¼ cup batter per muffin cup and bake for about 18-20 minutes.
- Gluten-free: Use certified gluten-free rolled oats and cup for cup gluten free flour blend in place of the whole wheat.
- Add a handful of baby spinach to the blender in Step 5 to add a veggie.
- Some mini muffin tins sometimes have a tendency to stick, so be sure to grease them well. (I like this mini muffin tin from Wilton.)
- Very ripe, with black spots, bananas have the most natural sweetness and will make these muffins taste best.
- Stir in 1/4-⅓ cup mini chocolate chips for added deliciousness!
- Top with nut butter, cream cheese, or a drizzle of honey if you'd like.
Great recipe! Mine do take about 30 min in the oven, though. I swap out 2/3 bananas for a cup of pureed sweet potato and make them every weekend with my toddler. We’ve actually had to take a break from them though because the obsession level he has with them is SO HIGH. He wakes up demanding them, comes through the door after daycare asking for them, yells for them in his sleep, and prefers them to all other foods, insisting he have one instead of dinner, breakfast, or lunch. They’re pretty healthy, so the insanity has been so far tolerable, but the muffin hysteria has reached a peek lately so we have take a break for a bit! IOW, they’re a huge success, but almost too much so!
Do I have to put oats in?? I put whole rolled oats and did not like its texture in the muffins.. or was I supposed to grind them ?
You could use oat flour instead if you prefer.
Are you sure the baking time 10-12 minutes is correct? The muffins definitely needed more time.
That’s what I’ve done for mini muffins with this recipe, but there could be some variation with any one oven.
Amy is using a mini muffin tin in this recipe which calls for less time. It needs about 20 min or more for regular muffin tin.
Soooo good! Thank you fir the recipe!
For *
My almost two year old loves these muffins!!! He’s been very picky lately so that’s not an easy thing to accomplish! I love them too! Thanks for another great recipe 🙂
These were a big hit with both parents and the 2yo! Relatively few crumbs = easy cleanup, and the texture was lovely.
Additional recommendations to streamline/speed up the process: silicone mini muffin pan and 1TB cookie scoop.
Your blog is quickly becoming a favorite reference in our household! Thank you!
Made yesterday for my picky 3 years old and He loved it! I will make again for sure!
Hello. Can I NOT grind the oats and use whole ones instead?
I think so!
Can I use frozen spinach? Would I do anything differently with it if I do? Thanks!
Yes, I would thaw it, squeeze it very dry and use about 1/4 cup at most since it will be much more concentrated.
These were a hit with my 18 month old (and my husband)! I used maple syrup and added both the spinach and chocolate chips. I’ll definitely be making again — thanks for a great recipe!
Can we use vanilla essence instead of vanilla extract for this recipe?
I haven’t tried that so I can’t say for sure.
Hey we don’t need to grind the oats for this recipe?
No you don’t have to
Vanilla extract is designed for liquids – like smoothies, but can also be used in baking. It just has less alcohol.
Would it be the same if I switched it to oat flour instead of wheat
I haven’t tried it that say so I can’t say for sure, but let me know if you do!
Can I replace the bananas with something else if I don’t have any on hand? I’d like to make them with bananas as well but in cases when I don’t have any, I’d like to see what I could sub them with.
I haven’t tried these any other way, but typically applesauce or mashed roasted sweet potato work well in place of bananas in baked goods.
These are delicious! A massive hit with my 2 year old, me and my husband!
Will be trying some of the other recipes soon!
I’m so glad to hear that!
These are nice and fudgey. I made them vegan by substituting applesauce for eggs and peanut butter for butter. I also blended the oats with the liquids so they wont get hard when baking. I also leave them in the tray for some time to cool so they get a nice shape. Healthy and easy muffin recipe.
This is my second time baking these: Went with cacao and raw almond butter, added some dark choc chips- yum! They are very dense and fudgy but mine didn’t come out dry . My 2 year old loved them.
This time I took an idea from another muffin recipe and soaked my oats in milk first— it makes the tops rise and the muffin less dense. I had become used to my healthy muffins not rising much, but woah, this really makes a difference! I adjusted the recipe and used two bananas instead of 3, and added chia and hemp seeds too.
Thanks for posting!
Unfortunately, these came out awful for me. They were super dry and I ended up throwing them out. I’ve had success with a lot of the muffin recipes on this website, but not this one. Flavor was great but consistency was not. I may try again with maple syrup instead of honey and maybe less baking time?
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll check the baking time too.