These Healthy Apple Muffins are soft, fluffy and easy to make with wholesome paleo ingredients without any refined sugars or dairy. They are filled with juicy bursts of apple with a cinnamon sugar crumble topping for a delicious fall breakfast or snack for on the go!
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Healthy Apple Cinnamon Muffin Recipe
It’s apple season and these Healthy Apple Muffins are one of our favorite muffin recipes to make for fall. They’re quick and easy to make and the perfect healthy breakfast or afternoon snack. The muffins bake up in just 20 minutes, and they’ll make your whole house smell like an apple orchard.
Made with wholesome ingredients with applesauce and mashed bananas to make them incredibly moist and tender. The sweet crumble topping is the perfect finishing touch, and they’re also topped with extra apple bits!
My family loves eating one of these warm muffins with a pat of creamy nut butter. We love all things fall and can never resist an apple muffin recipe once September and October roll around. These cinnamon apple muffins make an amazing snack, breakfast or healthy dessert for your family. Other healthy muffin recipes we also make regularly include these Healthy Pumpkin Muffins, Healthy Blueberry Muffins and our Chocolate Muffins.
Why we love this healthy muffin recipe
- We love this recipe because the muffins are super decadent, but they’re also easy to make. And best of all – they’re healthy and paleo-friendly!
- They’re also completely dairy-free, grain-free , gluten-free and they don’t contain any refined sugar.
- Plus the muffins come together in just ONE bowl without a mixer
- Freezer-friendly and you can double the recipe making them great for meal prep for packing into school or work lunchboxes
- Easy to customize and full of cozy autumn flavors
- Perfect for breakfast, an afternoon treat or dessert
Muffin Ingredients
Many whole wheat muffin recipes we saw are made with a combination of whole wheat flour, Greek yogurt and brown sugar. Since we wanted to keep these apple muffins healthy and paleo-friendly, you will need:
For the Paleo Apple Muffins
Wet Ingredients
- Bananas – be sure to use brown spotty bananas to make these almond flour apple muffins moist and delicious
- Unsweetened Applesauce
- Eggs: help to give the muffins structure and bind everything together. Be sure to bring your eggs to room temperature.
- Melted coconut oil: makes the gluten free apple muffins tender and moist and adds a light coconut flavor. You can also use any other neutral flavored oil, melted butter or ghee if you are not dairy-free.
- Creamy drippy unsalted almond butter – be sure not to use near the bottom of jar almond butter, otherwise, it changes the texture of the muffins. You can also sub with any nut or seed butter of your choice. Peanut butter is a great option if you are not paleo..
- Pure maple syrup – Adds natural sweetness and extra moisture. You can also sub with Lakanto Sugar-Free maple syrup or another liquid sweetener for sugar-free apple muffns
- Pure Vanilla extract – just a teaspoon but adds so much flavor
Dry Ingredients
- Almond Flour: Be sure to use superfine blanched almond flour and not almond meal. Almond flour is the main nut flour providing most of the bulk. Measure properly using the spoon and level method.
- Coconut flour: This gluten free flour provides structure to paleo breads and absorbs moisture so be sure to fluff it out before measuring. When combined with almond flour, it balances out the flavor of gluten free breads to mimic all purpose flour
- Baking Powder and Baking Soda: this combination of leavening powders helps the bread rise. Be sure to use gluten-free baking powders without corn starch if you want to keep this healthy quick bread recipe paleo
- ground cinnamon and sea salt – add flavor and balances out the sweetness
- Apple: You’ll need about one cup of diced apple or grated apples for these muffins.
For the Cinnamon Crumble Topping
- Almond Flour
- Softened Coconut Oil: Use refined coconut oil if preferred.
- Coconut Sugar
- Ground Cinnamon
- Fine Sea Salt
How to Make Healthy Apple Muffins
You can have these apple cinnamon muffins on the table in less than 30 minutes! They’re quick, easy and straightforward. Here’s how to make the ultimate fall muffins:
- Prepare for baking: Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease a muffin tin with coconut oil or avocado oil or line with parchment paper liners.
- Make the Crumb Topping: See below.
- Mash Bananas: Add the bananas to a large mixing bowl and use a fork to mash until smooth.
- Combine Wet Ingredients: Add the eggs and mix very well, then add coconut oil, almond butter, maple syrup and vanilla until well combined.
- Add the dry ingredients: Place a large mesh sieve on top of the bowl, and sift in the baking powder, baking soda, almond flour, coconut flour, cinnamon and salt. Stir until combined. Fold in 1/2 cup of the apples, reserving the rest for the topping.
- Fill muffin tins. Use a scoop or a large spoon to fill the muffin cups about 3/4 full or more.
- Add Toppings: Sprinkle the prepared crumb topping over each muffin and top with reserved apples.
- Bake: Bake your muffins for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out smooth. Allow them to cool for at least 20 minutes.
How to Make the Crumb Topping
- Combine Ingredients & Chill: Combine the crumb mixture ingredients in a bowl with a fork until combined and chill in the fridge while you prepare the muffin batter.
- Sprinkle Over Muffins: Don’t forget to remove your crumb topping from the fridge and sprinkle it over the muffins before you bake them.
How to Store Homemade Muffins
It’s best to store your muffins in an airtight container at room temperature. They’ll stay fresh this way for 2-3 days. If you want to store them for longer, keep them in the fridge for up to a week. You can store them at room temperature and then transfer them to the fridge after a couple of days.
Can You Freeze Apple Cinnamon Muffins?
You can definitely freeze these healthy muffins if you want to store them long-term. Keep them in an airtight container and enjoy them within 3 months. Be sure to let them thaw in the refrigerator overnight before eating them. You can bring them back to room temperature once they’re thawed, enjoy them cold or heat them up in the microwave.
Can this apple muffin recipe be made into bread?
Yes, to make healthy apple bread simply pour your batter into an 8×4 loaf pan. Or you can even divide the batter into mini loaf pans for mini bread loaves.
Variations
Wondering what to add to apple banana muffins to make them stand out?
- Pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds or flaxseeds – add an additional crunch and bumps up the protein.
- Swap out the banana and use applesauce instead and you’ve got yourself Healthy Apple Muffins with Applesauce
- Chocolate chips. We love adding dairy-free chocolate chips for scrumptious afternoon treat
- Add a dollop of dairy-free greek yogurt or a smear of nut butter for a delicious afternoon snack or after-dinner dessert
Are apple muffins healthy for you?
Some low calorie apple muffins recipes we saw use whole wheat pastry flour and other artificial sweeteners and flavors which we prefer not to include in our muffin recipes.
Our healthy blueberry muffins with almond flour are not just delicious, they are also grain-free, gluten-free and refined-sugar free.
What makes these apple muffins healthy?
- Unlike many low fat apple muffins we saw, this one is made with wholesome grain-free and refined sugar-free ingredients.
- Instead of all purpose white flour, we use grain free almond flour
- Made with coconut oil instead of butter
- Sweetened with unrefined sugar instead of brown sugar.
Recommended Tools You’ll Need For this Recipe:
More blueberry recipes you might like:
These Healthy Apple Muffins are soft, fluffy and easy to make with wholesome paleo ingredients without any refined sugars or dairy. They are filled with juicy bursts of apple with a crumbly cinnamon sugar topping for a delicious fall breakfast or snack for on the go!
- 2 medium overripe bananas , mashed
- 1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
- 2 large eggs , room temperature
- 2 tbsp melted coconut oil , use refined if you don’t like the coconut flavor
- 1/4 cup creamy almond butter or peanut butter, preferably new and not near the bottom of the jar
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp baking powder , use gluten-free as needed
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 cup superfine blanched almond flour
- 3 tbsp coconut flour
- 2/3 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp fine sea salt
- 1 cup diced apple divided
- 5 tbsp almond flour
- 2 tbsp softened coconut oil
- 3 tbsp coconut sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- Pinch fine sea salt
Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease a muffin tin with coconut oil or avocado oil or line with parchment paper liners.
Make the crumb topping: Combine crumb mixture ingredients in a bowl with a fork until combined and chill in the fridge while you prepare muffin batter.
Add the bananas to a large mixing bowl and use a fork to mash until smooth. Add the applesauce, eggs and mix very well, then add coconut oil, almond butter, maple syrup and vanilla until well combined.
Place a large mesh sieve on top of the bowl, and sift in the baking powder, baking soda, almond flour, coconut flour, cinnamon and salt. Stir until combined. Fold in 1/2 cup of the apples, reserving the rest for the topping.
Use a scoop or a large spoon to fill the muffin cups about 3/4 full or more. Sprinkle the prepared crumb topping over each muffin and top with reserved apples.
Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out smooth. Allow to cool for at least 20 minutes.
Enjoy with a pat of butter or creamy nut butter.
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