These healthy banana carrot muffins are packed with nourishing ingredients! These fluffy baked muffins make a great breakfast, and you don’t need a mixer to make them. If you have any ripe bananas in your kitchen, you need to go make these muffins!
I love having a stash of healthy muffins, it makes prepping breakfast every morning so much easier. These delicious banana carrot muffins are really similar to morning glory muffins, but made with bananas instead of apples. This is like carrot cake + banana bread but made into a healthy muffin.
Check out my other muffin recipes like my small batch banana muffins with oats or my banana blueberry oatmeal muffins!
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Why you’ll love these banana carrot muffins!
- Easy to Make – you don’t need a mixer to make these muffins and you just need 1 measuring jug and 1 bowl.
- Super Quick – these carrot banana muffins take just a few minutes to make before popping in the oven.
- Healthy Ingredients – these muffins don’t have white sugar or butter, instead they’re made with light brown sugar, maple syrup and coconut oil. They’re also filled with mashed bananas and grated carrots.
Ingredient Notes
Coconut Oil – this is what makes the muffins super moist! I used melted coconut oil instead of butter.
Flour – I am using all purpose flour here, though you could probably swap it out for regular whole wheat flour or white whole wheat flour but it might be slightly drier.
Milk – I’m using whole milk but you could swap it out for dairy free milk like almond milk or oat milk!
Carrots – I shredded my own carrots in a food processor, but you could also do this with a box grater. It tastes much better using freshly grated carrots, so don’t use the bagged ready shredded carrots!
Maple Syrup – I replaced white sugar with pure maple syrup, but you could use honey instead!
Warm Spices – these muffins have a combination of nutmeg and cinnamon, but use whatever spices you like like ground ginger or cardamom.
Bananas – be sure to use overripe bananas with lots of brown spots, as those will be much sweeter! I needed about 3 small bananas to make 1 cup of mashed bananas.
Eggs – I have only tested this with regular eggs, but let me know if you try using a flax egg!
Step by Step Instructions
You’ll need a large mixing bowl, a large measuring jug/bowl, a whisk and a muffin/cupcake pan. We don’t need muffin cups for the muffins!
Step 1: Mix dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, kosher salt, ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg.
Step 2: Mix wet ingredients. In a large glass measuring jug or another bowl, whisk the eggs with your mashed banana, light brown sugar, maple syrup, vanilla extract, coconut oil and milk. Once smooth, add your shredded carrots.
Step 3: fold everything together. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredient and fold everything together. Make sure there are no more streaks of flour!
Step 4: Bake! Using baking spray or a pastry brush and some vegetable oil, olive oil or coconut oil, grease each of the muffin cavities. We aren’t using paper liners here because these healthier muffins tend to stick to liners! Scoop the batter and pour up to the top of each cavity. Bake at 425 degrees for 5 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350 and bake for another 18-20 minutes.
Let the muffins cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then use a small rubber spatula to carefully release each muffin. Let them cool completely on a wire rack.
Recipe Tips & Tricks
- Measuring – I highly recommend using a weighing scale and measuring out your ingredients the metric way. It makes a huge difference to your baking and is the most accurate way to bake!
- Fluff and Sprinkle Flour – if you aren’t weighing your ingredients and are using a measuring cup, then use the fluff and sprinkle method to measure your flour. Go to this link here to find out how to do that. If you use too much flour then you won’t have fluffy banana carrot muffins and they’ll be too dry!
- Room Temperature Ingredients – make sure all of your ingredients are at room temperature before you start baking. Pull out those ingredients from the fridge an hour or two before you start the recipe.
- Grease Your Muffin Pan – make sure to properly grease your muffin pan before filling them with muffin batter, otherwise your muffins will stick! You can use muffin liners instead, but because these muffins don’t have a lot of fat in them they tend to stick to the liner.
- Mashing Bananas – mash your bananas with a fork or a potato masher.
Frequently Asked Questions
I think these muffins are on the healthier side! Yes, they do have wheat and some sugar in them, but they also have fruit and vegetables in them.
Keep them in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 4 days. You can also freeze the baked muffins! Once you’re ready to eat them, just let them defrost overnight in the fridge.
Yes you can! Add up to ½ cup of chopped nuts, dark chocolate chips or dried fruit like raisins to the batter just before pouring the batter into the muffin pan. You can also sprinkle over some whole oats to the top of the muffins just before baking, which you can see in some of the muffins in this recipe.
Try these breakfast recipes next!
Have you made this recipe? Please rate the recipe below! Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram @alpineella and Pinterest!
Recipe
Banana Carrot Muffins
Equipment
- 1 Muffin pan
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 eggs room temperature
- ⅓ cup coconut oil melted
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- ⅓ cup whole milk
- ½ cup light brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2 cups shredded carrots
- 1 cup banana mashed
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 425°F/220°C and set a rack in the middle of the oven. Set aside a 12-cup muffin tin.
- In a large bowl, whisk together your flour, baking soda, spices and salt.
- In a large measuring jug or another bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, light brown sugar, maple syrup, melted coconut oil, mashed bananas and vanilla extract. Fold in your shredded carrots.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, and use a rubber spatula to fold everything together, making sure there are no streaks of flour left.
- Use a baking spray or a bit of vegetable oil and a pastry brush to generously grease the muffin pan. We aren't using liners in this recipe, the muffins don't have a lot of fat in them so the muffins tend to stick to liners.
- Fill each muffin cavity to the top. If you wish, sprinkle over some whole rolled oats on top or nuts. Bake for 5 minutes, then without opening the oven, lower the temperature to 350°F/175°C and bake for an additional 18-20 minutes.
- Take the muffins out and let them cool for 5 minutes in their muffin pan. Use a small rubber spatula to carefully take out each muffin, let them cool completely on a wire rack.
Barbara
Can you use butter or margarine in lieu of coconut oil? And how much?
Ella
Hi there! I haven’t tested this with butter, you could probably use an equal amount of melted butter.
Will
Hmmmm… not sure what is meant by to weigh everything out in metric grams,
A cup is a cup.
Anyways, to make it even more healthier, can whole wheat flour be substituted?
Thanks!
Ella
Hi there, I recommend using a weighing scale and measuring out all of your ingredients in order to get the best bake. Because baking is a science, and cups are not always an accurate way of measuring, it’s really important to get all the ratios of the ingredients correct and have a delicious end result! Plus, using a scale means less dishes so that’s a win win for me! I haven’t tested this recipe with whole wheat flour so unfortunately I don’t know if it would work. Thanks!
Ashley
Hi there! Excited to try this recipe! Not sure if it is too late for this reply Will. But I have always taken recipes that call for all purpose white flour and done half white and half whole wheat and had always turned out fine. I know that I have ready several othere recipes/blogs that say to use a little less whole wheat if substituted for white flour although I’m not sure of the exact conversion method. Hope this can help.
P.s. A kitchen scale is one on my recent wish list. But my $350 food processor blew up last night making granola bars with dates. So that must come first hehe.