Healthy Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Delicious and fluffy, Healthy Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins are the perfect tasty whole-grain breakfast. Made with 100% whole wheat, they’re super fluffy and packed with amazing banana flavor and a kiss of chocolate chips.

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Pair the natural sweetness of bananas, with healthy and filling whole wheat flour, add a few chocolate chips, and BOOM, breakfast is served!

You’re going to love these healthy banana chocolate chip muffins for a fast make-ahead breakfast. Park the extras in the freezer and sit back and watch while your family gets their own nourishing breakfast in the morning. BOOM.

And if you’re a fan of whole wheat baked goods, check out my Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins and Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins.

Healthy Banana Muffin Chocolate Chip Muffins Ingredients

• Bananas (doy)! The riper the better because they’re going to add so much natural sweetness.
• Eggs – I have not tested this with egg replacement products.
• Liquids – milk, a little melted butter, vanilla extract, and plain Greek yogurt
• Whole wheat pastry flour & vital wheat gluten (the secret ingredient for perfect whole wheat products!). Related: Grinding your own wheat
• Baking soda, baking powder, and a little sea salt.
• Sugar – I used organic cane sugar, but feel free to sub in coconut sugar if you’d like!
• Chocolate chips – just enough to make these extra. But I’ll be honest with you…I tend to add in some more now and then. It doesn’t impact the bake time in any way. We’ve also used mini chocolate chips with great results.

For the milk, I love using buttermilk because it gives the muffins great texture. If you do use buttermilk, save the extras for future batches. Learn more about it in this post on freezing buttermilk.

Helpful Supply List:

• These muffin liners. They’re fully compostable, and nothing sticks to them. Seriously, they rule and are super reasonably priced. These muffins don’t have any oil in them, and just a little bit of butter so you may experience some “stickage” with normal muffin liners.
• Stand mixer. Not mandatory but it sure makes things easy to mix up!
• Muffin tin – nothing fancy here, just a kitchen workhorse that is super affordable and long-lasting.
• A muffin scoop, which honestly sounds like the most inadvertently dirty thing ever. I use mine for muffins (duh), but also for making perfectly shaped fluffy whole wheat pancakes.
• Vital wheat gluten is the whole wheat baker’s best friend. It produces soft and bouncy whole wheat baked goods. You use 1 tbsp per 1 cup of whole wheat flour. It’s made from unicorn tears, so expect big things.
• Baking cooling rack. I love that these stack for easy storage in my small and crowded 1970’s kitchen.

Pro Tips/Recipe Notes:

• Allow whole wheat mixes to rest a bit after making them. By allowing the mix to rest for 5-10 minutes after creating it, you let the glutens do their sciencey thing and produce air bubbles. Those bubbles are the difference between a fluffy muffin and a dense piece of hardtack.
• The natural sweetness of the bananas means very little added sugar is needed to make these delicious. You could leave it out entirely if you’d like, but after so many variations of this recipe, I found a scant 1/4 cup of organic sugar was a perfect balance.
• Feel free to add 1/3 cup of chopped walnuts with the chocolate chips.
• Store at room temperature in an air-tight container for up to two days. The natural sugars in the bananas will cause these muffins to get funky after 48 hours unless they’re in the fridge or freezer. We freeze extras in these reusable silicone bags. A quick 20-second zap in the microwave or an hour sitting on the counter will thaw them out, and allow them to be enjoyed morning after morning.

MORE AWESOME HEALTHY BREAKFAST Ideas

• Fluffy Whole Wheat Waffles
• Honey Wheat Sandwich Bread
• Easy Instant Pot Yogurt
• Easy Make-Ahead Scrambled Eggs
• Fluffy Whole Wheat Apple Pie Pancakes
• Peanut Butter Brownie Overnight Oats
• How to Bake Bacon
• Check out all my Make-Ahead Breakfast recipes

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to trademark the name “muffin scoop” as a band name.

Print Recipe

5 from 6 votes

Healthy Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Prep Time15 mins

Cook Time15 mins

Total Time30 mins

Delicious and fluffy Whole Wheat Banana Muffins are the perfect and balanced breakfast. Low-added sugar, a splash of chocolate chips and hearty whole wheat makes these muffins both filling and super tasty.

Servings: 18

Course: Breakfast

Cuisine: American

Keyword: freezer muffins, whole wheat muffins

Calories: 126kcal

Author: Sarah Cook - Sustainable Cooks

Ingredients

• 2 cups very ripe bananas {~3 medium-sized bananas}2 cups very ripe bananas {~3 medium-sized bananas}
• 2 eggs {room temperature}2 eggs {room temperature}
• 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp butter {melted}3 tbsp butter {melted}
• 1/4 cup milk {room temperature}1/4 cup milk {room temperature}
• 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 2 tbsp vital wheat gluten2 tbsp vital wheat gluten
• 1/4 cup sugar1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp baking powder1 tbsp baking powder
• 2 tsp baking soda2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp sea salt1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips optional1/4 cup chocolate chips optional

US Customary - Metric

Equipment

• Stand mixer

Instructions

• In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix the bananas until mostly smooth.
• Add the eggs, Greek yogurt, butter, vanilla, and milk, and mix to combine.
• In a separate bowl, thoroughly mix the dry ingredients, excluding chocolate chips. 
• With the mixer on low/stir, add the dry ingredients, and mix until barely combined. There may be a bit of flour mixture left unincorporated; that's ok.
• Remove the bowl from the mixer, and fold in the chocolate chips with a spatula, gently making sure all the dry ingredients are fully incorporated.
• Set the bowl aside and let it rest for 5-10 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  
• Place cupcake liners in a muffin pan, or grease the muffin pan. Fill each section of the muffin pan three-quarters full with the batter.
• Bake for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, and then remove and place on a cooling rack.

Notes

To store the muffins, allow to fully cool and transfer to an air-tight container. Whole wheat goodies tend to dry out a bit faster than their white flour cousins. They'll be just fine for about two/three days on the counter. Any longer than that, and I would freeze them.

 

Allow whole wheat mixes to rest a bit after making them. Do you remember being a kid and taking the biggest bubble bath ever? When you'd use your hand to scoop the bubbles, the suds would make a very distinct crackling sound, right? That is what your batter should sound like when you scoop into it. By allowing the mix to rest for 10 minutes after creating it, you let the glutens do their sciencey thing and produce air bubbles. Those bubbles are the difference between a fluffy muffin (gross) and a dense piece of hardtack.

 

The natural sweetness of the bananas means very little sugar is needed to make these delicious. You could do without, but after so many variations of this recipe, I found a scant 1/4 cup of organic sugar was a perfect balance.

 

If you don't have buttermilk, simply mix a splash of white vinegar into regular milk, stir and let sit for a few minutes. I use a ratio of 1 tsp vinegar to 1 cup of milk. This recipe would call for 1/4 tsp of vinegar to 1/4 cup of regular milk.

 

Nutrition Facts

Healthy Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Amount Per Serving (1 muffin)

Calories 126 Calories from Fat 36

% Daily Value*

Fat 4g6%

Saturated Fat 2g13%

Cholesterol 24mg8%

Sodium 152mg7%

Potassium 229mg7%

Carbohydrates 21g7%

Fiber 2g8%

Sugar 8g9%

Protein 4g8%

Vitamin A 113IU2%

Vitamin C 2mg2%

Calcium 52mg5%

Iron 1mg6%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

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This recipe was originally published in May 2017. It has been retested and updated with reader feedback. New photos have been added and the recipe has been made printable. For reference, this is one of the photos from the original post:

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Muffin Tin

Kitchen Aid Mixer

Baking Cooling Rack

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