Healthy Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins (gluten-free)

These Healthy Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins are packed with nutritious ingredients like applesauce, Greek yogurt and of course - bananas and chocolate chips. Healthier than most other muffin recipes out there, these muffins bring a moist, yummy texture with banana in every bite. They're oil free and have no added sugar but this is still one of the BEST banana chocolate chip muffin recipes around. 

This Healthy Banana Chocolate Chip Muffin recipe is on repeat in my house these days. 

Not only are these gluten-free muffins super yummy they also super easy to make.

These Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins are a perfect snack to have mid-afternoon or you could have a couple with some hard boiled eggs for a quick breakfast.

This recipe has been around for a long time in my house - ever since my younger son was about 2 years old (see pic below of his little hand - which is anything but little now 😭).

By the way, are looking for more gluten-free and healthy muffin recipes?

Check out all of my tested and true recipes for gluten-free muffins and breads here.

Some of the most popular recipe are these Healthy Cranberry Oatmeal Muffins, Almond Flour Banana Muffins with Oats (Healthy Recipe) and this recipe for Healthy Chocolate Muffins with Greek Yogurt (Gluten Free).

Jump to:

• 📝Ingredients for these muffins
• 🥣Instructions for healthy banana chocolate chip muffins
• 🥣Equipment
• ❓What makes these muffins healthy banana muffins?
• 💃Variations
• 🥶Freezing and Storage
• 2️⃣Two Top Tips
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

📝Ingredients for these muffins

• Gluten free flour - lately I'm using Bob's Red Mill 1:1 Gluten-Free Baking Flour
• Baking soda
• Baking powder
• Egg
• Unsweetened applesauce - these healthy muffins have no added sugar so the unsweetened applesauce brings some natural sweetness
• Greek yogurt - a little tang and a little protein and calcium from the yogurt
• Mashed bananas - you’ll need about 1 cup of mashed bananas. I like using the over-ripe ones on my kitchen counter
• Vanilla 
• Chocolate chips

🥣Instructions for healthy banana chocolate chip muffins

Making these healthy banana muffins doesn’t get much easier.

Here’s the high level steps:

1. Pre-heat the oven and prep your muffin tins by lining them with silicone muffin cup liners.

2. In a large bowl, blend the flour, baking soda and baking powder together with a whisk.

3. In another medium mixing bowl, add the wet ingredients- egg, applesauce, Greek yogurt, mashed bananas, and vanilla. Whisk together by hand till combined.

4. Add your wet ingredients to your bowl of flour and baking soda and baking  powder. Still everything together and then add the chocolate chips for one final stir.

5.  Put about 2 tablespoon of muffin batter into each muffin cup and bake in the oven for about 18 minutes.

🥣Equipment

To make these muffins, you'll need pretty typical muffin-making equipment: a couple mixing bowls, a whisk, a spoon or spatula, measuring cups and spoons and a muffin tin. Also, I recommend using silicone muffin liners. They're amazing and prevent the baked muffins from sticking.

❓What makes these muffins healthy banana muffins?

Muffins can be a great way to pack some nutrition into a small package.

A lot of the time though, muffins will more likely than not, pack in a lot of fat, calories and empty sugars (=boo.)

But not here!

These Healthy Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins, bring some protein, fibre and healthy carbs.

A few healthier ingredient swaps boost the nutrition:

• 2% Greek Yogurt - brings a little protein and calcium
• Applesauce instead of oil - being oil free muffins is a bonus here
• Plus, they have no added sugar - but they’re still delicious, promise!

And you get all that without the disappointing load of calories and extra sugar that comes with store-bought ones.

💃Variations

If you like a little crunch in your muffins, you could add some chopped walnuts into the muffin batter before baking.

And if you’re not into chocolate (by the way, WHO ARE YOU), blueberries could work instead of the chocolate chips.

🥶Freezing and Storage

After baking let the muffins cool down before storing (obvi, eat some while they’re warm though, k?)

Once cooled, store the banana muffins in an air-tight container for up to 4 days on the counter.

These muffins freeze beautifully. Place in an airtight container and freeze for up to 3 months.

To thaw, take them out of the freezer the night before you want to eat them or warm them gently in the microwave.

2️⃣Two Top Tips

First off, when it comes to measuring out right amount of flour in your muffin recipes - or really any recipe that calls for flour - this tip I learned a while ago is gold.

At first, it seems pretty straightforward: you need a cup of flour so you take your dry measuring cup, scoop into the bag of flour, level it off and away you go.

Well, apparently not so.

I learned that when you do that, it can compress the flour in the measuring cup, giving you more flour than you need for the recipe and potentially making your muffin less than amazing.

Who knew🤷‍♀️

So what to do?

Instead of scooping the flour with the measuring cup, take a spoon (or smaller measuring cup) and spoon the flour into the measuring cup until you have what you need.

Then, use the back of a knife (or other straight edge) and level off the measuring cup.

It's a mini-extra step but lemme tell you, it has helped me get better results with muffins and other baked goods in general.

(Okay so arguably the most accurate way is to weigh your measurements out but I haven’t gotten there yet.)

The second tip is about the muffin cup liners: beware the paper ones.

I’ve made these muffins up-teen times and they always stick to paper liners. I do not recommend using paper muffin cup liners.

Instead, get yourself some silicone muffin cups liner. They’re great because they work so well - muffins just slide right out of them - plus, they’re reusable.

Hope you love these muffins!

If you make them and love them, please rate them and comment below.

I really do love hearing from you.

~April

PS. Looking for some more healthy recipes?

Check these out:

• Healthy Banana Bread with White Beans.
• Healthy Gluten-Free Granola
• Healthy Cranberry Oatmeal Muffins
• Puffed Quinoa Bars with Almond Butter
• Healthy 5 Ingredient Berry Frozen Yogurt

This recipe was originally posted on May 24th, 2020. Post and recipe was updated and blog post was re-posted on August 14th, 2022.

📖 Recipe