Coconut Flour Blueberry Muffins (gluten-free)

These muffins with coconut flour are perfect for a healthy breakfast or quick snack on-the-go. Made with simple ingredients like applesauce, maple syrup and of course, blueberries! This recipe has no oil and less sugar than most other coconut flour muffins. Delicious and nutritious!

Muffins like these healthy coconut flour ones are a great way to explore gluten free baking flour options.

When you first go gluten-free, it seems soooo freakin' hard to figure out what the heck you can eat.

Having easy and yummy muffin recipes in your back pocket can help you move from a gluten-filled life to going gluten-free for life!

If you love healthy and gluten-free snacks like blueberry muffins, check out this recipe for Healthy Gluten Free Apple Muffins with Cinnamon, this Delicious Gluten-Free Zucchini Bread (Healthy Recipe) or these Healthy Cranberry Oatmeal Muffins.

Jump to:

• 🥣Ingredients for coconut flour blueberry muffins
• 📝Instructions
• 🔄Substitutions
• 💪Is there such a thing as a healthy muffin?
• 🥥Is coconut flour good for baking?
• ⏰Top tip for how to tell if these muffins are done baking
• 🥡Storage
• ❓Why are blueberry muffins bad for you?
• 🥶Can you use frozen blueberries in these muffins?
• 📖 Recipe

🥣Ingredients for coconut flour blueberry muffins

• Coconut flour - if yours is lumpy at all, I'd recommend sifting it through a fine mesh strainer to get all the lumps and chunks out
• Gluten-free flour - I like Bob's Red Mill 1:1 Baking Flour as it already has xanthan gum in it, which is needed when you have gluten-free flour - the xanthan gum provides the structure and acts as a natural binding agent for the muffin
• Baking powder
• Baking soda
• Salt
• Maple syrup - honey would also work here
• Eggs
• Applesauce - go for the unsweetened variety. It'll still give some sweetness to the muffins without being over poweringly sweet. Also because these coconut flour muffins don't have oil in them, the applesauce acts like a binder for structure too
• Milk - gives some moisture and structure to these muffins because that coconut flour soaks up fluid like a sponge!
• Vanilla - optional but lovely in these blueberry coconut flour muffins
• Blueberries - fresh or frozen will work just fine

📝Instructions

Making these muffins with coconut flour is as easy as 1-2-3!

1. Get all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. There's no real need to sift flour anymore unless your flour is lumpy. This can happen with coconut flour, especially if you haven't used it in a while. Using a fine mesh sifter or strainer placed over a large bowl, pour some coconut flour into it and give it a shake. Any lumps will dissolve through the sifter and any smaller ones that don't, you can discard or push them through with the back of a spoon. Then from the bowl of sifted coconut flour, spoon what you need into the measuring cup for this recipe.
2. In another separate medium mixing bowl, get the wet ingredients whisked up together. Remember: because these coconut flour muffins don't have oil in them, they need every other bit of fluid moisture so be sure not to skip out on a wet ingredient here!
3. Combine the wet ingredients with dry in the larger bowl, mix until just combined. Stir in blueberries and dividing batter among 12 muffin cups. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees F for about 20 minutes.

🔄Substitutions

• Egg substitute - if you're looking to make these muffins egg-free, you can use an egg substitute like a "flax egg" to get a similar effect as actual eggs. To make a flax egg, mix 3 tablespoon of water with 1 tablespoon of ground flax seed for each egg. In these muffins, you'd need to make 2 of these flax eggs (one for each egg.)

• Dairy-free - to make these muffins dairy-free, I would recommend using a dairy-free milk (oat or almond for example) instead of cow's milk. Did I mention coconut flour needs fluid? Ok yah a couple times but it's worth repeating: don't skip on any moisture here! Give that coconut flour what it needs😄

• No applesauce? No problem! Substitute the applesauce for over-ripe mashed bananas. You can use those browning bananas on the countertop for these muffins. You'll get the natural sweetness like the applesauce brings and a little more fibre (bonus!)

💪Is there such a thing as a healthy muffin?

Yes! There is. But to get a healthy muffin, it's easiest to make them at home. When you make your muffins at home, you can load them up with healthy ingredients like applesauce, mashed bananas, greek yogurt, oats, nuts and seeds, ground flaxseed and even beans! Check out this recipe for Healthy Banana Bread with White Beans as a cast-in-point. You can also control the portion size to what an actual muffin should look like (snack-size vs meal-size).

Most store bought muffins are more like cake, from a nutrition perspective. Typically, they're loaded up with way to much fat, white flour, sugar, salt and other not-so healthy things.

These coconut flour muffins with blueberry are a great example of how muffins can be a healthier option when you're eating healthy and gluten-free.

🥥Is coconut flour good for baking?

Yes! Coconut flour is awesome to bake with. Making muffins with some coconut flour punches up the taste factor with well, coconut taste, which if you love like I do, it'll be a welcome addition to your muffins.

See how I said, "making muffins with some coconut flour"? That's because coconut flour does not act like regular wheat flour. For one, coconut flour absorbs moisture like crazy. You'll notice this batter is not a runny or particularly "wet" muffin batter. That's on purpose. Just make sure you have all the wet ingredients (maple syrup, eggs, applesauce, etc) in there because this coconut flour muffin recipe needs it! 

Coconut flour also has nothing in it that acts like a binder. Like how gluten acts in wheat flour to provide structure and give a nice spongy muffin texture? Coconut flour has none of that.

⏰Top tip for how to tell if these muffins are done baking

Because the batter for these coconut muffins is not very wet batter, using the toothpick trick to see if they're done doesn't really work (ie, sticking a toothpick into a muffin and if you pull it out and it's clean, then the muffin is baked through.)

The reason it doesn't work as well is because if you stuck a toothpick into the PRE-baked batter, it may come out pretty clean too! Again, this is because the batter isn't that "wet" to begin with (see point above for baking with coconut flour.)

So how do you know when the muffins are done baking? Go with time, smell and look for the browning on top.

🥡Storage

These muffins will keep for up to 3 days in an air-tight container on the counter. If you don't finish the batch before 3 days, just pop them into the freezer.

You can freeze them in an air-tight container for up to 3 months.

❓Why are blueberry muffins bad for you?

Not all blueberry muffins are bad for you. The "typical", store bought blueberry muffin has either way too much sugar/fat/salt/white flour or it's waaaaay too big. Or both. And the "typical" blueberry muffin doesn't give you any fueling, nutritious ingredients so that's a real drag too! For a healthier blueberry muffin, make them at home and keep the portion reasonable (like this coconut flour blueberry muffin recipe😄)!

🥶Can you use frozen blueberries in these muffins?

Yes! You can totally use frozen blueberries in blueberry muffins, right from the freezer. No need to thaw them out either - you can just throw them right into the batter.

I hope you love these healthy gluten-free muffins like we do.

And speaking of healthy...I have some pretty cool news: Eats by April has been selected as one of the Top 60 Canadian Nutrition Blogs on the web!

I'm so honoured and proud to be on this list of incredible bloggers and fellow Canadians🇨🇦

If you're looking for more delicious recipes and sound nutrition tips and tricks, check out the list of the Top 60 Canadian Nutrition Blogs on the web here.

~April

Check out these other gluten-free recipes too:

• Cranberry and Orange Oatmeal Scones
• Ground Beef with Beans and Quinoa Meal Prep
• Puffed Quinoa Bars with Almond Butter
• Healthy Banana Bread with White Beans

Originally published on November 29th, 2021. Updated and re-published on July 4th, 2022.

📖 Recipe