I’m thrilled to share a parent-approved toddler and baby muffin recipe that my daughter loves. These easy and healthy baby apple banana oat muffins combine banana, applesauce, oats, and your choice of add-in like blueberries or small pieces of chopped apple. The batter comes together in a blender and the muffins freeze wonderfully.
We had a difficult time introducing chunkier solids to our oldest. She loved her pureed fruits and vegetables, but it took a long month of trial-and-error with “real” food. Once she began enjoying soft foods like scrambled eggs and small pieces of fruit, I made her homemade muffins. She loved them and I felt so proud! To this day, these muffins are her favorite. She doesn’t eat anything quicker. This recipe is a goldmine.
These Apple Banana Oat Muffins Are:
- Healthy and wholesome
- Naturally sweetened
- Made with real ingredients—no preservatives
- Loaded with fruits and oats
- Made without flour
- Gluten free if using certified GF oats
- Delicious for adults too!
- Adaptable with plenty of substitution suggestions
- Freezer-friendly
And, as a busy parent, you’ll be happy to know that these muffins are SO EASY! You put all the ingredients in a blender or food processor, which breaks down the banana and oats, pour into muffin liners, and bake. That’s it.
How to Make Baby Muffins
As a parent, I appreciate how quick and easy these muffins are to make, and know you will too. If you’re using muffin liners, spray the muffin liners before filling with batter to keep the liners from sticking to the muffins. Simply place all of the ingredients in a blender in the order listed (see full recipe), except for the 3/4 cup of add-ins. Blend until combined, then stir in the add-ins. Divide evenly between muffin liners, top with a few oats—just for looks, and bake. I like to make a batch of these on the weekends to have on hand throughout the week—mixing up what add-ins I use based on what we have around.
I made 2 batches before we left for vacation and keep them in the freezer. Heat up/thaw 1 or 2 whenever you need them!
Possible Ingredient Substitutions
This blender muffin recipe can be easily customized to incorporate ingredients your baby/toddler loves. Here are some ingredient substitutions I’ve tried with great success:
- Applesauce: Instead of applesauce, use plain yogurt or your baby’s favorite fruit or veggie puree.
- Banana: Instead of a banana, use 1/3 cup of pumpkin puree.
- Coconut Sugar: Instead of coconut sugar, use maple syrup or any other desired sweetener.
- Add Ins: Use a combination of your baby’s favorite fruits like finely diced apples or pears, blueberries, or strawberries. I made the pictured muffins with finely diced apple and blueberries. Apples get nice and soft, but the blueberries can be a bit messy with little self-feeding hands.
Let me know if your babe enjoys the muffins too. And steal a taste—they’re good! Or give these healthy apple muffins a try. They’re made with wholesome ingredients like whole wheat flour and apple for a healthier muffin that’s still big on taste. You can’t go wrong with either!
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Baby (Mini) Apple Banana Oat Muffins
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 24 mini muffins or 9-10 standard muffins
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Easy, quick, and healthy baby-friendly mini muffins made from banana, applesauce, and oats. Mixed in the blender and poured into muffin liners, this make-ahead recipe couldn’t be easier.
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/4 cups (106g) old-fashioned whole rolled oats or quick oats, plus extra for topping
- 1 large ripe banana
- 1/3 cup (80g) unsweetened applesauce or fruit/veggie puree (see note)
- 1 large egg
- 2 or 3 Tablespoons coconut sugar, maple syrup, or other desired sugar*
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup add-ins such as peeled diced apple, pear, or berries*
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Spray a 24-count mini muffin pan with nonstick spray or use mini muffin liners. If using liners, grease the liners.
- Place all of the ingredients in a blender or food processor, in the order listed, except for the 3/4 cup of add-ins. Blend or process until combined. Stir in the add-ins. Divide evenly between muffin liners. Top with a few oats, if desired.
- Bake for 13-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the pan. Remove and cool completely before serving.
- Muffins stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: For longer storage, freeze muffins for up to 3 months. Allow to thaw on the counter or defrost in the microwave.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): 24-count Mini Muffin Pan | Blender
- Important: Consult with pediatrician about any possible allergies your baby may have before trying. The only substitutions I’ve tried are listed in the ingredients, but feel free to play around with the recipe using your best judgement.
- Sugar: I usually prepare the muffins with 2 and 1/2 Tablespoons of coconut sugar.
- Applesauce or Puree: I usually make these with unsweetened applesauce or a baby/toddler food fruit puree. You can use yogurt instead, but the muffins won’t be as flavorful.
- Add Ins: I made the pictured muffins with finely diced apple and blueberries. Apples get nice and soft, but the blueberries can be a little messy with little self-feeding hands. Our daughter also enjoys them with diced strawberries.
- Muffin Liners: If using muffin liners, grease the liners or spray with nonstick spray. Warm muffins will stick otherwise. With the first batch I made, I didn’t grease the liners and they stuck. However, the muffins peeled out easily after refrigerating.
- Standard Size Muffins: Add 1/3 cup oats to the recipe, adding them to the blender with everything else. Spoon the batter into liners, filling them all the way to the top. Top with a few oats, if desired. Bake for 5 minutes at 425°F (218°C) then, keeping the muffins in the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 350°F (177°C). Bake for an additional 16-17 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The total time the standard size muffins take in the oven is about 22-23 minutes, give or take.
Reader Comments and Reviews
unfortunately, these did not turn out well, unlike most of Sally’s recipes. There was barely enough to even make seven regular sized muffins, and the taste was pretty unappealing in spite of the tablespoons of maple syrup.
Hi Kelly, we’re so sorry to hear that you didn’t enjoy these muffins. They are not overly sweet, but perhaps your banana was not ripe enough? That lends some of the sweetness. Did you use the additional 1/3 cup of oats for standard sized muffins (per the recipe Note)? That should get you closer to the 9-10 standard muffins. Thanks for giving these a try!
Since the oats are being ground to a powder, would it make a difference if I used steel cut oats instead of quick oats? Thank you!
Hi Marty, steel cut oats would be perfectly fine because, you’re right, they’ll be ground up anyway. Let us know how your little one likes the muffins.
To reward them: turn the muffin upside down onto a small piece of parchment , use a full sheet of paper towel under the upside down muffin. Warm the muffin in the microwave oven for a few seconds. Add more time as needed. Muffin will be fully warmed
Hi Sally, I love your recipes, they are so reliable, and your blog is my go-to for all baking. THANK YOU. I want to try these muffins for my neighbors baby, but the bananas I have are really tiny and I don’t know how many would be enough for the recipe. Roughly how much would I need IN WEIGHT, please? (I always use your weight reference when it comes to bananas)..
Hi Namali, good question! 1 large banana is about 115-135g. Hope they turn out great!
Greek yogurt instead of applesauce and added chopped banana, apple, blueberries. A m a z i n g recipe!!! Thank u so much!!!
Delicious!!! I was skeptical because the recipe seemed too easy. In the quest for the perfect fall apple recipe, I tried a very labor intensive recipe, which included grating apples along with lots of chopping and way too many dishes to clean afterwards. This recipe produced significantly better muffins. Perfect sweetness and the texture was delightful. My family gobbled them up so fast that I had to make another batch…which seemed effortless AND only my blender, knife and measuring cup/spoon to clean. Thank you!!
So happy to read this, Christina!
Great quick recipe! I subbed 2 TBSP of natural peanut butter for the maple syrup/sugar and they turned out great. I also used cracked oats since I didn’t have another kind (next time I’d blend them a bit before the other ingredients). I can’t wait to try some other mix ins!
Hi Sally! I’m learning about baking soda vs baking powder so I can understand more about baking things from scratch… why the baking soda as well as the powder? Where is the acid to activate the soda?
Thankyou kindly, Grace
Hi Grace, we’re happy to help! Some recipes, like this one, call for both baking powder and baking soda. These recipes contain some sort of acid (the applesauce here), however the carbon dioxide created from the acid and baking soda is not enough to leaven the volume of batter in the recipe. That’s why baking powder is used as well—to add necessary lift. Basically, the reason for both is because sometimes you need more leavening than you have acid available in the recipe. You can learn more about the two in our baking powder vs. baking soda post if you’re interested. Hope this helps!
This is great is there a cooking for baby site?
Our will baby/ toddler recipes be included in this feed? Than no You
Hi Jorga, we don’t have specific baby/toddler recipes on the site, but we do have a few posts that include great recipes for little bakers to help with, like this Back-to-School Recipes post! We hope you find a few new favorite recipes for your little ones!
Loved this recipe! Worked well with flaxseed in place of egg for my little with an egg allergy.
Muffin flavor was good. Used mango puree instead of applesauce and added finely diced frozen strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries, thawed and well drained so they didn’t make a soggy, bottom heavy mess. But my issue with the recipe is that it doesn’t make it clear that the oats should be finely ground to make an oat flour so I left them a bit chunkier. Had I the time to look carefully at the photos, I would’ve realized the batter is quite smooth but I’ve got a toddler and newborn at home so those kind of things escape my notice atm. The texture was still ok, just not ideal. Also, it ended up making 7 full size muffins instead of 9-10 as written (maybe because I didn’t finely blend the oats).
I’ve made these a few times with different mix ins, and we love them. Today I made two batches. The first had apples, grated pecans, and salted caramel chips while the second had apples, cocoa powder, a drizzle of cold leftover coffee, grated walnuts, and semi sweet chocolate chips. Soon I want to try zucchini bread and carrot cake varieties.
I just made these, and they were great! I also chopped up chocolate chips and added that into the recipe to appeal more to my toddler. I also calculated the calories per muffin based on the base recipe in case you want those. It should be about 51 cal per muffin, and almost half of that is because I chose maple syrup.
Could I just weight out oat baby cereal? It says on the ingredients ots just oat flour, I have so many bottles of the beech nut oat flour I’m trying to use up for my baby!
Hi Sammie, We haven’t tested it but it should work. Let us know if you try!
I tried it with gerber organic oat cereal and it was a disaster. Didn’t raise and was still uncook after half an hour of baking. Retried it with regular oat, perfect. I have no idea why… would be curious to see if anyone had success with baby cereal.
Help! My muffins didn’t rise! Perhaps the baking soda was not good?
Hi Em, it could be that your baking soda and baking powder are not fresh. We find they start losing their power after about 3 months, even if not yet expired. Thank you for giving these a try!
Hi, I wanted to try to add some extra healthy fats to these… could I substitute avocado oil for the applesauce?
Hi Julie, instead of applesauce, we like to use full fat plain yogurt, but haven’t tested avocado oil here.
I love these so much, there PERFECT!! I Love how easy it is to just take them out of the freezing in the morning, and have them for breakfast! Just a quick question, do I grind up the oats before I add the other ingredients? Thank you so much for sending out this recipe Sally 🙂
Hi Damaris, just add the oats in with the other ingredients. Glad you love them!
Hi- I make these often with my granddaughter. We are going to be someplace without a blender, will this work using a hand mixer?
Hi Mary Jo, a blender is best for this recipe. Without it, the oats will stay whole and the texture of the muffins will change. Could you grind up the oats before and travel with them? Then use a mixer for the rest. Otherwise, the muffins freeze wonderfully if you can make a batch ahead of time!
LOVE all of your recipes. can i use shredded carrots with this as my add in? i want an ABC muffin (apples, bananas, carrots 🙂 for my toddler
Shouldn’t be a problem, Jana!
16 month old loved them. Made them exactly as is. Into the freezer they went for quick toddler snacks.
I made this recipe to the letter, except I used maple syrup and one diced apple. It came very well! I put my ingredients into a food processor before folding in the apples and that worked for me to help blend all ingredients. We don’t have kids, but my husband and I enjoyed these baby muffins as a healthy snack. Wish the calories were listed, that would help.
Hi Shelly, we’re so glad you enjoyed these muffins! We don’t usually include nutrition information as it can vary between different brands of the same ingredients. Plus, many recipes have ingredient substitutions or optional ingredients listed. However, there are many handy online calculators where you can plug in and customize your exact ingredients/brands. Readers have found this one especially helpful: https://www.verywellfit.com/recipe-nutrition-analyzer-4157076
hi there, my son has been loving this recipe since last 1.5 years! thanks so much for the recipe 🙂 We are travelling soon for 15 days and I really wanted to be able to bake a batch and take with me as my 2 year old is very picky and I know he would at least eat these. the flight is around 10 hours. Can you suggest if there is a way to take these, probably in my carryon luggage, without the fear of them being spoilt? I would really appreciate any suggestions. thanks!
Hi Divi, the muffins stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 2 days, so you could transport them in a tupperware or zip top bag for the duration of your flight. After that, you can store them in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. Hope this helps!
I make these all the time for my son. He started loving these muffins when he lost interest in purées. So I use this recipe to use up those baby purées I made for him. He LOVES them. Just made them as mini muffins for the first time today and he loves them even more than the standard muffin size. He just keeps pointing at them when he wants one. Didn’t think he, at 12 months, would easily eat 5-10 in a single day.
Can’t wait to try this. Can the fruit be frozen or does it have to be fresh?
Hi Ciku, Frozen fruit can be used as the add-ins. The bake time may be a little longer.
Hi there, I made a double batch ,standard size to take to my Slimming World breakfast meeting.I made 2 substitutions using Sukrin and 0% Greek yogurt plus I added sultans.
I wish I could show you a photo ,unfortunately the whole lot went in minutes! I received huge compliments on the muffins and gave several members your website address!
Another fabulous recipe Sally! Thanks again Mardiex
Made these for my granddaughter when she came to visit. I think Grandpa Ducky loved them more than she did & she LOVES them. Keeps asking mommy, “Make Grandma Ducky’s muffins” (Her name for us as she loves ducks & we have a Jeep that gets ducked frequently)
Made the recipe for the standard size muffins that makes 9-10. Followed the recipe precisely, with the extra oats and it made the batter too dry. First I mixed it with a hand mixer, then put it in the blender and the blender couldn’t blend it. So I added double the amount of apple sauce, and it still wouldn’t blend. Gave up on that and finished it in the mixing bowl with some added blue berries stirred in at the end. It was very thick and not like the picture at all. I baked it for the 5 minutes at 425 and then 16 minutes at 350. The muffins still came out nicely, though were still a little dry even with the extra applesauce. I would make this again because they taste good, but might tweak it some more next time.
Sadly, this recipe did not work for me in the blender. I have a vitamix and used the 32 oz container so it’s not as though I didn’t have enough power or batter volume – the batter was too thick. I tamped, and pushed, and stirred, and I still couldn’t get it to blend. I had to add additional fruit puree, and even some water to get it to even partially blend, and then scraped it out into a bowl and hand-mixed the rest. What a pain! Completely defeated the purpose of doing it in the blender. I made full-size muffins and followed the note to increase the oats by 1/3c, so maybe this made it too dry to do in the blender? I blend oats in my vitamix all the time to make oat flour and have made other blender muffin recipes no problem, so I know that’s not the problem. One star added because despite all this, they did still taste ok and the additional moisture I added didn’t seem to affect the outcome. If I made this recipe again, I’d blend the oats dry and then mix the rest by hand.
Loved it sooo much!!! I did the recipe with what I had in hand and it was strawberry applesauce instead of applesauce(by itself) and for the add ins I used banana. OMG!!! They were so moist and rich in flavor! Will definitely be doing them again!
These worked incredibly well! I didn’t have applesauce, so I just threw fresh apple pieces into the blender.
The second, or third, time I made them, I forgot the eggs (double batch) and they still worked great!
For anyone who’s curious, one large banana is 150 grams. For me anyway. That’s after it’s peeled.
Is there any substitute for the banana?
Instead of a banana, you can use 1/3 cup of pumpkin puree.
I substituted an oatmeal with seeds mixed in from Trader Joe’s. They were so healthy-seeming I thought for sure the toddler would reject. Nope! Toddler approved. Will make again
Can these be made in a standard muffin tin instead of as mini muffins?
Hi Katie, absolutely. See recipe Notes for standard size muffin directions.