These banana muffins are soft, buttery, and spiced with cinnamon. They’re wonderful plain, with chopped walnuts, or even chocolate chips. You need 3 large ripe bananas and a few basic kitchen ingredients to get started.
Banana bread is wonderful, but muffins are quicker, more convenient, easily portable, and taste just as good. I’ve been searching for the perfect EASY banana muffin recipe since my daughter began eating solids. We always have bananas in the house which means we eventually have spotty bananas ready for baking!
These quick and easy banana muffins bake in 30 minutes, so if you need to be in and out of the kitchen FAST (um, don’t we all?), this recipe is your savior.
Banana Muffin Ingredients—Each Is Important!
This banana muffin recipe requires a handful of basics like flour, sugar, and milk. That’s what I love about baking—it’s the same base ingredients for basically everything.
- Flour: I tested the recipe with both all-purpose flour and whole wheat flour and LOVED both variations. See recipe Note below.
- Melted Butter: We’ll use melted butter as the fat, though melted coconut oil works too. I love using melted butter in baked goods, and though I was afraid these banana muffins would taste too dense without creaming softened butter (which incorporates air), that’s not the case at all.
- Bananas, vanilla, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg: The flavor team.
- Egg: 1 egg gives the muffins structure.
- Milk: A common ingredient in some muffin recipes including pumpkin muffins, milk provides necessary moisture. Dry muffins… the worst.
- Sugar: Sweetens. When I make these for my daughter, I use half brown sugar and half coconut sugar. You can use all brown sugar, all coconut sugar, or a mixture of the two. Keep in mind that coconut sugar isn’t quite as sweet as brown sugar, so the flavor will change. See my recipe Note. 🙂
Do these banana muffins taste like banana bread? Yes, totally! But they have a lighter, softer, and more buttery texture. You’ll love it.
How to Make Banana Muffins Moist
There’s a fine line between a moist banana muffin and a dry banana muffin, aka sandpaper in a cupcake wrapper. To make banana muffins moist, make sure you’re using a solid ratio of dry to wet ingredients. I found the muffins to be dry without the addition of liquid, but a couple Tablespoons of milk solved the problem. Use a little fat (butter), brown sugar, and plenty of bananas for lots of moisture and flavor.
How to Mash Bananas
So I started doing this last year and it’s been a total game changer whenever I make banana cake, these breakfast cookies, banana bread, or chocolate banana bread. Just use your mixer to mash bananas! Peel and break them into chunks, place in your mixer, and beat until mashed. Beat the rest of the wet ingredients right into this bowl, then beat in the dry ingredients. So easy.
Can I Use Frozen Bananas?
Yes and I do this often. Thaw the frozen bananas at room temperature. Drain off any excess liquid, mash, then use as instructed in the recipe below. See How to Freeze & Thaw Bananas for Baking. Try not to mash too much or else you’ll be left with 2 cups of banana-y liquid; some chunks are great.
This banana muffin recipe is perfect if you:
- Have 3 large spotty bananas
- Love banana bread
- Need a quick homemade breakfast, snack, etc.
- Don’t feel like creaming butter and sugar together
- Don’t feel like dirtying 100 pans
And, to turn these into a scrumptious treat, you could dip the tops of the cooled muffins into chocolate ganache and add sprinkles. (Affiliate link: I love these naturally colored sprinkles.) You can also add the streusel topping from these banana chocolate chip streusel muffins.
More Muffin Recipes
These easy banana muffins have been my default for awhile, though I usually switch between these and a couple other muffin recipes previously published. I consider these muffins on the healthier side and they’re each toddler & adult approved. 🙂
- Baby Apple Oat Muffins
- Bran Muffins
- Whole Wheat Banana Nut Muffins (these include oats)
- Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins
- Healthy Apple Muffins & Chocolate Banana Muffins
- Morning Glory Muffins
- Lemon Blueberry Muffins
- Zucchini Muffins
- Peanut Butter Banana Muffins
- Healthy Blueberry Banana Muffins
- Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
Would love to know if you try any of them!
Print
Quick & Easy Banana Muffins
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 10-12 muffins
- Category: Muffins
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These banana muffins are soft, buttery, and spiced with cinnamon. They’re wonderful plain, but taste fantastic with 1 cup chopped walnuts or chocolate chips. You need 3 ripe bananas and a handful of basic kitchen ingredients.
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 cups (188g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 and 1/2 cups (345g) mashed bananas (about 4 medium or 3 large ripe bananas)
- 6 Tablespoons (85g) unsalted butter, melted (or melted coconut oil)
- 2/3 cup (135g) packed light or dark brown sugar (or coconut sugar)*
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 Tablespoons (30ml) milk*
- optional: 1 cup chopped walnuts, pecans, or chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F (218°C). Spray a 12-count muffin pan with nonstick spray or use cupcake liners.
- Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg together in a medium bowl. Set aside. In a large bowl or in the bowl of your stand mixer, mash the bananas. On medium speed, beat or whisk in the melted butter, brown sugar, egg, vanilla extract, and milk. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, then beat or whisk until combined. If adding nuts or chocolate chips, fold them in now. Batter will be thick.
- Spoon the batter into liners, filling them all the way to the top. Bake for 5 minutes at 425°F, then, keeping the muffins in the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 350°F (177°C). Bake for an additional 16–18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The total time these muffins take in the oven is about 21–23 minutes, give or take. (For mini muffins, bake 12–14 total minutes at 350°F (177°C).) Allow the muffins to cool for 5 minutes in the muffin pan, then transfer to a wire cooling rack to continue cooling.
- Muffins stay fresh covered at room temperature for a few days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: For longer storage, freeze muffins for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator, then bring to room temperature or warm up in the microwave if desired.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): 12-count Muffin Pan | Muffin Liners | Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Cooling Rack
- Why the initial high temperature? The hot burst of air will spring up the top of the muffin quickly, then the inside of the muffin can bake for the remainder of the time. This helps the muffins rise nice and tall.
- Whole Wheat Flour: Feel free to substitute whole wheat flour for all-purpose flour or use a mix of both as long as you use 1 and 1/2 cups total. If using all whole wheat flour, add another Tablespoon (15ml) of milk.
- Frozen Bananas: You can use frozen bananas here. Thaw the frozen bananas. Drain off any excess liquid, mash, then use as instructed in the recipe. See How to Freeze & Thaw Bananas for Baking.
- Sugar: You can use 2/3 cup of packed brown sugar or coconut sugar. Or a mixture of these to yield 2/3 cup. If using 2/3 cup coconut sugar, the muffins won’t be as sweet. I find they taste best with 2/3 cup brown sugar or 1/3 cup of each. 2/3 cup of honey or pure maple syrup works too, though the muffins will taste a little more moist in the centers. I’m unsure about sugar substitutes, but let me know if you try any.
- Milk: Use your favorite variety of dairy or nondairy milk.
- Banana Bread: Here’s my favorite banana bread recipe. 🙂
Reader Comments and Reviews
I don’t even know how many times I’ve made these at this point, they are amazing! They are always requested and, from following the recipe exactly, I haven’t had a bad batch yet.
These are soooo delicious! My picky three year old loved the “banana cupcakes!” I love making recipes with banana (usually banana bread) and I can never get it to bake well… I always end up with overcooked outside and undercooked middle. But I loved how this recipe uses high temp then low. I think that really helps get a great finished texture. I also used a jumbo muffin pan and ended up getting 6 perfect jumbo muffins. I adjusted the baking times for the larger muffins: 7 mins at 425 and then 17 mins at 350.
I love all your recipes. But would now like to use less sugar. Can I use less sugar without adjusting the recipe too much. Especially for my kids they like cookies in the morning.
Hi CJ, while you can try slightly reducing the sugar, it does play a role in the texture and structure of the muffin as well, so the overall intended outcome will be different. You may be interested in trying these whole wheat banana muffins instead.
Absolutely delicious! Made these with my kiddos and they immediately asked for another one after trying the first one
I’d like to make an icing for the banana muffins. Can you recommend one? Thank you. I love your recipes. Thank you.
Hi Carol! We love dipping these banana muffins in chocolate ganache (as pictured above), or a simple vanilla icing like we use on these peach streusel muffins would be great!
Good recipe. The muffins had the density and consistency of cake. I will try to find a recipe that uses oats and applesauce with the bananas. But this is a good recipe, everyone has different tastes 🙂
Hi NA, thank you so much for giving these muffins a try. If you’re interested, you might enjoy these whole wheat banana muffins, which call for some oats directly in the batter. Let us know if you give them a go!
Edit! My boyfriend LOVED the muffins and he is a picky eater. I’m so glad to have found a recipe that he likes and I’ll be sure to make it again!
Seriously the best muffin recipe I have ever made! Light and fluffy with no doughiness
I loved this so much! It makes my mouth water just thinking about it!
I’ve made A LOT of banana bread/muffins and this is by far my favorite recipe for muffins. Is there anything you suggest to preserve the crispy top when storing? Thank you for a super delicious recipe!
Hi Mary! So glad you love them. It’s the nature of muffins to release moisture when stored. You can try leaving a small corner of the container you’re storing them in open/cracked to allow a bit of air flow.
Baker in training- I’m 11 and I made these. They were great! I added some extra cinnamon, vanilla, and a little ginger and used frozen bananas. We ate some and froze some, and they were delicious.
I made this today! I split the recipe to make banana muffins and also some apple cinnamon ones. It worked really well. And delicious too!
Great recipe
Delicious. Will make often.
I don’t have nutmeg..Do i have to use nutmeg for this recipe or are there any simple substitutes
Hi Sanah, you can leave the nutmeg out of this recipe.
This was an amazing recipie! I have tried to make banana bread & muffins so many times but failed, this recipe was a game changer! Thankyou so much!
I made these after a day of skiing. They were fast, easy and delicious. Nice to be able to fix something that made the home smell wonderful before the other skiers got home.
Please add at the top YOU NEED MIXER. It was our mistake we didn’t read that it needed a mixer and we don’t have any, try to do it by hand but the mix was too thick so we had to add butter and more milk… a lot of milk. We had to leave it for longer… had to admit they taste pretty good and they are moist. Loose a star because of the warning of the mixer 🙂
What can I use in place of the egg? (My daughter has an egg allergy and I am new to baking without eggs!)
Hi Megan, we haven’t tested it but some bakers have had success using a flax egg substitute in our muffin recipes in the past.
I used room temp butter that was sitting on my cupboard and creamed it with white sugar. It still came out moist and cake-like in texture, which is perfect for me.
I only have 2 bananas, is there something else I could add to make up the difference?
Hi Brenda! We haven’t tested this, but you could try making up the difference with pumpkin puree, unsweetened applesauce, or yogurt.
Delicious -a big hit with the grandkids . I’m looking for the nutritional
Hi Kay, we’re glad these were a hit! 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
Delicious -a big hit with the grandkids
Tastes great and easy to make
I did a bit of modifying. Added a diced pink lady apple and 2 bananas, no milk. Used earth balance for butter. Smells wonderful! I basically forgot the milk but feel that the consistency of the batter was fine without it.
I made them with bananas from my freezer in jumbo muffin tins (6 total) and cooked 5 mins longer. Fabulous and yummy!
I just baked a batch for our breakfast or for my kid’s packed lunch. The muffins came out delicious, fluffy and with the right amount of moisture. Besides the ingredients you listed I added three tablespoons cranberries and one chia seeds. Thanks for the thorough instructions and notes!!
Delicious! I had 6 bananas, doubled the recipe. Added some chocolate chips, about 1 cup, and the same amount of chopped pecans. I used tall muffin cups, got 18 fabulous muffins.
i baked this recipe with my mom, and we substituted the flour for oat flour and used brown sugar, they turned out so soft, sweet and moist! i’m eating one right as i type this 🙂
We love this recipe. I made it gluten free, with my gf flour.
A-M-A-Z-I-N-G
This came out super fluffy and the right amount of sweetness, i tweaked a few ingredients, my older sister, who is pretty judgmental when it comes to food, rated it a 9/10!!
This is one of the best thing’s i have ever made, thank you for the inspo!
This is the best banana muffin recipe evar! It’s so easy and tasty. My husband absolutely loves it. Thank you for sharing with us Sally!