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
OMG! I love these muffins. They are so moist! I definitely would rate them the exact same as the Mcdonald’s banana chocolate chunk muffins!! I had to put a lid on it, not to eat all 12.
Total hit!
I don’t leave reviews often but ommggg these were SO good! Only mistake is not tripling the recipe ❤️
Yum. I licked the bowl (I know, I know, raw eggs….). I also added a TBS of chia seeds, chocolate chips and walnuts!
A fantastic recipe! Here are the substitutions I made based on my health plan and they came out perfect! Thank you so much for this recipe!
1. Banana flour
For every 1 cup of wheat flour use ¾ cup banana flour. For this recipe I used 1 cup banana flour.
2. Coconut milk
3. Coconut sugar
4. Plant based butter
Sally’s page is my absolute favorite for all things muffin and cakes. I rarely make changes to the recipes but today I was 1/2 a banana short (made a double batch) and was afraid muffins might dry out. I peeled and chopped an apple into 1/4 inch cubes and added to recipe. 1 med apple in double batch-no other changes. Oh my gosh the muffins were amazing. I will keep doing this. Thank you Sally for sharing all your recipes. I love your site
Great muffins. Moist and flavorful.
This was a fab recipe. Can I substitute almond flour for regular ?
Hi Lois, we don’t recommend it. Almond flour has very different baking properties than all-purpose flour and isn’t always a 1:1 swap. If you’re looking for a banana muffin recipe that doesn’t use all-purpose flour, you might enjoy these whole wheat banana muffins (using whole wheat flour and oats).
Easy-to-make, doesn’t take long to have tasty, almost cupcake-like muffins (an hour, start-to-finish, including clean-up). This goes alongside your banana bread recipe in my go-to baking list.
This is my go to recipe for banana muffins. Made them so many times and they come out great !!
Love it !
Tried these this morning. I really liked this recipe. Some recipes the muffins are more like a cake consistency. I like a more grainy texture, these were perfect. They rose nicely, the center was soft but not mushy or too dry. I don’t like chocolate chips or nuts in my muffins, or frosting. These were just what I was looking for. I will save this one!
I have lost count of how many banana bread or muffin recipes I have tried, and this one I will be returning to again and again. They came out super moist and the initial high temp did help them rise a lot!!
Kitchen smelled fantastic this morning! Added pecans and mini peanut butter cups and sprinkled the tops with a little sparkling sugar. DELICIOUS recipe – thank you!
I used this recipe to make mini muffins. 425° for 2 minutes, then 350° for 10 minutes and they came out perfect! I got 40 mini muffins and the kids love them!
These are requested in my house every time we have even slightly brown bananas. So good, and so easy. We like to freeze half to have on hand for a quick breakfast during the week or for an after school snack. Yum!
Thanks so much for sharing. These were delicious! I made them with my little one (3 years old), and she loved making them too. I substituted the brown sugar with half and half white sugar and honey as I didn’t have any brown sugar and worked beautifully. Thanks
Can I substitute the brown sugar with white sugar?
Hi Gemma, yes you can; use the same amount. The brown sugar makes the muffins a little softer and has a little deeper flavor from its higher moisture content and the molasses in it, but white sugar will work fine here too.
This is really THE BEST banana muffin recipe! So delicious and moist! I’ll make these again and share the recipe with friends!
Very tasty!
I make these about every other week. I use half all-purpose flour and half whole wheat flour, decrease butter to 1/4 cup instead of 6 tablespoons. Also add 1/2 cup each of raisins and chopped walnuts. Makes 6 jumbo muffins. So good!
If I wanted to turn this into a three layer, 9 inch cake – how many batches would I make?
Hi Hannah, here is our banana layer cake instead!
Hubby loved these! How many calories per muffin if I used light brown sugar and coconut oil?
Hi Esther! 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
These were delicious and it was the perfect amount for 12 muffins! I added a cup of chocolate chips and *muah* they were so good!
these were so good. i left mine in for 4 extra minutes and they were soft inside with a perfect golden shell on the outside. i mixed in dried cranberries and chocolate chips. i sifted the dry ingredients into wet and then folded them together until they were just incorporated, it made them super fluffy. i’d definitely recommend this recipe!
This recipe is so, so good!! I eyeball the vanilla and milk but follow the rest of the recipe, and the muffins turn out really moist and fluffy. I have made this recipe twice so far, and the muffins have been amazing both times 🙂 My family and friends love this recipe, and this will probably be the recipe I stick to going forward. Thank you so much for this recipe!! <3
You’re recipes are always perfect!! I never doubt when make your recipes!!
This is one of the quickest easy recipes and turned out delicious. I added a handful of toasted walnuts and choc chips. Topped it with caramel sauce. My fam absolutely loved it!
High heat in the first 5 mins in the oven rly added a nice brown n crisp top while inside was perfect n still moist.
Thx for the fabulous recipe
these are literally so amazing!! I added peanut butter powder and chocolate chips, and a crumble to the top and they were delicious, rose perfectly and were not overly moist or unflavorful. will be my go to recipe for my ripe bananas!!!
I love loved this recipe. I used Gluten free flour and they are delicious will definitely make again
I loved the end result. Moist and very tasty. I cut out 1/2 of my butter and added ev olive oil. My heart healthy cookbook suggested this with most recipes. I really love the high temp and temp reduction. Such v light yummy muffins. I added chopped walnuts to 1/2 of my recipe as I was making 6 for a neighbor who can’t do nuts!
I made this with raisins! Add some cream cheese in the middle when serving and they’re a new addiction!
I enjoyed making these banana muffin n it’s soft n tasty n my family like it so much n wanted to have to make more. Th
Perfect recipe. I thought I was doomed to banana bread/muffin failure after trying so many recipes. This one saved me and the bananas in the freezer. So moist and soft, they rose perfectly. Can’t wait to make more and add some pecans.
Thank you!