Skinny quinoa muffins made with coconut yogurt and warm spices. They're healthy, filled with fiber, made without eggs, and naturally sweetened.
You know when you just have a craving to bake, but you aren't really sure what to actually make?
I usually go for cookies, but this time I wanted muffins. But I wanted something different. Not the classic blueberry muffins, or even chocolate chip. Something unique and delicious.
So I peeked inside my fridge to see what I could whip up. I had coconut yogurt, applesauce, maple syrup, and ripe bananas on my counter. Another version of skinny quinoa muffins is comin' your way!
Ingredients for Coconut Yogurt Muffins
Similar to my other muffin recipes, these couldn't be easier to make! We're using many of my standard muffin ingredients including:
- Flax Egg: my way of making these quinoa muffins vegan, but they work just as well with a chicken egg – here's how to make a a flax egg if you're unfamiliar!
- Banana: I love the texture and sweetness it adds to these quinoa muffins, but if you're allergic you can do more applesauce
- Applesauce: an easy way to add fiber, while also a hint of sweetness
- Coconut Yogurt: one of my favorite ingredients that adds depth of flavor and moisture at the same time
- Maple Syrup: my #1 preference for sweetness
- Coconut Sugar: my #2 preference for sweetness 😉
- Oat Flour: I love the texture and chewiness that oat flour brings to recipes! Here's how to make oat flour at home if you've never tried!
- Almond Flour: another one of my preferred flours for its nutritional profile, but also the texture it adds!
- Quinoa Flakes: my quinoa version of oats – they're light and don't affect the flavor at all
And then we're finishing off with: baking powder, cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, and salt.
Healthy Swaps to Try in Muffins
Muffins are a surprisingly simple thing to make “skinny”. I just subbed out all the oil, eggs, dairy, and gluten and instead packed them with nutritious ingredients without sacrificing the flavor. Woot!
Here are the healthy swaps we made:
- banana and applesauce for the oil
- maple syrup and coconut sugar for sweetness
- oat flour, quinoa flakes and almond flour for our whole grain goodness
- unsweetened coconut milk yogurt for our “dairy”
- flax eggs for the eggs
They're also ready in just one bowl, taste delicious and are definitely healthified!
How to Make Vegan & GF Muffins
You're going to love these muffins. You just need one bowl, one pan and about 3o minutes from start to finish.
STEP ONE: Mix
My first step is always to mash all my wet ingredients together. Once they're smooth(ish), I'll add in my dry ingredients. With your batter all mixed, you can either choose to add some ingredients into the batter or get ready to bake them.
STEP TWO: Bake
I like to use a 12-cup muffin tin that I line with white paper liners. Fill the liners about 3/4 of the way full, sprinkle them with some quinoa flakes and a bit of extra sugar, and you're ready to go! Pop them in the oven for about 25 mins.
STEP THREE: Eat
Finally, it's time to dig in!
What to Serve with these Quinoa Muffins
I personally love to serve these muffins slightly warm. From there, the toppings are your choice!
- Vegan butter + honey
- Almond butter
- Chia seed jam (I love the peach with these spices)
- Coconut yogurt
- Homemade Nutella
And truly, the list goes on and on!
Best Way to Store Muffins
There are three ways you can store these muffins:
- Room temp: keep them on the counter in a sealed container for 1 – 2 days
- Fridge: they'll keep for at least 3 – 4 days in the fridge in a sealed container
- Freezer: wrap them up in aluminum foil, place them in a sealed container or bag – they'll last for at least 2 months
Tools I Use to Make Muffins
Muffin tin – this is my favorite muffin tin! It's non-toxic, but also non stick. I have tons of other pans from this brand and I seriously love their quality.
Paper liners – I actually find that not all muffins work in liners, but these ones do! You can also just give the muffin pan a quick spray with cooking spray.
Mixing bowls – I love this set! I keep them nested in my bakeware cabinet and we use them all the time!
Why You'll Love These Vegan Muffins
They're soft and tender, with a slight sweetness and underlying flavor of apples and bananas. But it's the warm spices that round them out and make them cozy and delicious. Plus they're packed with complex carbohydrates and fiber so they won't skyrocket your blood sugar AND they'll help fill you up.
So basically these make for a great grab-n-go breakfast – or afternoon snack. Oh and yes, they taste even better when smeared with a little nut butter. So dang good!
More Amazing Quinoa Muffins to try:
- Healthy Blueberry Muffins with Blueberry Icing
- Chocolate Chip Zucchini Quinoa Muffins
- Secret Ingredient Vegan Double Chocolate Muffins
- Gluten-Free Banana Bread Muffins
- Chai Spiced Oat & Quinoa Flour Muffins
- Healthy Chocolate Muffins with Raspberry Swirls
Skinny Spiced Coconut Yogurt Quinoa Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 flax egg
- 1/2 cup mashed banana 1 large, 2 small
- 1/2 cup applesauce
- 1/2 cup coconut yogurt
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1 1/4 cup oat flour oats ground in a blender
- 1/2 cup quinoa flakes
- 1/2 cup blanched almond flour
- 1/4 cup coconut sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean powder or 1 teaspoon extract
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 350ºF. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin and set aside.
- Combine the flax and water and set aside to gel while you prepare the remaining ingredients.
- In a small bowl, beat together banana, applesauce, yogurt and syrup (add vanilla extract also, if using). Whisk in flax egg and set aside.
- Whisk together the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Add to the wet and then stir to thoroughly combine (the batter will be kind of thick, but still stirable and soft).
- Fill each cup 3/4 of the way full. Add water to the ones that are unused. Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with quinoa flakes (and turbinado sugar) if desired. Let rest for 5 minutes before baking.
- Bake on the center rack for 24 - 26 minutes until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and cool completely. Resist the urge to not break into them; cooling them will allow everything to set properly. If desired, reheat in the toaster oven or in the microwave.
Video
Nutrition
Thanks for sharing this recipe. Would love to give a try without the oat flour. Could I maybe sub with wee bit of coconut flour? Lately I’ve been doing chia seed pudding made with unsweetened coconut milk for breakfast or snack. I top with fresh fruit, dried unsweetened coconut, and a few chopped nuts. Lots of fiber, no grain, no refined sugar, no dairy, and delicious!
These look so fantastic! I love the quinoa and oat combo, so nice and hearty for breakfast!
These quinoa muffins look and sound so delicious! We’ll definitely be giving them a try.
They’re so yummy! Definitely love adding quinoa flakes to my muffins 😉
These looks incredible good!
Thank you! Hope you give them a try 🙂
These are my kind of muffins Alyssa! Love the whole grain texture and they must be so moist and flavorful with the yogurt, applesauce AND banana! Sharing!
They are just divine! I just had another one with almond butter and mmmm so good!
They look wonderful. I would love to try them but don’t have any quinoa flakes. Any subs you would recommend?
You could try quick cooking oats! Although they aren’t exactly the same, it’s a fairly close substitution 🙂
I made these yesterday using gluten-free oats ground to make oat flour, cooked quinoa instead of quinoa flakes, 1 egg instead of the flax egg, greek plain fat free yogurt instead of the coconut yogurt, regular sugar instead of coconut sugar, and added about 1/4 cup flax meal. Everything else stayed the same. I also added frozen blueberries just before adding the batter into to baking pan. I cooked them for 3-4 minutes longer than called for in the recipe. They turned out really good. My husband was surprised to find out they didn’t contain any wheat flour. I will definitely make these again. Maybe even tonight! 🙂
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i see this in the recipe prep ( add the flax seed egg) . Is that the flax and water mix that was set aside. Will try these for my DIL as she love healthy muffins and this sounds yummy and easy.
**i did notice a comment where they used a regular egg. Can egg beater be used in place of flax egg and just add flax seed to batter?
Yep, just combine flax and water and let it gel together. You could also use a regular egg and I think it would work fine!
Hello– Do you have nutrition info. for these muffins? Thank you! 🙂
I’m sorry but not at the moment! You can use this tool to find it out though: https://www.caloriecount.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php
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Anything I can sub for the applesauce? I’m allergic to apples 🙁
I think you could try banana!
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My son can’t have oats… could I use quinoa flour??
I haven’t tested that, but I think quinoa flakes would work better!
Hello! Should these be refrigerated after making?
They don’t need to be!
Can I substitute the almond flour with spelt flour?
And if yes, what would be the right substitution amount?
I’m gluten-free so I haven’t done any baking with spelt – sorry! I would try and google that replacement and see what others have done successfully. I don’t want to recommend something that doesn’t end up working!
Does anyone have a suggestion on a healthy replacement for apple sauce? I want to make these, but am allergic to apples :\
Thank you!
Banana will totally work 🙂
I put oats and even the steel oats in coffee grinder to make the flour and also did this with quinoa as no flakes…..quinoa didn’t make flour and may have made muffins a little cruncy but worked fine.
Thanks so much for sharing!
I was confused by the nutritional information. Would you be able to give information per serving of one muffin? Otherwise, they seem to have way too much fat and sugar for me. Thanks.
Just updated! Thank for catching that 🙂
I do not have any banana’s at the moment. What could I sub?
Applesauce should work!
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Hey, love this recipe. What can I replace the applesauce with? Not a fan of applesauce 🙂
More banana or pumpkin ould work!
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Good day! Thank you for all you do! Your recipes are delightful!
A quick question. In your Skinny Spiced Coconut Yogurt Quinoa Muffins recipe, could you suggest a replacement for the banana? Unfortunately I’m very allergic to them but this sound wonderful!
Thank you so much for your help!
Cheers
I think applesauce will work!
Can we make alternative?
Such as pumpkin puree with pumpkin spices, or add chocolate chips or berries?
Sure!
Some of your recipes call for quinoa flakes is there something else we can use in it’s place? The flakes are so expensive. I hope I’m leaving this question in the right place
Thank you,
I think you can use quick cooking oats 🙂
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wow good recipe, I am also following https://www.bhatoora.com and written few recipes by myself.
So glad you liked it!
Hi
What can I used instead of quinoa flakes, i see most of your recipes usees that. Also where can I find Quiona flakes if there is o substitution.
Thank you Anuja
I think you could do quick cooking oats in most of the recipes!
Mine didn’t rise at all 😭 More of a cake texture but still good!
Hmm…not sure why that would have happened! Sorry about that 🙁