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Lemon Chia Oat Muffins (gluten-free, dairy-free, flourless)

May 3, 2023 · 65 Comments

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Filled with bright lemon flavor and chia seeds throughout, these healthy oat-based muffins make a great Spring or Summer breakfast!

Muffins on a cooling rack with a lemon behind.

Have you ever had a “flourless” muffin before?

Depending on who you ask, the definition of “flourless” is different. For some, flourless means NO flour of ANY kind. Several others term “flourless” as food made without traditional all purpose flour, and instead using something like almond flour, oat flour, etc.

I err on the side of recipes with “oat flour” being considered “flourless” because oat flour is made out of oats. Oats themselves are not a flour.

So, I consider these muffins flourless. To ensure your baked goods turn out and aren’t a crumbly mess, I recommend buying oat flour for muffins. Unless you have a high powered blender (and can get your oats blended up as fine as the oat flour you can buy in a store).

*Alternatively, you could use 1 1/4 cups of homemade oat flour and 1/2 cup of gluten-free all purpose flour (if you are concerned about your oat flour being too crumbly, but still want to use it).

All that being said, these Lemon Chia Oat Muffins are gluten-free (if using certified gluten-free oats), flourless, and dairy-free too, thanks to coconut oil and almond milk.

I love using coconut oil, but have you ever had problems with it?

My biggest complaint about coconut oil is that it can easily turn back to a solid after you add it to a cold batter. Big chunks of coconut oil floating around in your batter can mess with your baked goods, causing an uneven texture.

So, how do you make sure that doesn’t happen?

  • Before I start getting my ingredients out for a recipe, I take my eggs out first. Leave them on the counter, for them to warm up a touch.
  • Ensure all of the ingredients you add to your batter are at room temperature. A little tedious, but worth it. Adding milk? Make sure its room temperature. Applesauce? Room temperature. I use the same microwave safe bowl to heat up each ingredient, and then add them to my mixing bowl one by one, so I don’t get several dirty bowls.
  • If all else fails, heat your batter in the microwave briefly (like 15 seconds). This is a tricky one. You wanna make sure your mixing bowls are microwave safe if you do this, and its best to do this prior to adding your eggs. I have had this save a muffin batter before, if the coconut oil has just partially solidified.
Muffins on a counter with lemon slices next to it.

Now that you’re armed with tips, ready to make some Lemon Chia Oat Muffins? 🙂

To begin, preheat your oven to 350 and either line a muffin pan with cupcake liners or spray with non-stick spray.

In a small mixing bowl, combine your dry ingredients (oat flour, baking soda, salt).

Next, in a large mixing bowl, whisk your sugar, applesauce, and coconut oil together till creamy. Add in your lemon juice (I like this squeezer), lemon zest (the most important ingredient for great lemon flavor!), almond milk, vanilla and eggs and whisk together.

Pour your dry ingredients into your wet ingredients and stir them together till everything is completely combined. Add in your chia seeds and fold them into your batter. Scoop your batter into your muffin pan, filling each cavity about 2/3 way full.

Bake in the oven for 15-16 minutes, or till the tops of the muffins are springy to touch and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

A muffin cut in half, with other muffins and lemon slices around it.

Let them cool for a bit, then take a big bite out of sunshine! 🙂

I hope you bake these Lemon Chia Oat Muffins up this Spring or Summer and fall in love with them as much as my family did! My son and husband were big fans of these. 🙂

Can’t get enough of lemon? Check out my gluten-free Lemon Cookies, gluten-free Lemon Strawberry Thumbprint Cookies or gluten-free Lemon Pancakes.

4.8 from 20 votes
Print
Lemon Chia Oat Muffins (gluten-free, dairy-free, flourless)
Prep Time
15 mins
Cook Time
18 mins
Total Time
33 mins
 
Servings: 12 muffins
Calories: 185 kcal
Ingredients
  • 1 3/4 cup oat flour (certified gluten-free)
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup applesauce
  • 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted (or butter)
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
  • zest of 2 lemons
  • 2 tbsp almond milk (or milk of choice)
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tbsp chia seeds
Instructions
  1. Preheat your oven to 350 and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners, or spray with non-stick spray.

  2. In a small mixing bowl, stir together your dry ingredients (oat flour, baking soda, salt).

  3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together your sugar, applesauce and coconut oil. Add your lemon juice, lemon zest, milk, vanilla, and eggs, and whisk together until everything is well combined. 

  4. Pour your dry ingredients into your wet ingredients and stir them together. Add in your chia seeds, fold them into your batter, till everything is well incorporated. Scoop into your muffin tin, filling each cavity about 2/3 way full.

  5. Bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes, or till the tops of the muffins are springy to touch, and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

  6. Devour!

Recipe Notes

Stored in an airtight container in the fridge these muffins last about a week. Or, on the counter for a few days.

All Recipes, Breakfast, Gluten-free & Dairy-free, Muffins, Spring Breakfast, Summer Breakfast

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Mona Moon says

    August 15, 2024 at 8:03 pm

    Amazing recipe!

    I made a few substitutions based on my pantry – coconut sugar for white sugar, 1 banana for the applesauce, and 4Tbsp coconut oil + 4 Tbsp vegan butter for the 1/2 cup coconut oil.

    Reply
  2. Beth says

    March 23, 2024 at 12:36 am

    LOVE these! We’re not gluten-free, but trying to eat healthier and I’m trying recipes to serve to gluten-free guests. I will definitely make these again!

    Reply
  3. Dottie Ricketson says

    October 13, 2023 at 10:06 pm

    We’ll I live at 7500’ so quite a bit higher than you and they did not rise at all and fell apart when taking out of muffin tin…but man they taste good so I’ll be eating them out of a bowl until they’re gone! The combo of gf and high altitude is quite a challenge and occasionally I find recipes that work but often have failures!

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      November 25, 2023 at 4:09 pm

      Hi Dottie. I’m sorry to hear that. What kind of oat flour did you use?

      Reply
  4. Stacy says

    April 11, 2023 at 5:55 pm

    Best GF muffin (or any muffin really) recipe I’ve ever baked. I substitute a couple teaspoons of stevia instead of real sugar and add a mashed ripe banana to the mix. I just grind up oats to make the flour. So moist and amazing. Have made them a few times and will continue to regularly! Thank you!!!!

    Reply
    • Jordan says

      September 25, 2023 at 11:17 pm

      Stacy I’d like to try Stevia too. Do you use liquid Stevia? And one banana?

      Reply
  5. Ruby says

    March 1, 2023 at 6:21 pm

    LOVE this recipe and have made these muffins many times.
    Today I happen to make them on a particularly cold day and noticed that the oil solidified before i could put the batter into the pan. Would you be so kind to recommend an oil alternative?
    Thank you.

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      March 1, 2023 at 7:01 pm

      Hi Ruby. Yes (you can use butter) but you may also want to try them with olive oil. I haven’t made them that way, but I think it just might work.

      Reply
  6. Kelly Denzler says

    July 17, 2022 at 6:02 pm

    I’ve made these multiple times and they’re great! My only complaint is that they are VERY fragile/crumbly and fall apart easily. One time I didn’t have lemons, so I used a mix of bottled lemon juice and lemon extract, which worked great!

    Reply
  7. Kristin says

    May 5, 2022 at 4:41 pm

    These are delicious! I’m glad I took the chance and doubled the batch. All my boys love them, and so do I! Thank you!!

    Reply
  8. Mai says

    April 26, 2022 at 5:07 am

    Finally found a great oat flour muffin recipe. Thank you for sharing.

    Reply
  9. Robyn says

    April 14, 2022 at 12:00 am

    Hi! Do you think I could use oat bran instead of oat flour?

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      April 18, 2022 at 4:48 pm

      Hi Robyn. I’m not really familiar with oat bran, so I’m not sure if that would work well. My guess is that you would need to do a blend of regular flour and oat bran (or oat flour and oat bran), assuming just oat bran would be too crumbly. Sorry I can’t be more helpful!

      Reply
  10. Pam says

    April 2, 2022 at 12:02 am

    I love this recipe! I am allergic to wheat, dairy, and eggs. I used Bob’s Red Mill gluten free 1:1 flour and the same company’s egg replacer instead of the eggs in the recipe. The muffins turned out great!

    Reply
  11. Sarah says

    March 16, 2022 at 4:21 pm

    The texture is really nice but mine had NO lemon flavor. I didn’t have lemon zest but I used 3 tbs of lemon juice. Could that be why?

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      March 17, 2022 at 1:57 am

      Yes! Lemon zest is the key to strong lemon flavor.

      Reply
  12. Courtney says

    March 1, 2022 at 11:32 pm

    Hey,
    I’m really looking forward to trying these but I wanted to ask you if I can use a gluten free flour blend?? If so, how much should I use?
    Thanks in advance!
    -Courtney

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      March 2, 2022 at 5:11 pm

      Hi Courtney. Yes, a gluten-free all purpose flour blend should work in place of the oat flour just fine. I like King Arthur’s Measure for Measure or Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1. Hope this helps!

      Reply
      • Courtney says

        March 6, 2022 at 6:03 am

        Made these today and they turned out AMAZING!
        Thank you thank you thank you!

        Reply
        • Chelsea Green says

          March 10, 2022 at 2:51 am

          Awesome, so great to hear, thanks Courtney!

          Reply
  13. Camilla says

    February 7, 2022 at 11:30 pm

    Hi!

    I love this recipe and I can’t wait to try them!
    A couple of questions though: what can I substitute applesauce with? And I can’t eat sugar, can I replace it with honey instead? If yes, how much honey can I use? And if not, can I use a sweetener like stevia? How much of it should I use?

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      February 8, 2022 at 4:58 pm

      Hi Camilla. You could try substituting the applesauce with banana instead, but you’ll get a bit of banana flavor as well (so that’s why applesauce is best). Instead of sugar, you could try using 1/3 cup of honey and see if that would work! I think it should work well. I hope this helps!

      Reply
  14. Colleen says

    October 28, 2021 at 7:13 pm

    I’ve made this recipe several times and love these! However mine are always flat, they do not round up. Any suggestions? I live at 7800 feet.

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      October 30, 2021 at 5:24 pm

      Hi Colleen. Great question! Have you watched them in the oven by any chance? Do they puff up and then they flatten after baking? Or not puff up much at all? The acid from the lemon juice interacting with the baking soda is a tricky balance. These muffins in particular have a slightly rounded top for me, but not nearly as round as other muffin recipes.

      Reply
      • Colleen says

        December 22, 2021 at 7:20 pm

        Thanks Chelsea! They are delicious anyway!

        Reply
  15. Lindsey says

    October 5, 2021 at 1:06 am

    I’ve made these twice now and they are really really good! I never have store-bought oat flour, so I use regular gluten-free oats and whiz them up in my food processor. I can definitely see how store-bought oat flour would make fluffier muffins, but it’s really good anyway! The flavor is outstanding. Just the right amount of lemon! sometime I want to try making a lime coconut version… I think it would be delicious! Just swap out the lemon for lime and add some shaved coconut on top! Maybe next time!

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      October 6, 2021 at 7:38 pm

      Awesome, thanks for the comment Lindsey! 🙂 And I love the idea of coconut on top!!

      Reply
    • Kayla says

      January 27, 2022 at 2:52 pm

      Wow! Love the lime idea!!

      Reply
  16. Cherie says

    July 30, 2021 at 5:25 am

    Just made these and Oh my goodness! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. Hands down the best gluten free, almost vegan, muffin recipe I have ever tried. Perfect in every way. I didn’t have apple sauce, so substituted with coconut yogurt, successfully. Thanks again!

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      August 1, 2021 at 2:16 am

      Awesome! Thanks, Cherie, that’s so great to hear!

      Reply
  17. Ana says

    July 24, 2021 at 9:32 am

    Can you substitute the oat flour for like coconut or almond flour?

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      July 24, 2021 at 2:52 pm

      Hi Ana. No, you cannot. If you don’t/can’t use oat flour instead you could use an all purpose gluten-free flour in it’s place. I hope this helps!

      Reply
  18. Chrisna says

    June 23, 2021 at 8:03 pm

    Can’t wait to try this recipe!
    Can I use baking powder instead of baking soda?
    Can the muffins be frozen?

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      June 24, 2021 at 9:30 pm

      Hi Chrisna. I would not recommend using baking powder instead of baking soda, however you could try it (you would have to use roughly triple the amount of baking powder in it’s place). And yes they freeze great for a few months!

      Reply
  19. Mary says

    June 8, 2021 at 3:32 am

    Can you use something other than sugar Eg maple syrup? You also mentioned home made oat flour wont stick as well. Why is that? What can I use along side home made oat flour? Thanks!

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      June 9, 2021 at 3:45 pm

      Hi Mary. Homemade oat flour is really hard to get as fine as store bought oat flour. If you have homemade oat flour you’d like to use, and if you are sure it’s fine enough, then go ahead and try it! If you aren’t sure, I’d recommend using about 1 cup of homemade oat flour and 3/4 cup of an all purpose flour (gluten-free or not). I also haven’t tried making these without white sugar, but I think you could try and replace the 1/2 cup of white sugar with 1/3 cup of maple syrup instead and that should work. I hope those changes work well for you!

      Reply
  20. Catherine M says

    May 20, 2021 at 3:42 am

    I made a full recipe thinking I would share them with my office. SO GOOD.

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      May 21, 2021 at 8:17 pm

      Awesome!! Thank you Catherine 🙂

      Reply
  21. Paula says

    April 10, 2021 at 10:49 pm

    Mine didn’t turn out well at all, they didn’t even rise…

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      April 13, 2021 at 2:18 am

      I’m so sorry to hear that Paula! Did you use homemade oat flour or store bought?

      Reply
      • Angela says

        September 8, 2021 at 11:12 pm

        I used homemade oat flour – they didn’t rise but they still baked! And they were very good! Chelsea, would you recommend increasing the baking soda for muffins made with homemade oat flour ?

        Reply
        • Chelsea Green says

          September 13, 2021 at 10:24 pm

          Hi Angela. They should still rise even with the homemade oat flour. That being said, these muffins are pretty hearty so they don’t rise a lot, there should be just a slight dome to the top. If there isn’t, you can try adding 1 tsp of baking powder to start and see if that helps!

          Reply
  22. Brittany says

    January 3, 2021 at 12:41 am

    These were delicious! I added frozen blueberries, used egg replacer and used half the sugar. Everyone in the family loved them.

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      January 3, 2021 at 9:22 pm

      Awesome, thanks Brittany!

      Reply
    • Allie says

      March 30, 2021 at 1:27 pm

      What egg replacer did you use? Flax?

      Reply
  23. Michelle says

    October 12, 2020 at 8:41 pm

    Wow I love this recipe!!!! I made it into a loaf and it came out delicious. I even used homey instead of sugar and only used half the amount and used less coconut oil. Still was Awesome 😊 Thank you. I will make often.

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      October 15, 2020 at 1:26 am

      Great to hear, thanks Michelle!

      Reply
  24. Chelsea says

    June 17, 2020 at 7:44 pm

    BEST MUFFINS EVER!! I never review food, but these were just too good to not review!

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      June 19, 2020 at 1:47 am

      Yay! Thanks for the sweet comment Chelsea!

      Reply
  25. Mary VanEgdom says

    May 13, 2020 at 11:51 am

    Can I make my own oat flour by grinding oatmeal?

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      May 13, 2020 at 2:34 pm

      Yes, you can Mary! I recommend using a food processor or high powered blender for it. Granted, I’ve found that the oat flour you find in the store will help the muffins stick together a little better together than the homemade oat flour, but homemade oat flour still works fine.

      Reply
  26. Sue says

    April 27, 2020 at 6:55 pm

    Hi. This recipe sounds so yummy!!! Can canola oil be substituted for the coconut oil, I heard that coconut oil as a lot of saturated fat. Thanks

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      April 28, 2020 at 1:42 am

      Hi Sue. The other thing I recommend to use instead of coconut oil is butter. I would assume that canola oil can be used as well, although I’ve never used it myself, it should work. Hope you enjoy!

      Reply
  27. Kay says

    April 18, 2020 at 10:19 pm

    These are amazing! We did reduce the sugar by half to make them a bit healthier and they still turned out perfect and plenty sweet enough for us. Definitely making another batch! Thanks for the recipe!

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      April 19, 2020 at 3:42 pm

      I’m happy to hear that, Kay! Thanks for writing that comment. Love that you did even less sugar too!

      Reply
  28. Lisa Maciolek says

    April 18, 2020 at 11:55 am

    Can you make this in a loaf pan?

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      April 19, 2020 at 3:49 pm

      Hi Lisa, Yes you could make the muffins in a loaf pan instead and just increase the baking time. I do think though that oat muffins have a bit of a better texture than oat bread, so that’s why I typically share oat muffin recipes. Hope this helps!

      Reply
  29. Kelly says

    March 29, 2020 at 5:58 am

    Hey there! Tried these today and loved the recipe! Do these freeze well?

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      March 30, 2020 at 1:46 am

      Thanks Kelly! Yes, those should freeze great! Just let them defrost in the fridge.

      Reply
  30. Melissa says

    January 9, 2020 at 6:21 am

    Hi, so I have to avoid eggs for my little one as well. I usually substitute eggs with applesauce. Do you think I could do that here even though this recipe calls for applesauce as another ingredient? Thank you.

    Reply
    • Chelsea Green says

      January 9, 2020 at 3:50 pm

      Hi Melissa – I haven’t done that, so my best guess is that the muffins would be a little more dense but should still turn out okay. You may also want to try them with flax or chia eggs too, I’ve heard from others that those work well! Hope that helps.

      Reply
    • Randi says

      March 27, 2021 at 2:23 am

      How did the recipe turn out without eggs?

      Reply
    • Nancy says

      April 30, 2021 at 11:08 pm

      You could use EnerG Egg Replacer. You can also use whipped banana or whipped boiled potato in place of egg. I am egg allergic and I have used all of these options in the past to bake.

      Reply
      • Sue says

        June 18, 2021 at 10:54 am

        How much banana what I use in place of eggs do you use ripe bananas really riipe

        Reply
      • Connie Martin says

        July 19, 2021 at 3:25 pm

        Excellent, I did use less coconut oil then recommended; 1/3 cup. Still came out very moist. I used regular oatmeal , then placed in the food processor to ground it. Love the texture with less refining of the oatmeal.

        Reply

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