Filled with bright lemon flavor and chia seeds throughout, these healthy oat-based muffins make a great Spring or Summer breakfast!
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.
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.
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.
- 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
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Preheat your oven to 350 and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners, or spray with non-stick spray.
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In a small mixing bowl, stir together your dry ingredients (oat flour, baking soda, salt).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Devour!
Stored in an airtight container in the fridge these muffins last about a week. Or, on the counter for a few days.
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.
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!
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!
Hi Dottie. I’m sorry to hear that. What kind of oat flour did you use?
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!!!!
Stacy I’d like to try Stevia too. Do you use liquid Stevia? And one banana?
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.
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.
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!
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!!
Finally found a great oat flour muffin recipe. Thank you for sharing.
Hi! Do you think I could use oat bran instead of oat flour?
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!
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!
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?
Yes! Lemon zest is the key to strong lemon flavor.
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
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!
Made these today and they turned out AMAZING!
Thank you thank you thank you!
Awesome, so great to hear, thanks Courtney!
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?
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!
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.
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.
Thanks Chelsea! They are delicious anyway!
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!
Awesome, thanks for the comment Lindsey! 🙂 And I love the idea of coconut on top!!
Wow! Love the lime idea!!
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!
Awesome! Thanks, Cherie, that’s so great to hear!
Can you substitute the oat flour for like coconut or almond flour?
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!
Can’t wait to try this recipe!
Can I use baking powder instead of baking soda?
Can the muffins be frozen?
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!
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!
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!
I made a full recipe thinking I would share them with my office. SO GOOD.
Awesome!! Thank you Catherine 🙂
Mine didn’t turn out well at all, they didn’t even rise…
I’m so sorry to hear that Paula! Did you use homemade oat flour or store bought?
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 ?
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!
These were delicious! I added frozen blueberries, used egg replacer and used half the sugar. Everyone in the family loved them.
Awesome, thanks Brittany!
What egg replacer did you use? Flax?
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.
Great to hear, thanks Michelle!
BEST MUFFINS EVER!! I never review food, but these were just too good to not review!
Yay! Thanks for the sweet comment Chelsea!
Can I make my own oat flour by grinding oatmeal?
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.
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
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!
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!
I’m happy to hear that, Kay! Thanks for writing that comment. Love that you did even less sugar too!
Can you make this in a loaf pan?
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!
Hey there! Tried these today and loved the recipe! Do these freeze well?
Thanks Kelly! Yes, those should freeze great! Just let them defrost in the fridge.
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.
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.
How did the recipe turn out without eggs?
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.
How much banana what I use in place of eggs do you use ripe bananas really riipe
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.