These Pumpkin Banana Muffins are a great healthy Fall breakfast! They’re mostly sweetened with banana, and made with less butter, with pumpkin puree instead. They’re a fluffy, banana-filled, easy breakfast to bake that kids and adults will love.
What’s better: pumpkin or banana?
Yikes! That’s a hard question to answer. I love love love banana in baked goods. But pumpkin?! So good too. Especially with pumpkin spice. They both are healthy additions to any baked goods too.
So what if you put them together?! Then you get these healthy and fluffy Pumpkin Banana Muffins.
These muffins are SO good! They’re nice and fluffy with minimal sugar and less butter. They have a strong banana flavor with a hint of spices.
This recipe is pretty flexible too, so they can be made gluten-free and dairy-free too.
So maybe you’re looking for a healthy Fall muffin recipe? Or, just a veggie-filled, lightly sweetened breakfast? After all, pumpkin puree makes these muffins full of veggies. Either way, you’ll love these muffins. They’re nice and simple, and if you want to jazz them up a bit there’s a few options too.
Keep reading, for more information about making these yummy muffins!
First, let’s chat about banana.
The most important part about these muffins is using brown, overripe bananas. The more brown they are, the more sweet the muffins will be!
Do you have bananas that aren’t quite ripe enough yet? Put them in a brown paper bag for a few days. It’s not a super quick fix. But, it’s my favorite way to speed up the process just a bit, with good results.
Other than banana, these Pumpkin Banana Muffins are sweetened with only 1/4 cup of brown sugar. If you prefer baked goods that are more naturally sweetened, then these are the muffins for you!
I would not recommend using any other sugar in place of the brown sugar, or these muffins will not be sweet enough. Unless you are used to food tasting naturally sweetened, then you could use coconut sugar instead.
Want something a little sweeter?
With a little more pizzazz? I’ve got a few ideas about how you can take these muffins to the next level:
- Pumpkin Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins: add about 3/4 cup of your favorite chocolate chips to your muffin batter. Semi-sweet, milk, dark, or even butterscotch or cinnamon chips would be great!
- Pumpkin Banana Cinnamon Sugar Muffins: sprinkle a cinnamon sugar topping across the tops of the muffins, prior to baking. I recommend using 2 tbsp of sugar and 1/4 tsp cinnamon, stirred together.
- Pumpkin Banana Nut Muffins: add about 3/4 cup pecans and/or walnuts to your muffin batter.
- Or, all of the above! Add 1/2 cup of chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of nuts to your batter, and top your muffin batter with cinnamon sugar. Everything but the kitchen sink I guess. Delicious!
These muffins can be made with regular flour, or to make them gluten-free you can use a gluten-free all purpose flour. You could also use oat flour (certified gluten-free, if necessary) for extra hearty muffins.
Or, you could do a combination of oat flour and all purpose flour (say 1 cup of oat flour and 3/4 cup of all purpose flour). I would not recommend any other flours instead (like almond, coconut, etc.) unless you are experienced with substituting with those flours.
To make these muffins dairy-free, simply use coconut oil or a dairy-free butter alternative.
And if you don’t have pumpkin pie spice, these muffins are also fabulous with just cinnamon instead. Be sure to use a high quality spice for a stronger taste though!
These Pumpkin Banana Muffins are pretty simple to make. They’re quick, easy, fluffy, veggie-filled and lightly sweetened. I hope you all love them as much as I do! 🙂
And if you make them, let me know what you think. I’d love to see your creations on Instagram, or hear from you in a comment, below.
While you’re here, might as well check out some other Fall recipes too!:
- Apple Cider Cupcakes
- Pumpkin Coffee Cake
- Double Chocolate Pumpkin Oat Muffins
- Maple Pecan Oatmeal Cookies
- Pumpkin Oatmeal Bread
- 1 3/4 cup gluten-free all purpose flour (regular flour or oat flour)
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1/4 cup butter, softened (or coconut oil, for dairy-free)
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 3/4 cup overripe banana, mashed (1-1 1/2 bananas)
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 eggs
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To begin, preheat your oven to 350 and spray a muffin pan with non-stick spray.
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To a small mixing bowl, add your flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and pumpkin pie spice and stir them together.
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To a large mixing bowl, add your butter and brown sugar and beat them together with a mixer till creamy. Add your banana, pumpkin puree and vanilla and mix together again. Last, add your eggs and briefly blend them in.
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Add your dry ingredients to your wet ingredients and stir together till you have a smooth muffin batter. Scoop into your muffin tin, filling each cavity about 2/3 full with batter.
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Bake in the oven for 20-22 minutes, or till the muffins are springy to touch and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
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Let cool, then devour!
Stored in an airtight container in the fridge, these muffins last about a week.
these will be so bussin bussin
Hi Jen. Sorry for the late response. I would not recommend substituting almond flour for these muffins, I would be worried they would get too dense or gummy with pumpkin, banana and almond flour.
Can protein powder be added to this recipe.
Hi Adele. I would recommend substituting 1/4-1/2 cup of the flour with protein powder, but be sure to use one that works for baking. It should work well!
They are in the oven now.
They smelled divine I’m sure they’re going to be just supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
I followed the recipe using Namaste GF flour, melted coconut oil and Swerve brown sugar. I also added chocolate chips. They turned out fluffy and moist! This recipe is a keeper!
Hint:
Add cupcake liners and then spray with oil. They pop out beautifully
Hi! Am I able to omit the egg yolk and just use egg white? If not is there another substitution? (And if so what would be the measurement)
Hi Kennedy. I haven’t tried it like that, but I’d think it WOULD work with the amount of pumpkin and banana, so the muffins wouldn’t be dry. I’d recommend trying 2 egg whites instead of one whole egg (so 4 egg whites for this recipe). Hope it works!
This was so easy to make and the muffins were very delicious! I will keep this recipe in my regulars!
I make these muffins sugar free all the time, the bananas add enough sweetness.
I also use olive oil instead of the butter. The oat flour makes them gluten free.
They are so good!!
My first time I made this, I substituted the butter for addictional pumpkin, delicious! I will try your suggestion and reduce the sugar! Thanks!
Can I make these without the sugar?
Hi Jennifer. I would not recommend making these entirely sugar free, unless you are already used to eating sugar free baked goods and don’t mind a less sweet taste.
So delicious!!