Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Oat Muffins (gluten-free, dairy-free option)

Soft, moist homemade Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Oat Muffins made with oat flour, applesauce, pumpkin puree.. and a few chocolate chips! 🙂

Have you ever had “oat muffins” before?

If you’ve made any of my other muffin recipes, chances are you have! Oat muffins can be muffins that have added oats in them, or are made completely with oats/oat flour instead of regular flour. Mine are the latter, arguably making them “flourless.”

Like my Apple Cinnamon Oat Muffins, Banana Nut Oat Muffins, Lemon Chia Oat Muffins, Orange Carrot Oat Muffins, Zucchini Oat Muffins… to name a few!

Why make oat muffins? Because oats give you extra fiber and help you feel full longer. They’re a simple, healthy alternative to gluten-free all purpose flour, if you use certified gluten-free oat flour and/or oats. They also add a little bit of a dense texture to muffins making them incredibly moist and hearty.

My kids typically love my homemade muffins. But, I haven’t been baking as much lately and my kids have been in a bit of a rut.

My daughter, who’s 2, is getting her molars. YIKES. Which is a recipe for one hangry, sensitive toddler. I think molars are one of the main causes of “terrible two’s.” 😉

Anyway, you know what makes my daughter happy? Besides cheese and applesauce, chocolate chips are her absolute favorite.

So I took the best Snickerdoodle Pumpkin Muffins and turned them into Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Oat Muffins. These muffins are filled with good-for-you ingredients like oat flour, applesauce (for less sugar!), a little coconut oil, and pumpkin puree.

And let’s not forget pumpkin pie spices and chocolate chips, for the ultimate homemade, gluten-free, Fall breakfast!

Here’s a few tips to make some yummy, homemade muffins!

First of all, be sure to use pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling. It’s so easy to accidentally get the wrong thing at the store (or is that just me!?), so I think it’s worth saying.

Next, applesauce, sweetened or unsweetened? What do I recommend? Either. Just be sure it’s fresh and hasn’t sat in the back of your fridge for too long.

The applesauce adds a great lightly sweetened flavor to these Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Oat Muffins, so they aren’t overly sugar-y and too much for breakfast. It also helps make these muffins a little extra moist.

For the oat flour, I recommend buying it rather than making it your own, for the sake of ease and to ensure your baked goods turn out and aren’t a crumbly mess. 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. My blender does a great job blending up oats, but my food processor does not blend my oats up fine enough.

Not dairy-free? Or a big coconut fan? Go ahead, you can use butter instead of coconut oil then! I prefer using coconut oil over butter, but I also love coconut so the flavor doesn’t stand out to me in a weird way.

Dairy-free? Easy peasy my friends. Just use coconut oil and be sure to use dairy-free chocolate chips, or you can omit them entirely if you’d like.

I think that about wraps it up! Because these muffins are a little dense and so moist, be sure to do a toothpick test on them to make sure they’re done. Just stick a toothpick into the center, quickly remove it, and be sure no muffin is sticking to the toothpick. Your muffins are done then! 🙂

Yum, the chocolate with pumpkin and spices gets me drooling every time. I used large chocolate chips this time too, and the pools of chocolate that those babies make are irresistible!

If you want a healthy, homemade, Fall breakfast: make the muffins. Enjoy. Repeat. 😉

Need more Fall recipes though? I’d recommend my gluten-free Apple Cinnamon Bread, Snickerdoodle Cupcakes, and Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookies.