Flourless banana bread muffins that are gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free, oil-free and whipped up in the blender in under 5 minutes flat!
A strange thing happened to me this past weekend… I actually found myself in the company of a pair of overly spotty bananas. And no, that’s not me trying to be cute or coy — I mean that quite literally. There I was, standing in my kitchen on Sunday afternoon, staring down a pair of too-brown bananas that were sitting on my counter, and wondering how the heck I got myself into that kind of situation.
See, too-brown bananas are a rarity around these parts… I’m more likely to run out of bananas than I am to find some that are too brown, and for a few good reasons. First, I average about 2 bananas per day, meaning that most bananas end up digested before they end up too brown. Second, I have a feeling that my definition of “too-brown” might be a little browner than the average person’s, and I don’t often come across a banana that I consider too ripe to eat as-is. But, lo and behold, I met my match…
Fortunately, when life tosses you brown bananas, you can make banana bread.
Unfortunately, the idea to do so dawned on me a little late in the day and I only had about 30 minutes to spare before I needed to run out the door to head over to my parents’ for dinner… not ideal when a loaf has to spend around 50 minutes in the oven.
Fortunately, necessity is the mother of all invention, and she birthed a pretty awesome recipe this time around.
Unfortunately, using “birthed” when referring to a recipe is probably about as appealing as relating it to… well… never mind. I should probably stop there before I lose you. I think I’ll stick to pictures instead…
It’s been a handful of months since I’ve made a batch of flourless muffins, which is a handful of months too long. I love these little buggers. This batch is a tad bit different from my previous batches in that it uses two bananas instead of one and almond flour in place of half of the almond butter, but the result is the same — a soft and fluffy muffin that tastes just like a slice of banana bread and is gluten-free, refined sugar-free, dairy-free, oil-free, and made in the blender in under 5 minutes flat.
I thought about tossing in a small handful of chocolate chips or slivered almonds, but I’m a fan of keeping things simple when it comes to banana bread, so I decided to leave them as-is. The extra banana makes a big difference when it comes to giving these muffins a banana bread feel, making them the prefect way to get a fix when you only have 15 minutes to spare.
I’d love to know if you make this recipe! Leave a comment and rating down below to let me know what you think, and subscribe to our mailing list to receive new recipes in your inbox!
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Flourless Banana Bread Muffins
- Total Time: 15 mins
- Yield: 9 muffins 1x
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup (64 g) almond butter*
- 2 ripe medium bananas (200 g or 1 cup mashed)
- 1 large egg
- 2 Tbsp (40 g) honey
- 1/2 cup (40 g) rolled oats
- 1/4 cup (28 g) almond flour/meal**
- 2 Tbsp (14 g) ground flaxseed
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375F (190C) and prepare a muffin pan by spraying 9 cavities with cooking spray. Set aside.
- Add all ingredients to a blender and blend on high until oats are broken down and batter is smooth and creamy.
- Pour batter into prepared muffin pan, filling each cavity until it is about 3/4 full.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the tops of your muffins are set and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow muffins to cool in pan for ~10 minutes before removing. Store in an air-tight container for up to a week.
Notes
* can sub with any nut/seed butter. ** can sub with 1/4 cup more oats.
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Cook Time: 10 mins
Looking for more delicious flourless muffin recipes? Try one of these!
Flourless Chocolate Chip Almond Butter Muffins
Flourless Double Chocolate Chip Muffins
Flourless Apple Cinnamon Muffins
Flourless Vegan Banana Muffins
Banana Oat Greek Yogurt Muffins
I make these all the time when I have leftover bananas. This last time I was out of almond flour and used garbanzo bean flour instead and WOW!! They were somehow even tastier and much fluffier than the almond flour ones. I’ll be using the bean flour from now on.
Thank you so much!
These are DELICIOUS!!!
I used a flax egg instead of a real egg and less honey and used a nut/coconut flour blend instead of the almond flour because that’s all I had.
I had to cook for 15-16 minutes.
This looks delicious, thank you for sharing!
can you use powdered almond butter?
No I don’t think so, Laurel. The almond butter adds a little bit of moisture and helps give the muffins structure.
You can’t taste the banana. One of the ingredients is overpowering. It may have been the almond butter I got at grocery outlet.
I came across this recipe in a google search, looking for recipes to use flaxseed. I didn’t have almond butter, so I used peanut butter instead. I also omitted the cinnamon and added mini chocolate chips instead since I thought that would go better with the peanut butter. OMG, they came out amazing! I’m sure they are a little less healthy with the chocolate chips, but still, glad to make a healthy version of banana bread that barely tastes healthy at all. Thanks again!!
Can the honey be substituted with something? I am insulan resistant and cannot use sugar, honey or syrup.
Sometimes simple is the best. This is another one I’m tagging for my kid’s birthday. Thanks for sharing.
Oops! I was finally able to rate these after my comment already posted. Thanks again!
I’m so glad you enjoyed them, Natalie! Thanks so much for taking the time to let me know 😀
I just made these and I absolutely loved them! I lucked out and happen to have a bunch of overripe bananas to use up, and these muffins were the perfect combination of flavor & ingredients I always have. I’ll definitely be making them again! Thank you 😊
UGHHHHHH
what a dilema !! I am trying to be super healthy but also I am watching my calorie intacke very carefully
these recipes are great and super healthy and packed with nutrients : however, using flour instead of flour and flax seeds and honey and so forth…. well, you do the math !!!!
i have type 1 diabetes so i always end up using stevia or splenda (sorry guys please dont kick me !!) in order to lower the sugar and calorie content
great ideas on this blog though
i always bake and my colleagues obviously love it !!!
i made these and they were amazing!!! thanks for a great recipe! 🙂
We made them with following adjustments:
1) We used maple syrup instead of honey (it’s what we had)
2) Altitude adjustment (5000+ ft above sea level) = half the baking soda (so 1/4 tsp)
3) Added 1/2 cup walnuts (chopped) at the end because a.) we DO like a good banana walnut muffin and b.) it increased the amount of muffins
NOTE: the recipe says it makes 9 muffins. Nine? Yeah… can’t divide THAT in our household equitably (well, not easily anyway) SO I added the 1/2 cup walnuts and made MINI-MUFFINS… 20 to be precise. They cook up better in the altitude and were now divisible by 4! My 12-year-old proclaimed that I need not make any other muffins than these ever again!
This tasted really nice and I really liked how I can actually taste the bananas. I used maple syrup instead of honey but left everything as is. My only problem is the muffins came out a little mushy almost? It was really moist, too moist actually. Any ideas why? It did not look like the picture at all which is disappointing because texture aside, this recipe was great.
I would try using agave as a honey substitute. It’s a lot thicker than maple syrup.
These were so good! Is there a way to add some protein powder to them?
I’m so glad you liked them, Nisha! I’m honestly not sure about the protein powder, but I’ll be experimenting with something like that soon so it might be up on the blog or in the book in the future!