Vegan Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins (Healthy + Easy)
Vegan Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins are a healthy fan-favorite recipe that’s easy to make with just 8 simple ingredients. They bake up moist, tender, and delicious!
Today is a muffin day, a healthy banana chocolate chip muffin day! So, with a few bananas on hand, ripe as can be, I decided to put them into these kid-friendly vegan muffins.
I wanted to make them banana nut muffins, but since my daughter doesn’t care for nuts, I went ahead and added chocolate chips instead.
In her opinion, those are much better, and I’m sure many of you will agree. Who doesn’t like a little chocolate in their banana muffins?
Why We Love This Recipe!
- Healthy. This muffin recipe is based on my dairy and egg-free Vegan Banana Bread. I cut the oil a bit, only using 1/4 cup, making them a little healthier. They came out perfectly soft and fluffy, and the gooey chocolate chips are a welcome addition.
- Quick + easy to make. These muffins are super simple and ready in a cinch using overripe bananas and a few pantry ingredients.
- Great for snacking. These vegan muffins are great for breakfast or a healthy snack throughout the day. They get eaten up quickly around our home, and I’m sure you will love them too!
How To Make Vegan Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
Here is a quick overview of the process with photos for reference:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium/large mixing bowl.
- In another bowl, combine the oil, milk, vanilla, and sugar. Mash the bananas.
- Grab your chocolate chips, they will be warm and gooey soon!
- Add the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients. Fold in the chocolate chips, careful not to over-mix.
- Scoop the batter and place it in lined muffin tins (shown above). Add a few extra chocolate chips on top if you like.
- Bake until golden, about 20 – 25 minutes (shown above), while enjoying how delicious your home is starting to smell!
- Let them cool for a few minutes, and eat them up. YUM!!
Baking Tips!
- Spoon instead of scoop the flour. When measuring the flour, don’t scoop it out of the container with the measuring cup. Instead, spoon it into your measuring cup, leveling it off with the back of a knife.
- Don’t overmix the batter. Instead, stir just until combined, no more, for the most tender muffins.
- Oil-Free. To make these muffins oil-free, use unsweetened applesauce instead.
- Add extra flavor. For variation, try adding 1 tsp of cinnamon to the dry ingredients for even more flavor.
- Use the correct oven rack position. Baking the muffins on the center rack will ensure even cooking throughout.
- To test for doneness, insert a wooden toothpick into the center of one of the muffins. The toothpick should come out clean or with a few moist crumbs clinging to it.
Recommended Equipment: I love my USA Pan Muffin Tin, and these parchment paper muffin liners (affiliate links) are great too!
How To Store
- Counter: Once completely cooled, store muffins on the counter in an airtight container lined with a paper towel for up to 3 – 4 days. The paper towel will soak up moisture and keep them from getting too moist.
- Refrigerator: Muffins will keep for up to a week in the refrigerator in a covered container.
- Freezer: These banana muffins freeze well and will stay fresh for 2 months in freezer-safe containers or baggies.
More Healthy Muffin Recipes!
- Vegan Blueberry Muffins
- 1 Bowl Banana Strawberry Muffins
- Apple-Cinnamon Muffins (GF, made with almond flour)
- Pumpkin Oat Muffins + Crumbly Topping
- Vegan Cranberry Orange Muffins
- Vegan Pumpkin Muffins
If you try this healthy banana muffin recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment and rate it below. I love to hear what you think, or any changes you make.
PrintVegan Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins (Healthy)
Made with lots of love and a sprinkle of chocolate chips, these vegan chocolate chip banana muffins are a perfect way to start the morning or enjoy as a mid-day snack!
- Prep Time: 10 min
- Cook Time: 20 min
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: Makes 10 – 12 muffins 1x
- Category: Breakfast, Bread
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: Vegan, American
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups spelt flour, or flour of choice
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup light-flavored olive oil or warmed coconut oil
- 1/4 cup unsweetened non-dairy milk (almond, oat, soy, cashew, etc.)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup organic sugar (pure cane or coconut sugar)
- 4 small or 3 large overripe bananas (about 1 1/2 cups), mashed
- 1/4 cup or so chocolate chips (I used Enjoy Life Mini)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Dry ingredients: Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium/large size bowl and set aside.
Wet ingredients: In a small bowl, mix oil, non-dairy milk, sugar and vanilla.
Banana: Mash bananas, you should have approx. 1 1/2 – 1 3/4 cups.
Combine: Add the wet ingredients and bananas to batter and mix until just combined. If the mixture seems too dry, add more non-dairy milk, maybe 1/4 cup at most.
Chocolate: Add in chocolate chips and mix briefly.
Fill muffin tin: Spoon into a well-greased or paper-lined muffin tin, fill each muffin about 2/3 – 3/4 full.
Bake: Place the muffins in the oven on the center rack and bake for 20 – 25 minutes. You can also test for doneness by inserting a toothpick into the center of one muffin; if it comes out clean, they’re ready.
Remove from oven and let cool for 10 min.
Makes about 12 muffins.
Store: Once they’ve cooled completely, store muffins in an airtight container lined with a paper towel on the counter for up to 3 – 4 days. The paper towel will soak up moisture and keep them from getting too moist. You can also store them in the refrigerator for up to a week.
Notes
To make gluten free, use gluten free all purpose flour or gluten free flour of choice.
If using coconut oil, be sure it’s warmed and creamy or in its liquid state.
Add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon to the batch for a different flavor.
I’ve made these using just the 2 teaspoons of baking powder with great results. If you don’t have baking soda on hand, you can omit it.
Spelt flour is my favorite flour and I use it exclusively for my baking projects! If you are mildly gluten intolerant you may be able to use gluten flour without any adverse effects. It is unlike most of the wheat flour of today as it is not hybridized. Here is more info on the nutritional aspect of spelt flour – Spelt flour benefits – if you’re not familiar with it.
RECOMMENDED EQUIPMENT: I love my USA Pan Muffin Tin, and these parchment paper muffin liners (affiliate links) are great too!
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I have been making this recipe for like five years and its a household fave! I’m surprised it took me this long to leave a review! we use whole wheat pastry flour and sometime I will use blueberries instead of chocolate chips! So yummy either way. Thanks for a great recipe!
This wonderful recipe really doesn’t need another review, but I did make one modification that I wanted to share. I think I read that some people had issues with the muffins being a little gooey. To counteract this possibility, I added a couple of tablespoons of organic coconut flour to the mixed batter. I think this helped b/c I’ve had issues with gluten-free recipes in the past not seeming to come together to form a bread like consistency. I hope this helps someone further enjoy this awesome recipe. It’s a keeper for sure!
P.S. My batter yielded 11 nicely domed muffins. I also added chocolate chips. Delicious!
These muffins are exactly what I was looking for! They are fast to mix up with ingredients I always have on hand, and they don’t have as much sugar as other recipes I looked at. I am a big fan of the texture too they will be my go-to muffin recipe for using up ripe bananas. Thank you!
I don’t normally comment. These muffins turned out nice and fluffy, rose and didn’t fall. Great recipe, thanks.
Hi – my daughter and I made your apple cinnamon muffins. They came out perfect and were so delicious! We have been searching for and trying recipes from different websites and yours are by far the best! We would like to make chocolate chip muffins by using your banana chocolate chip muffin recipe, but don’t know what to substitute in the for the bananas. Can you please recommend something? Thank you so much! We were really missing muffins since trying to eat healthier and are so glad to have found your healthy and delicious version! Take care –
Hi Wendy, I apologize for the delayed response. So glad your both enjoying the recipes! Makes my day :)
As for replacing the banana, I honestly don’t know since it uses quite a bit. I could try using apple sauce and see how that goes. Or maybe look around for another recipe as I don’t want to suggest the wrong replacement. If you do try the applesauce, I’d love to know how it went!
Hope that helps. Cheers :)
Hi – if I wanted to omit the bananas and just make chocolate chip muffins, what do you recommend I substituted for them? Thanks so much!!!
Hi. Is this with a fan forced oven?
Thanks :)
I just made these. I added the 1/4 cup of rice milk.
They came out amazing. The texture is perfect. I used exactly 3 bananas.
Thanks for such a great recipe.
I’m not sure if these would come out as delicious if I tried a gluten-free flour?
Wow! These were amazing,fluffy and soft, the perfect muffin concistensy. I try not to eat oil, so I used coconut butter instead (my go to substitute) and these turned out SO good! I did end up needing almond milk, but I’m definitely making these again, very simple! Thanks!
Given the fact that I have tried several different spelt recipes in the past, I wasn’t too optimistic about this one either.
I was pleasantly surprised with the results! They had risen more than my other recipes, weren’t too sweet and the combination of chocolate chips and bananas complemented each other.
One thing I had to adjust was the timing. I baked them for 17 minutes, rather than the 10-12 as suggested.
This is definitely a keeper, thank you so much for sharing!!!