Healthy Banana Carrot Muffins (No Eggs, No Dairy)
These Banana Carrot Muffins are healthy low-sugar muffins naturally sweetened with banana, and maple syrup and loaded with shredded carrots.
Bonus, these healthy muffins are also egg-free, dairy-free, vegan approved, and suitable for kids’ lunchboxes.
What Are Banana Carrot Muffins?
Banana carrot muffins are healthy banana muffins with added shredded carrots.
Plus, this recipe version is naturally:
- Vegan
- Egg-free
- Dairy-free
- Refined sugar-free
- Low-sugar
How To Make Healthy Banana Carrot Muffins
It’s is very easy to make these muffins in less than 20 minutes, and they are perfect to use leftover shredded carrots and ripe bananas.
Ingredients
The ingredients you need to make 12 muffins are:
- White whole wheat flour or all-purpose flour, or white spelt flour. These three flour options work very well. However, the recipe won’t work using almond flour or coconut flour.
- Baking soda
- Cinnamon – if you are making this recipe for kids under 1 year of age, don’t add cinnamon. Cinnamon is not safe for babies and small kids.
- Salt
- Mashed bananas
- Almond milk
- Maple syrup
- Vanilla extract
- Light Olive oil or melted coconut oil.
- Shredded carrots
- Chopped pecans – optional but delicious. Also, nuts can be a choking hazard for small kids, so skip the nuts for kids under 1 year old. You can replace them with chocolate chips or skip them.
Preparing carrots and bananas
First, peel and mash the ripe bananas on a chopping board and measure the exact amount required by the recipe. Set aside in a bowl.
Next, trim the carrot ends, peel off carrot skins and discard. In a food processor, using the thinner grater tool, shred the carrots.
Measure the amount needed in the recipe and set it aside in a bowl.
Combining Ingredients
In a mixing bowl, place the mashed bananas with almond milk, maple syrup, and olive oil. Whisk to combine.
Then, stir in vanilla and shredded carrots. Set it aside.
In another mixing bowl, whisk all the dry ingredients together: flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
Finally, stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until it forms a thick muffin batter.
Preparing the pan
Lay 12 muffin paper cups into a 12-hole muffin tin. Spray some oil in the paper cups to prevent the batter from sticking to the paper.
Finally, fill each muffin paper liner up to 3/4 of its volume with the banana carrot muffin batter.
Baking
Bake the muffins in the center rack of the oven at 430°F (220°C) for 5 minutes, then decrease to 355°F (180°C) and keep baking for 20 minutes.
Insert a pick in the center of one muffin to check if they are ready to come out of the oven. If the pick comes out with a little to no crumb on it, it is baked through.
Cool the muffins down on a cooling rack for at least 1 hour to enjoy their best flavors and texture.
Muffin Add-Ons
Feel free to play with this recipe and add some ingredients to boost their sweetness or flavors. Great additions are:
- Brown sugar or coconut sugar – if you have a sweet tooth, add 2-3 tablespoons of granulated sugar with the liquid ingredients in the first step.
- Chocolate chips – swap the pecans for the chocolate chips or add half of each ingredient.
- Seeds – sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds add a nice crunch and many plant-based proteins to your muffins.
- Old-fashioned rolled oats – to boost your fiber and proteins, add some cereals and turn these into healthy breakfast banana muffins. The best way to do so is to reduce the flour to 1 1/2 cups and add 1/4 to 1/3 cup of rolled oats to the muffins. Reducing flour prevents the muffins from getting too dry as the oats will soak up liquid more than all-purpose flour.
Storage Instructions
Store the muffins in an airtight muffin box in the fridge for up to 5 days.
You can also freeze the muffins and thaw them at room temperature the day before eating.
Healthy Carrot Muffin
These carrot banana muffins are much healthier than any regular muffins around or from the grocery store.
First, they contain no refined sugar and only a small amount of sweetener to keep the sugar per serving very low.
In fact, one of these banana muffins contains only 1 teaspoon of sugar, mostly natural sugar from bananas.
Then, the muffins are full of healthy fats from olive oil, adding omega-3 and omega-6 to your baked goods.
Finally, these banana muffins are loaded with carrots and add a good portion of vegetables to your morning!
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I Add Zucchinis?
Yes, you can make banana carrot zucchini muffins using the same recipe.
To do so, swap the chopped pecan for shredded zucchinis. Since zucchinis are made of water at 95%, it’s recommended to drain the shredded zucchinis in a clean kitchen towel before measuring and adding to the batter.
This extra step prevents adding water to the muffin batter that would make the muffins lose or too moist.
Can I Make It Gluten-Free?
This recipe works with all-purpose gluten-free flour blends that contain gum.
Replace all-purpose flour with the same amount of gluten-free flour blend to make gluten-free banana muffins with carrots.
Gluten-free flours that could also work are chickpea flour and buckwheat flour, but the texture will be much denser.
This recipe won’t work with low-carb flour like almond flour or coconut flour because it takes eggs to bind these flours.
More Banana Recipes
Ripe banana recipes are very convenient for using leftover bananas sitting on the kitchen counter. It’s also a great way to naturally sweeten baby recipes without adding sugar.
Below I listed my favorite ripe banana recipes for you to try.
Don’t forget to check all my Ripe Banana Recipes ideas for more ways to use those ripe bananas!
Have you made these banana carrot muffins? Share a review or comment below to let me know how it turns out!
Banana Carrot Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cup White Wholewheat Flour - all-purpose flour or spelt flour. Essential guide to measuring flour.
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda - or 2 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon Cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- 1 cup Mashed Bananas - about 3 small ripe bananas
- 2 tablespoons Light Olive Oil - or vegetable oil or melted coconut oil
- 5 tablespoons Unsweetened Almond Milk - at room temperature
- ⅓ cup Maple Syrup
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
- 1 cup Shredded Carrot
Optional
- ½ cup Chopped Walnuts
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a 12-hole muffin pan with muffin paper cups and spray the liner with oil to prevent the muffins from sticking to the paper. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk all the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.
- In another bowl, whisk mashed bananas, olive oil, almond milk, maple syrup, vanilla extract, and shredded carrots.
- Slowly stir in the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined. Fold in chopped nuts if used.
- Fill each muffin paper cup up to 3/4 of their level.
- Bake in the center rack of the oven for about 25 minutes – 30 minutes, or until a pick inserted in the center of the banana carrot muffins comes out clean.
- Cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then transfer to a cooling rack and cool for a few hours to enjoy their best texture.
Storage
- Store in a cake box in the fridge for up to 4 days or freeze them.
These muffins look marvelous, Katherine!! The nuts on top look extra yummy and you can see how perfect the muffin texture is underneath, it’s making me hungry!
Not my favorite. Only changes I made were subbing maple syrup for agave syrup & adding a 1/2 cup of walnuts. Personally, I found them to be too sweet, so maybe next time I will reduce the amount of sweetener or add extra spices. My family loved them though! I froze about half the dozen, and they defrosted beautifully. I will probably try more recipes from this website, just not this recipe in particular!
You can definitely decrease the sweetener, they may be a bit dryer with less liquid in the batter. Enjoy.