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
Do you know how many calories are in the above recipe Flourless Banana break muffins (made with almond butter? They are delicious!
Thanks
Hi Jack. Each muffin has about 125 calories.
These look AMAZING! My little guy loves banana bread, so I’m sure he’s going to be excited to see these!
I made these today and had to make them egg-free for my daughter because of her allergy. I subbed 1 tbsp ground flax + 3 tablespoons water (mix together and let sit for 5 min) and it still turned out great! We added tiny chocolate chips to some but they were still delicious without. Thanks for the great recipe!
Thanks for letting me know that they work without eggs, Jen! I’m glad you and your daughter enjoyed them 🙂
I had this recipe saved for a while too and finally gave it a try. DELISH. I’m often skeptical of flourless recipes but these turned out amazing! I can’t thank you enough! You can’t even tell they’re sugar free and they have the perfect moistness! Thank you a million!
I’m glad you liked them, Shayna! Thanks so much for letting mw know 🙂
Has anyone tried these without the egg or flax? I’m not supposed to eat either, and I’m wondering if there is something I can sub in for egg or flax. With 2 bananas, would that make the muffins moist enough that i could leave out the flax?
Hi Celine! A few readers have mentioned leaving out the flaxseeds without any problems 🙂
Thanks! I’ll give it a try …….
I’ve had this recipe saved on my phone for a couple of months now, and finally, finally decided to go for it. I had the right brown-ness bananas, the almond butter, eggs and oats, then I saw that it called for almond flour, shoot! Then I saw I could sub additional oats, hooray! Then I saw the recipe calls for flaxseed, boo! But I had chia seeds, hmmm, maybe. So I went for it. I also added some chopped walnuts because I love them. What I don’t love is measuring, so I picked my battles and measured the oats and baking soda (sort of). Well… I love it when a plan comes together! And you now have a new subscriber. I’m always exciter to find new flourless recipes that dont taste like cardboard. They’re deee-lish! Thanks!
P.S. love, love, love the blog name. I must admit I’m guilty of running with spoons, and sometimes forks!
Thanks for the stellar review and sweet comment, Gracie! I’m glad that you liked them, and be careful when running with forks 😉
I stumbled upon this recipe on Pinterest and just made them they were absolutely delicious even my daughters who are picky eaters loved them. My oldest said the ingredients except the bananas sounded icky but she was pleasantly surprised. I made them within the flaxseed because I didn’t have any. I plan to double the recipe and take it to the next family dinner.
I made these yesterday and they were SO yummy. Have you tried freezing them? Would love to make a few dozen and pop them out of the freezer by the dozen as needed!
I’m glad you enjoyed them, Allison! Thanks for letting me know 🙂 I have tried freezing them and they freeze wonderfully.
This recipe it’s great! thanks so much for sharing!
Holy ever-loving perfection, Batman. This recipe is ridiculously fabulous. I feel like you should have some sort of award for awesomeness based on this one recipe alone. Love. I feel like if I gush any more about the amazing-ness of these muffins it will be borderline stalking, but they were GREAT! Thank you!
Thanks so much for this recipe! The only change I made was adding chopped nuts to the top before baking. These will make a nice addition to my breakfast.
I love the healthy ingredients in these muffins. I made them today as the recipe stated except that I used sunflower butter instead of almond butter. For some reason 4 of my muffins turned green on top. When slicing the muffin there is a thin layer of bright green. Any idea what this could be?
Hi Rita! The reason this happens is because of a chemical reaction between the sunflower seed butter and the baking soda. I’ve had muffins turn green on me when I used sunflower seed butter as well, and it’s perfectly safe to eat still… just maybe not as pretty to look at.
These were quick and easy to make. They were so moist and delicious!
I don’t know if it’s just my computer, but I can’t clearly read the numbers for the fractions in the recipe. The entire fraction shows up above the diagonal line which makes it very small to read clearly. Can you please clarify the fraction amounts? Thanks!
Sorry joanne! Here’s the recipe:
1/4 cup almond butter*
2 ripe medium/large bananas
1 egg
2 Tbsp. honey
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup almond flour/meal**
2 Tbsp. ground flaxseed
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
HI! Is there anything I can use in place of the flax seeds? Or are they necessary?
Thanks so much!
Chai or Pumpkin seeds (ground or chopped) would be a good sub.
Tasty! And couldn’t be easier to make! The only change I had to make was to cook them 5 mins longer. I love that it’s a small batch so I can make them whenever I want without excuse 🙂 And they’re not overly sweet for my 3 year old. Thanks for the terrific recipe!
I made a batch last night and my kids loved them! What is the calorie count per serving?
Hi Perla! Each muffin comes out to about 125 calories.
Heyy.. love the look of these!!.. im going to try them out in a couple of hours..
but i need to know a substitute for almond butter or basically nut butter.. Here, this is not easily available .. what else could i use in place of it..??
Thanks
Hi Lisha. Unfortunately, the nut butter is a pretty key ingredient since it helps give the muffins shape. If it’s not easily available, you could try to make your own by running raw nuts through a food processor.
Sorry, I mean, people with celiac disease!
Hey! This looks awesome, but I live in a country where I can’t find gluten-free oats. In fact all the peoplr here think that oats contain gluten, and even doctors say so. I’m probably one of the very fewest that oats, don’t actually contain gluten. But anyway, they’re not available here, so I’m wondering what can I substitute the oats with.
Besides, there are no good sugar replacements here other than honey and stevia manufactured by the same companies that make chemical sweeteners, and I don’t trust in them, and to me, honey is just another form of sugar. I’m trying to be sugar free as well, and it’s getting hard, but I’m being very adventurous with fruits and I’ve read about using fruit purees as sugar replacement for baking, which sounds awesome. I was wondering if I just take off the honey, will the flavor and sweetness of the bananas remain or the baking process cut off them?
You could probably get away with using all almond flour if you can’t find any GF oats. And if almond flour is difficult to come by as well, then you could easily make your own with raw almonds and a food processor — http://detoxinista.com/2012/04/make-your-own-cheaper-almond-flour/
As for the honey, it would be fine to leave it out, and the banana flavour would definitely still shine through, but the muffins might be a little bit less sweet.
The muffins are in the oven as I type! I’m super excited to try them. One suggestion that I have is that you show pics of the actual mixing process – or at least one picture of the batter. As you know, gluten free batter does not typically look like “regular” batter. I have found it helpful (and reassuring!) to be able to see what the blogger baker’s batter looks like. That can help pinpoint where something might have gone wrong as well (especially if, like me, people had to make substitutions…no nuts for me). Thanks for the recipe. I’m happy to have found your blog. I’ll let you know how they turned out.
Thank you for the suggestion, Vern! I’ll definitely try to include more of the ‘process’ pictures in future posts. I hope the muffins turned out for ya! 🙂
these look absolutely divine! I will be trying these very soon! Thank you for the recipe!
Are you gonna reply to me?
Hi, I am just wondering how this can be gluten free with oats in it?sIsn’t gluten from wheat oats barley n rye?
Hi Jessica! Oats are actually naturally free of gluten. The only thing is that they sometimes get cross contaminated with it during the manufacturing process. You can still find a lot of companies that offer certified GF oats though. Bob’s Red Mill is one of them — http://www.bobsredmill.com/gluten-free-rolled-oats.html
Hi, I am just wondering how this can be gluten free with oats in it? Is gluten from wheat oeays barley n rye?
Hey, I made these this morning, followed the steps and ingredients exactly! I used a food processor instead of blender, and by look, the muffin tray I used looked slightly bigger maybe… But they didn’t work 🙁 I don’t know what I did wrong, I checked them every 10
Minutes, ended up having them in for 35 minutes and they didn’t even set… Just went really dark on top 🙁
I’m not sure what could have gone wrong, Imogen, sorry! I’ve made them on a few different occasions and never run into the problems that you mentioned, nor have any other of my other readers who’ve made them. The only thing I can think of is a difference in altitude, since that can have a big effect on baking. I used a regular sized muffin tray, so, if anything, you could just try to fill the cavities less.
Hi hon! Can you give me some appx of how many
cups worth of banana your 2 bananas made? I’m
thinking probably 3/4 – 1 cup-ish? I’d like to try subbing
with pumpkin!!
Hi Kristy! About 3/4 cup should be fine! I actually have a flourless pumpkin muffin recipe if you’re interested — http://www.runningwithspoons.com/2014/09/08/flourless-pumpkin-pie-muffins/
Made exactly as recipe is given. IMG_5173.jpg So yummy. Eating one now! IMG_5176.jpg (To help “clean” my blender, I added some coconut milk & drank the concoction with the muffin.)
Hi Amanda,
I made the banana muffin recipe twice but still can’t get it to blend unless I add some milk to it or some kind of juice. I’d like to make it diary-free. Do you know if i can add water?
Any tricks for blending please?
Thanks!
Yasmine
A splash of water -should- be fine if you only need it to get things moving. Either that or you could try almond milk for a dairy free option 🙂 If that doesn’t work, then you could simply grind the oats into a flour and mix everything by hand.
I made these today and they came out delicious! I substituted egg with flaxseed and used sunflower seed butter. Also used more GF oats instead of almond meal. I used a hand blender. These are so simple to make and I won’t mind letting my children have muffins for breakfast (or anytime of the day) since all the ingredients are good for them.
I tried these with quinoa flakes instead of oats and agave syrup instead of honey and they were amazingly light and moist. My little one goes around demanding “cack!! cack!!”
The banana muffins are so delicious! had to make another batch right after I baked the first one, my kids and husband ate them all at once! It’s going to be a staple at home 🙂
I can’t have the rolled oats. Could I sub more almond flour for that? I love Banana muffins, and think I’d like them just plain too. My daughter will love me if I make the double chocolate chip ones!
They should be fine with more almond flour as well, Kathryn.