The Best Banana Muffins

Easy, fast, and delicious, these are the best banana muffins ever! Light and fluffy, they are fantastic on their own OR with chocolate chips (or other add-ins)!

Today I bring you the best banana muffins in the universe. And if you didn’t think you needed a go-to banana muffin recipe in your life, I’m here to tell you that you may want to rethink that. 

I have a lot of banana-flavored snacks and muffins and desserts and things on my site. But I haven’t had a classic, best-ever, you need this in your life banana muffin. Until now. 

These banana muffins are super easy and pretty basic. But they taste like a million bucks – light and fluffy and perfect.

Chocolate chips or not

Whenever I make them, I’m surprised at how much my kids like the plain-as-can-be, every day banana muffin. 

No add-ins. No frills. Nothing fancy. 

Just a wonderful, lightly sweet banana muffin. They love them. My 15-year old ate seven of them last week when I made these even when they were sitting right next to a batch of banana muffins with chocolate chips. 

I wondered for a second if he could truly be my child. But then stopped overanalyzing and did the right thing by not letting those chocolate chip ones go to waste.

These banana muffins are as basic as muffins get in terms of mixing and baking, but they are so soft and moist and tender. Seriously, they’re so good. 

Mix up the muffins

I like to mix the dry ingredients separately from the wet ingredients and then add them together. 

But you could live on the wild side and just throw everything in the same bowl if it saves you the angst of cleaning a second bowl. Just be careful you don’t over mix. That’s the biggest risk. 

Whole wheat flour vs all-purpose flour

In the pictures, I’m using all-purpose flour, but these banana muffins work really well with whole wheat flour or half of each.

A couple tips when using whole wheat flour:

• measure with a very light hand (or use a scale to weigh the flour); don’t pack it into the cup. That goes for all-purpose flour, too, but it’s especially important when using whole wheat flour which tends to make baked goods slightly more dense anyway. 
• use white whole wheat flour if you can. If the bag from the store doesn’t specify, don’t stress. But if you’re grinding your own flour, I recommend using white wheat berries (or kamut or einkorn – harder to find but amazing)

For the wet ingredients, I like to mash the bananas in a bowl and then add the other wet ingredients to that bowl (just saves an extra bowl to wash). 

Just don’t choose too small of a bowl like I did above. Rookie mistake. 

Bananas make a difference

It goes without saying that the more spotty and brown your bananas are, the sweeter and better the banana flavor! 

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix just until combined.

Until just combined.

Combined until just. 

In other words: don’t over mix! Once the last of those dry streaks barely disappear stop mixing. 

I use my large #20 cookie scoop {aff. link} to portion the batter into the muffin tin. I highly recommend it for easy muffin scooping.

The muffin tin in the pictures is the USA brand {aff. link}; the muffin cups are slightly deeper than other muffin tins, so I can fill the muffins up a bit more without them overflowing in the oven. 

Bake the muffins at a slightly higher temp (375 degrees instead of 350 degrees) so they dome nicely. They only need about 15-17 minutes in the oven. 

You’ll know when they’re done when the tops spring back lightly to the touch. 

Muffin Add-Ins

Now. If you like to add things to your muffin batter, these banana muffins are your playground.

The only acceptable add-in around here is chocolate chips. But I won’t disown you if you opt for chopped nuts or dried fruit. 

Sometimes, I portion out half of the plain batter into the muffin tins and then stir chocolate chips into the remaining half of the batter so we can have some of each.

Because as I mentioned above, my kids really do love the basic little banana muffins just by themselves.

If you’re feeling fancy, you can sprinkle a few extra chocolate chips on top of the muffins before they bake so they look extra pretty. 

Spoiler alert: 95% of the time, I don’t bother with that since they’ll taste the same anyway.

But if presentation is your thing, I highly support your chocolate chip sprinkling efforts!

I used the Ghirardelli jumbo semisweet chips for this batch so the muffins are extra chocolatey. 

They are delicious warm and gooey when the chocolate gets all over fingers and faces. They are also super delicious cooled completely (and even better the next day). 

And there you have it. 

I’ve now said more words and posted more pictures about banana muffins than you or me probably felt possible (or necessary), but I’m excited to finally have the best banana muffins in front of your face.

I hope you have some bananas ripening for destruction on your counter. If not, find some. Fast. 

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The Best Banana Muffins

Yield: 24 muffins

Prep Time: 20 minutes mins

Cook Time: 15 minutes mins

Total Time: 35 minutes mins

4.87 stars (167 ratings)

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Ingredients

• 2 cups (284 g) all-purpose or whole wheat flour
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, optional
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 to 2 ¼ cups (about 452 to 509 g) mashed bananas, 4-5 medium bananas
• 1 cup (212 g) light brown sugar
• ½ cup (113 g) melted butter or neutral-flavored oil
• ¼ cup (57 g) sour cream or plain yogurt
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 ½ cups add-ins (chocolate chips, nuts, etc), optional

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Instructions 

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line two 12-cup muffin tins with paper liners or lightly grease with cooking spray.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the mashed bananas, brown sugar, melted butter or oil, sour cream, milk and eggs until well-combined.
• Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix with a rubber spatula until just combined and no dry streaks remain. If adding add-ins like chocolate chips, stir them in when there are still a few dry streaks remaining. Don’t over mix or the muffins might be tough and dry in texture.
• Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin tin, filling the muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake for 15-17 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs and the top of the muffins spring back lightly to the touch.
• Let cool for 1-2 minutes in the muffin tin before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Notes

Half Batch: this recipe can easily be halved to make 10-12 muffins. As a sidenote, the baked and cooled muffins freeze great.

Applesauce: I haven’t tried replacing the butter/oil with applesauce, but you could experiment.

Nutrition Facts: the nutrition facts for this recipe were calculated based on the muffins without the optional add-ins.

Author: Mel

Course: Bread

Cuisine: American

Method: Bake

Serving: 1 muffin, Calories: 132kcal, Carbohydrates: 21g, Protein: 2g, Fat: 5g, Saturated Fat: 3g, Cholesterol: 25mg, Sodium: 165mg, Fiber: 2g, Sugar: 12g

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Measuring Cups

Silicone Spatula

Mixing Bowl

Muffin Tin

Recipe Source: from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe

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