Whole Wheat Banana Muffins with Coconut Oil and Greek Yogurt
Baking makes me happy especially in winter. This causes a bit of a problem for my waistline. In order to still indulge in baking therapy during the winter, I’m continually tweaking favorite recipes to see how much healthier I can make them without taking away from their deliciousness. These Whole Wheat Banana Muffins with Coconut Oil and Greek Yogurt are a recent “tweak” I’m pretty proud of. I used my favorite Chocolate Chip Banana Muffin recipe as a jumping off point.
I love the way this healthier version turned out. Now I don’t have to feel bad when I eat three muffins when they are fresh out of the oven. I love the hint of coconut that comes through from the coconut oil and I really love the slightly grain-y texture from the whole wheat flour.
The ripe and sweet bananas give enough sweetness that you really only need a half cup of brown sugar. Not to shabby when you are getting twelve large muffins out of the recipe. The original recipe has 1/2 cup of oil but by adding fat free greek yogurt you can get away with only 1/3 cup of coconut oil and still have great results with muffins that don’t stick to the wrapper…do you know what I’m talking about?
Often times when you are making healthy muffins the recipe will call for applesauce or something in place of most or all of the oil. When muffins don’t have very much fat they stick really bad to the wrappers. I usually just don’t use wrappers to avoid that, but if you like to use wrappers, it can be really annoying to loose half of your muffin to the wrapper. Luckily these muffins don’t do that. But if you have other recipes you love that do stick to the wrappers, try this tip: spray the inside of your wrapper with a little cooking spray.
Whole Wheat Muffins with coconut oil and Greek Yogurt make a great breakfast or healthy snack. Give them a try, your family will love them.
- 2 large ripe bananas
- ½ cup packed brown sugar
- ⅓ cup coconut oil
- ¼ cup fat free Greek yogurt
- 1 egg
- ½ tsp vanilla
- 1½ cups whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt, scant tsp
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare a 12 slot muffin tin with cooking spray or muffin wrappers, which ever you prefer and set aside.
- Smash bananas with a fork until they are completely mashed up.
- In a medium mixing bowl, combine, brown sugar, coconut oil, Greek yogurt, and egg. Mix until well combined. Add in vanilla and smashed bananas, stir well.
- Add whole wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Mix until flour mixture is completely incorporated but be careful not to over mix.
- Using an ice cream scoop or a ¼ cup measuring cup, fill the prepared muffin tin. You should get 12 muffins.
- Bake at 375 for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center muffin comes out clean.
- Enjoy!
My 7 year old is an extremely picky eater. I’ve been desperately trying to find things I can make for her school lunches that I don’t have to feel guilty for feeding her. She loves banana bread, so I took a risk and made a batch of these 2 days ago. She (and my other kids) absolutely loved them!! They were perfect for sending to school and great for an afternoon snack. I ran out last night, so I’m off to buy more bananas today so we can make a triple batch to freeze! Thanks for an awesome recipe.
Yay!!!!! You just made my day! I can’t tell you how much satisfaction I get from knowing that a picky eater ate one of my recipes! We love this recipe so much too!
How many calories are these?
Hi Madeleine, I don’t have that info, but plugging the ingredients into a nutrition calculator and then dividing it by the number of muffins you get, should give you a good idea.
Will this recipe make 6 mini loaves?
Hi Kathleen. No, It will probably only make 4 unless they are the extra small mini loaves.
I have tried a few banana muffin recipes but this one is really light and fluffy considering wholemeal flour is often quite dense.
Thank you for sharing!
Thank you Lucy, I love this one too and just last week was thinking how sad it is that it hardly ever gets comments because it really is a gem. So glad you found it. 🙂
These muffins are delicious! I added some dark chocolate and coarse salt on top. They are light and fluffy with the perfect amount of sweetness. Great snack on the go for my picky eaters!
I love hearing that! Thanks Mare! Glad you liked them!