These banana oat muffins are soft, lightly sweetened with honey, and perfect for little hands – and big ones, too! Low in fat and big on flavor, they make a great breakfast or lunchbox treat.

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the deal. I almost never miss my morning breakfast, even if it is just a protein bar. Dinner I can skip. If I eat a big enough breakfast, I can miss lunch. But without that first morning meal, I cannot focus or start my day off right.
Eating something healthy the first thing in the morning can be difficult. I don’t always have time to make myself an omelette or hard boiled egg, so having something on hand to grab and go helps me during those busy mornings. They also help on those lazy mornings, too!
I often make whole wheat banana bread, but this time I wanted to add more nutritional punch. And that’s how I developed these banana oatmeal muffins.
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Recipe highlights
- Family friendly: Whole wheat flour does not have to be a turn off for family. The best way to hide brown food, is out in the open. They seriously won’t notice it in banana oat muffins.
- Simple: Most recipes call for over ripe bananas for their banana recipe. I tried it. I didn’t think the extra step really made the flavor more banana-y. I collect bananas in my freezer! The flavor does intensify when thawed and it is the perfect texture for mixing.
- Texture: These muffins are baked with extra virgin olive oil instead of butter. Ever since I wrote my olive oil cookbook, I almost exclusively bake with olive oil. You still end up with a very moist and tender quick bread.
- Flavor: I ditched the white sugar and use honey to sweeten these muffins, using only ⅓ cup honey for 12 muffins. What you end up with is a deliciously moist and not sugary sweet banana muffin. Remember it isn’t a cupcake, it’s a muffin.
Reader’s Reviews
“These are SO GOOD! I’ve made them twice in 3 days!” — Dorothy
Ingredients you need
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- Old fashion oatmeal: Use the old fashion whole rolled oats, not the quick cooking oats.
- Whole wheat flour: I use whole wheat flour and not all purpose flour.
- Wheat bran: This is bigger and looks like brown flakes. Wheat bran is full of fiber and has some nut undertones, in terms of flavor.
- Honey: Instead of granulated or brown sugar, I sweetened these muffins with honey.
- Over ripe and mashed bananas: I like to freeze my old bananas until I am ready to use them. This helps sweeten them and gets them extra mushy and soft once thawed.
- Extra virgin olive oil: If you’ve read my blog before, then you learned your lesson on how to bake with olive oil. Your baked goods are only as good as the ingredients you put into it. Choose a mild tasting olive oil for this cake recipe, not a peppery one.
- Eggs: Large eggs are the staples in baking.
- Pantry staples: Baking soda, baking powder, vanilla extract, ground cinnamon and salt.
Step-by-step directions
- Combine dry ingredients. In a medium sized bowl whisk together oatmeal, flour, wheat bran, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.
- Combine wet ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together olive oil, honey and vanilla. Stir in mashed bananas with the oil mixture. Mix in eggs into oil mixture.
- Finish batter. Add dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix until combined.
- Bake muffins. Divide batter evenly into a muffin pan with paper liners and bake at 350ºF for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean.
- Cool muffins. Let the muffins rest in the pan for 5 minutes then remove from pan and place onto a cooling rack to cool.
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Expert tips and recipe FAQs
Each one of these muffins has only 2-grams of fat, 135 calories, 4g protein and 3 grams of fiber. You can add more nutritional punch by mixing in chopped nuts like walnuts, pecans or almonds. You can also mix in raisins or dried cranberries, too.
For the mashed bananas I use in all of my baking, I store old bananas in my freezer. For baking, I simply take out 2 or 3 for 1-cup of banana mush, and let it thaw on the counter.
I have been baking with whole wheat flour for over 15 years. It started as an experiment and has now become second nature to me. If you are new to baking with whole wheat flour, you can start by swapping out half of the regular flour in a recipe with whole grain flour.
Honey is a humectant and keeps your baked goods moist, but it also reduces sourness and bitterness. Did you know you can easily swap out regular granulated sugar in a recipe and bake with honey instead? Just follow this simple rule, thanks to the National Honey Board.
Substitute with honey
For every cup of honey you add to replace a cup of sugar, reduce the liquid in your recipe by ¼ cup, add ½ teaspoon baking soda (to neutralize the acid in honey) and reduce the baking temperature by 25ºF.
I have swapped out sugar for honey in many other ways. For more honey recipes, you should check out my blueberry honey jam, blackberry and honey cupcakes and honey lemonade.
Storing/Freezing Instructions
TO STORE: Store any leftover muffins in an airtight container on the counter for up to 4 days, assuming the room is cool and not hot. You can also refrigerate muffins up to 7 days.
TO FREEZE: You can also freeze muffins. Transfer to a resealable bag or freezer safe container and freeze for up to 4 months.
When baking with whole wheat flour and wheat bran, understand that it sucks up a lot more moisture than regular flour. If you do not compensate for that and add more moisture rich ingredients, you will end up with a dry muffin or other baked good. My recipe for banana oat muffins is not dry but deliciously moist as it includes moisture rich ingredients like eggs, olive oil, honey and mashed over-ripe bananas.
You can swap out regular sugar in a cake or muffin recipe and bake with honey instead. For every cup of honey you add to replace a cup of sugar, reduce the liquid in your recipe by ¼ cup, add ½ teaspoon baking soda (to neutralize the acid in honey) and reduce the baking temperature by 25ºF.
Banana Oat Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 cup old fashion oatmeal
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- ½ cup wheat bran
- ⅓ cup honey
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- 2 cup over ripe and mashed bananas
- 2 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
- 2 large eggs
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350ºF.
- Apply non-stick spray or line with paper lines a 12-cup muffin pan.
- In a medium sized bowl whisk together oatmeal, flour, wheat bran, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.
- In a large bowl, whisk together olive oil, honey and vanilla.
- Stir in mashed bananas with the oil mixture.
- Mix in eggs into oil mixture.
- Add dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix until combined.
- Divide batter evenly into the prepared muffin pan and bake in the oven for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean.
- Let the muffins rest in the pan for 5 minutes then remove from pan and place onto a cooling rack to cool.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition Disclaimer
Nutritional information is an estimate provided to you as a courtesy. You should calculate the actual nutritional information with the products and brands you are using with your preferred nutritional calculator.
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Written by Laura Bashar
Hi, I’m Laura, a certified professional cook and cookbook author living in San Diego. I have been sharing my family’s favorite recipes inspired from all over the world since 2008. Let’s cook up something fun!
These are SO GOOD! I’ve made them twice in 3 days!
Hi Dorothy-
So glad you liked them! Yeah these don’t last long in my house either!
xoxo
Laura
Mmmm, muffins. Can never resist them. Never. These look terrific — loads of flavor, pretty healthy. Thanks!
Can look at my blog and see nutritional facts of healthy, low fat food at grocery stores.