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These Healthy Pumpkin Banana Muffins are a tasty snack for toddlers, kids and adults. Everyone will love the warm pumpkin flavors. These Pumpkin muffins are naturally sweetened and made with whole wheat flour, so they are as healthy as they are delicious!
If you are on a banana muffin kick, you need to try these Healthy Pumpkin Banana Muffins. I usually have a can or two of pumpkin in my pantry year round. Why? Pumpkin is fabulous to bake with!
Are Pumpkin Banana Muffins Healthy?
I started making these pumpkin banana muffins for my toddler last fall, and he absolutely LOVES them. Plus, I love that he is getting a sneaky dose of veggies! Ok, so pumpkin is technically a fruit, but pumpkin is full of nutrients like fiber and vitamins, so I consider it a win!
These Pumpkin Banana Muffins also have whole wheat flour, greek yogurt, and are lightly sweetened with natural maple syrup. I feel good about serving these healthy muffins to my kid!
Can you Freeze Pumpkin Banana Muffins?
Yes, these muffins freeze beautifully! Muffins are a great toddler snack because they freeze wonderfully. After you make a batch of muffins, allow them to cool completely. They they can be individually wrapped in plastic wrap and stored in a freezer bag. When my son needs a snack, I just pull one out of the freezer, warm it up in the microwave for 30 seconds and it’s ready. I also like to throw one in the diaper bag when we are on the go, so I have a snack in case he gets hangry.
If you like these, you will also LOVE my Healthy Peanut Butter Banana Muffins!
Healthy Pumpkin Banana Muffins
Ingredients
- 2 bananas very ripe, mashed
- ¼ cup butter melted
- 1/2 cup greek yogurt
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/2 cup milk
- 3/4 cup canned pumpkin
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 and 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp pumpkin spice
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425. Line a muffin tin with muffin liners or spray with cooking spray. Set aside.
- In one bowl, mash the bananas. Add the butter, maple syrup, yogurt, milk, egg, pumpkin, and vanilla extract, mix well.
- In another bowl whisk together the flour, cinnamon, pumpkin spice, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Stir until just mixed. DO NOT over mix or your muffins will be tough. A few lumps is fine.
- Divide the batter between the 12 prepared muffin cups.
- Bake muffins at 425 for 5 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees.
- Bake at 350 for another 20-22 more minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Baking them at the higher temperature at first helps them rise and gives a nice rounded top.
- Remove from oven and remove from the muffin tin as soon as possible Allow to cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or individually wrap and freeze for up to one month.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I didn’t have baking soda so I left it out. Otherwise I followed the recipe exactly. They came out very wet and dense on the bottom. They did not peel out of the muffin wrapper clean at all. You think it was the baking soda or did I do something else wrong?
Hi Brittny – the baking soda is a very important ingredient. It is what makes the muffins rise. So that is probably what the problem was. I hope you give it another try!
Been making these on repeat for years now. Thank you!
So glad love them!
I made these tonight and the family loved them, I normally don’t write a review but i feel like these deserve the attention, they are so yummy!
Thank you so much for your review! So glad you loved them.
Hello!! My 2 year of loves these muffins and I love how healthy they are! I substitute coconut oil for butter which works great. I was wondering what the cooking time would be for mini muffins?
Thank you!
Hi! I’m so glad to hear you love them. I haven’t tested these as mini muffins so I can’t give you an exact cooking time. BUT I estimate the cooking time would be 10-13 minutes. So I would check them after 10 minutes and see if they are done or need a little more time.
These turned out amazing. I did add a heaping tablespoon of brown sugar for a bit of extra sweetness and was a little over generous with the pumpkin. Added a handful of chocolate chips and made them small so I got 18 muffins.
My 2 teenage sons are devouring them now as I type this laughing as just told me to make sure I save this recipe.
Loved all of the ingredients in these! Thanks for a great recipe.
Great recipe! I melted my butter in the microwave and completely forgot to add it…they muffins still came out really good, definitely more of a soft, moist texture but tasted great.
I’m so glad you loved them!
Yummy! I used a mixture of almond flour & coconut flour, almond milk, plant-based butter, and topped it off w white choc chips. Delicious w coffee!
I’m going to use oat milk and silk plant butter and make a walnut streusel topping. Can’t wait!
Can you tell me measurements for the almond & coconut flours please?
Any advice on how to make mini muffins with this recipe?
Hi Rachel – you will just want to reduce the cooking time as they will bake faster. I would check them after 10 minutes using a toothpick.
I love this recipe and have been making these for almost a year now, so I thought I should finally comment! I double the batch and freeze them in a Ziploc bag. They thaw great in the microwave and make for a perfect afternoon snack for my toddler and me. He still gets excited when it’s this muffin for snack. Thanks so much for this recipe!
So glad you love them!
Hi!
Just trying these for the first time! Is this recipe supposed to yield 12 muffins total? Unless I filled them over full, I had way too much batter for 12 muffins. Is this normal?
Hi Katie, yes it should yield 12 muffins. They should be filled close to the top of the muffin liner.
Can I use whole wheat fine spelt flour? Or should I up the liquids if I use spelt flour?
Hi Rebecca – I’m not familiar with baking with spelt flour at all, so I can’t make any recommendations. Let me know how ti turns out if you give it a try!
I subbed sour cream for the yogurt and I didn’t have a whole 1/2 cup either. And it didn’t need it. They were plenty moist. Also subbed almond milk for reg milk,
I’m on a healthy carb no refined sugar kick so I subbed all purpose white flour for ground oatmeal so it resembles flour. The only bad thing in these for me to keep with my kick is maple syrup, like the truly awful for you Aunt Jemima kind. The upside is it’s now finished and out of house 😁
They were good though. I think I need to replace my baking soda, they didn’t rise very much.
Hi Kim, glad you were able to make it work for your diet! It’s possible the different flour made them rise differently as well.
Could I add blueberries? And could I substitute sugar free syrup.
Hi Ellen – yes, you can add blueberries. I’m not sure about using sugar free syrup, I haven’t tested that.
I only have yogurt with honey. Would that work? They sound so yummy! Maybe I will use less syrup since my yogurt has added honey?
Hi Melissa – yes that should be fine! I’m not sure how sweet your yogurt is but I doubt it is sweet enough to replace the maple syrup. As is they are not very sweet so to start with I wouldn’t reduce the maple syrup. Maybe try them with the amount listed and then if you find them too sweet you can reduce the maple syrup next time.
Just made these so moist and delicious. I used applesauce instead of butter to lower the fat content.
Only problem I had is they stuck to the cupcake liners. Should I of sprayed the liners?
These are so good I want to make them again just don’t want them sticking to the liners.
Hi Deborah, it is probably because of the absence of the fat from the butter. I really love using parchment paper muffin liners, nothing ever sticks to them! The other option is to skip muffin liners and spray the muffin pan with cooking spray.
Super delicious and moist and I used all purpose flour. They are perfectly sweet but I added mini chocolate chips for my little ones and they had a warm one right before bed. Yum yum. Adding this to my recipe box. Thank you for the recipe!
So happy you loved it!
I love the ingredients in this recipe, and I bet if you follow the recipe it is great! I wonder if some might interpret the consistency of the ingredients (banana and pumpkin) as “underdone,” when it’s not actually underdone. I made these, although I altered the recipe a little, and it is a more soft and gooey muffin than normal, but due to the ingredients, not being underdone. My toothpick came out clean.
For anyone interested in alterations (although I think it would taste better if you follow the recipe as is) I doubled the batch, used the 3.5 ripe bananas I had on hand instead of the 4 it calls for. I only had all-purpose flour instead of whole wheat. I used fresh pumpkin from a beige pie pumpkin, which I did not strain with a cheesecloth, so it is more runny than canned pumpkin. Because we try to cut down on sugar, I tried cutting the maple syrup in half, although on certain websites I’ve seen researchers say you can only get away with cutting 10-20% of your sugar in a baked goods recipe. So I was really pushing it. Anyway, all of this resulted in a healthy edible, soft and slightly gooey muffin. However, for normal people used to sweetness, this wouldn’t cut it, and you would need the full amount of maple syrup the recipe calls for.
The one thing that I’m not sure about in the original recipe is melting the butter and then adding it to all the liquid ingredients. This is the only thing that didn’t quite jive for me, since the butter rehardened into cold lumps in my liquid mixture.
Anyway, thank you for this recipe! I’m definitely going to try it again and more closely follow your recipe next time. It was still good with the tweaks though. Makes the kitchen smell delicious too!
I’m so glad you loved them Beth! As far as cutting the maple syrup, I tested these a few times with different amounts and I found that 1/4 cup is the smallest amount I could get away with and still have a tasty muffin. Thanks for all your tips!
I want to love these muffins, but my batch was undercooked. I measured carefully, have an oven thermometer to insure temperature, and did a poke test at the appointed time. I then added two 5 minutes baking periods. Still underdone. My ingredients were fresh also. I tossed the results and am deciding if I will try again.
The muffin tops rose as expected @ 425, but the interior would not set up.
Hi Marge, I’m not sure why that happened. Did you lower the temperature to 350 after the first five minutes? Also what brand of pumpkin did you use?
This happened to me too. The butter was bubbly and liquidy even after 30 minutes at 350. The centres rose then fell.
Can you make this in a 9×5 bread pan instead? Would the temp still remain the same-starting out high and then lowering?
Hi Lindsay – I haven’t tried it in a bread pan so I am not sure about the cooking time. I would suggest lowering the baking temp 25 degrees and increase the baking time. You can use a toothpick to check doneness.
Super delicious and minimal sugar! I added a half cup of applesauce when I doubled the recipe because I didn’t have a fourth banana. It turned out perfect!
I’m so glad you loved them!
So excited to try these! Reviews sound excellent! Do you know if I can sub honey for maple syrup? I don’t have any syrup on hand but I do have honey and everything else.
Hi Liz – I haven’t tried it, but I think honey would be fine!
I didn’t have maple syrup either, so I substituted honey and I think they turned out well.
This was very flavorful and moist! I subbed unsweetened applesauce for the butter to cut down fat, and used almond milk for the milk. Otherwise followed the recipe as is. Would definitely make again!
So glad you loved them Harvey!
Anyone try with oat flour yet?
These are so good!! I added chopped spinach since I made these for my toddler and am always looking for ways to get veggies in him! They turned out great! I will definitely be making these again!
So glad to hear that!