Gluten Free Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
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These light, fluffy, gluten free banana chocolate chip muffins are nutritious and totally decadent. The bananas add natural sweetness while the addition of chocolate chips make these muffins feel like you’re indulging in dessert! Kid-friendly and super easy to make too!
Muffins make for an easy afternoon snack or a quick breakfast on the go. These healthy chocolate chip banana muffins are moist, light and fluffy, and super family friendly too! What can be better than delicious muffins with a healthy twist?
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Most muffins are high in calories, fat, and have loads of sugar. But these healthy banana muffins are the best of both worlds. They’re sweet and chocolatey, but are made with gluten free flour, and reduced sugar, making them a low calorie, high fiber snack or breakfast. They’ll remind you of a classic banana bread, but in muffin form.
These are also the best banana muffins for kids! Kids will love the sweetness from the bananas, brown sugar, and chocolate chips. They make a great breakfast, after school snack or healthy dessert. As an added bonus, these muffins will give them a dose of whole grains without them even realizing it!
A combination of walnuts and almonds add crunch, texture, healthy fats and protein, for an all around nutritious snack, and keeps these easy muffins gluten free.
Gluten free chocolate banana muffins are a decadent treat you can enjoy guilt-free. And while they’re perfect for anyone with a gluten intolerance, they taste just like regular muffins so everyone will enjoy them!
👩🏽🍳 Why This Recipe Works
- Super easy breakfast or snack
- Moist and delicious
- Full of rich banana flavor
- Healthy and perfectly sweet
- Easily made vegan
- Will totally satisfy your sweet tooth
- Great for the whole family!
🥘 Ingredients
This gluten-free muffin recipe calls for simple ingredients that can be found at most grocery stores. For the full recipe and exact ingredient amounts, see the recipe card below!
- Three Overripe Bananas: You want extra ripe bananas with lots of brown spots! It’s the best way to give these moist gluten-free banana muffins a natural sweetness.
- Dark Chocolate Chips: I recommend using mini dark chocolate chips. You can also use semisweet chocolate chips.
- Gluten Free Flour: To make this homemade muffin recipe gluten free, a gluten-free flour blend or gf oat flour adds fiber, and makes the muffins whole grain and healthy! You can also use oat flour or regular gluten free baking flour. You can also use a 1:1 Gluten Free Flour Blend that includes xanthan gum like Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free 1:1 Flour.
- Unsalted Butter: Only a small amount of butter is needed to give the muffins needed moisture. You can also use olive oil or melted coconut oil if you don’t have butter
- Brown Sugar: You just need 1/3 cup of sugar since the bananas and chocolate chips are already sweet! Brown sugar makes these easy banana choc chip muffins more moist than white sugar because of their molasses content, so I recommend using brown sugar if you can. Pure maple syrup would also work!
- Eggs: Help to make these gluten-free banana chocolate chip muffins rise and give them a nice moist and fluffy crumb.
- Chopped Walnuts and Almonds (optional): If you like a bit of crunch, add some chopped walnuts, chopped almonds, or both! They also add protein, vitamins, and nutrients to the recipe!
📖 Variations
- Sugar Free Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins: To make this simple recipe refined sugar free, use maple syrup or coconut sugar instead of brown sugar. To omit the sugar altogether, use monk fruit instead of the brown sugar in this recipe, and sugar free chocolate chips.
- Make It Vegan: To make these into vegan gluten free banana chocolate chip muffins, use melted coconut oil instead of the butter (as a 1:1 replacement), use 1 flax egg in place of the regular egg, choose dairy-free chocolate chips, and use unsweetened almond milk instead of regular milk.
- Healthier Muffins: This is already a pretty healthy chocolate chip banana muffins recipe! To make this even healthier, cut the amount of added sugar in half.
- Gluten Free Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins: Replace the flour with 1 cup oat flour and 1/2 cup rolled oats!
🔪 How To Make Gluten Free Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
Mix Dry Ingredients: Preheat oven to 425°F. Grease the muffin pan with cooking spray or line with muffin liners. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
Mix Wet Ingredients: In a separate large mixing bowl mash the bananas. To the mashed bananas, stir in the melted butter, brown sugar, egg, vanilla extract, and milk in the large bowl.
Make Muffin Batter: Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, then beat or whisk until combined. With a wooden spoon, fold in the nuts and chocolate chips.
Fill Paper Liners With Muffin Batter: Divide batter into the muffin cups, filling them to the top. Bake for 5 minutes.
Finish Baking: Then, keeping the muffins in the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 350°F. Bake for an additional 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The total time these gluten-free muffins take in the oven is about 20-23 minutes, give or take. Allow these moist banana muffins to cool for 5 minutes in the muffin pan, then transfer to a wire rack to continue cooling.
❓Recipe FAQs
Are banana muffins good for you?
The answer is: It depends! Most muffins are more like cakes – filled with refined grains, tons of sugar and are high in calories. Typically, one banana nut muffin will have almost 500 calories!
But this gluten-free chocolate chip banana muffins recipe is super healthy, because we use fiber-rich oat flour or gluten free flour(whole grains) instead of white flour, and way less sugar (8 grams added sugar per muffin, versus 37 grams of added sugar in most other muffins!). Also these muffins have only about 220 calories each!
How long do banana muffins last?
These gluten free banana and chocolate chip muffins will last for up to 1 week when stored in an airtight container in the fridge. They will last for 2-3 days when stored at room temperature.
To Store In The Fridge: let the muffins cool completely. Then transfer to an airtight container lined with paper towels and store in the fridge. They will last up to a week in the fridge. You can also store them in an airtight container at room temperature but they will only last about 2 days at room temperature.
To Freeze: Let the muffins cool completely. Then wrap each muffin in plastic wrap or foil and place in a zip-top freezer bag. Make sure to get as much air out of the bag before you seal it. Place in the freezer for up to 3 months. To defrost, place a frozen muffin in the fridge overnight to thaw, then heat in the microwave for 20-30 seconds until warmed through. You can easily make a double batch of these muffins and freeze half to enjoy later
Why are my muffins so dense and dry?
Typically, there are two reasons muffins become either too dense or too dry. The key is to avoid over-mixing and over-baking. Over-mixed muffins will have a dense batter, and batter that is too dense will get dry in the oven and won’t rise as much. Over-baked muffins get dry because all of the moisture has evaporated during the baking process.
💭 Expert Tips
- Make sure all of your ingredients are at room temperature before mixing them.
- For best results, when measuring your flour, make sure to spoon and level it into your measuring cup vs. scooping it out of the bag using your measuring cup.
- Make sure not to overmix the batter once you add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Using a rubber spatula can help with this. Overmixing will result in dense muffins.
- If you’re worried about the bottoms of the muffins baking too quickly in the oven, slide a baking sheet under the muffin tin in the oven – it will help even out the heat as the muffins bake.
- Serve gluten free choc chip banana muffins with a cup of milk for an easy tasty breakfast!
🍞 More Healthy Baking Recipes!
- Cinnamon Sugar Muffins
- Healthy Apple Muffins
- Pistachio Muffins
- Dairy Free Blueberry Muffins
- Vegan Oatmeal Cookies
- Gluten Free Bread Recipe
- Vegan Banana Bread Recipe Without Butter
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📋 Recipe Card
🎥 Watch How to Make It
Gluten Free Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins Recipe
These light, fluffy, gluten free banana chocolate chip muffins are nutritious and totally decadent. The bananas add natural sweetness while the addition of chocolate chips make these muffins feel like you're indulging in dessert! Kid-friendly and super easy to make too!
Servings: 12 muffins
Calories: 223kcal
Ingredients
- 1½ cups gluten free flour or gf oat flour spooned & leveled
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- 3 large ripe bananas (about 1.5 cups mashed)
- 6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted or coconut oil
- ⅓ cup packed brown sugar (light or dark sugar will work)
- 1 large egg at room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp milk
- ⅛ cup chopped walnuts
- ⅛ cup chopped almonds
- ½ cup dark chocolate chips (70% dark)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F. Grease the muffin pan with cooking spray
- Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg together in a medium bowl. Set aside. In a large bowl mash the bananas. Whisk in the melted butter, brown sugar, egg, vanilla extract, and milk.
- Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, then beat or whisk until combined. Fold in the nuts and chocolate chips.
- Spoon the batter into the muffin pan, filling them to the top. Bake for 5 minutes. Then, keeping the muffins in the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 350°F. Bake for an additional 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- The total time these muffins take in the oven is about 20-23 minutes, give or take.
- Allow the muffins to cool for 10 minutes in the muffin pan, then transfer to a wire rack to continue cooling.
Notes
- Make sure all of your ingredients are at room temperature before mixing them.
- When measuring your flour, make sure to spoon and level it into your measuring cup vs. scooping it out of the bag using your measuring cup.
- To make these gluten free, use gluten free oat flour instead of whole wheat pastry flour
- To make these vegan, use coconut oil instead of the butter (as a 1:1 replacement), use 1 flax egg in place of the regular egg, and use unsweetened almond milk instead of regular milk. Make sure your chocolate chips are dairy-free as well.
- Make sure not to overmix the batter once you add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Using a rubber spatula can help with this.
- If you’re worried about the bottoms of the muffins baking too quickly in the oven, slide a baking sheet under the muffin tin in the oven – it will help even out the heat as the muffins bake.
Nutrition
Serving: 1muffin | Calories: 223kcal | Carbohydrates: 28g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 11g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 3g | Trans Fat: 0.2g | Cholesterol: 29mg | Sodium: 208mg | Potassium: 276mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 12g
Love this gluten-free version of muffins. Looks so delicious. I will bake this soon.
Thanks so much! You will love this recipe!
I made these for a gf friend and she demanded the recipe ~ thank you!
So happy to hear that Sue! 🙂
Chocolate and banana are so good together. These muffins are awesome!
Awesome thanks Katherine!!
I’m currently out of bananas but I would love to make this recipe with some overripe plantain that I have instead.
I haven’t tried this with plantains – so if you do try it let me know how it turns out!
so delicious! so light! and i can’t have banana bread anything without choc chips so this was perfect
Yay! Thanks for letting me know Heather!
I love bananas and I love chocolate so this is without a doubt the perfect recipe for me. Can’t wait to make them.
Thanks Pam! You will love these!
Thanks for the tip on how to make these muffins with less sugar! I LOVE the taste of banana but don’t really care for overly sweet treats for breakfast, and these sound perfect 🙂
Totally!! The low sugar version for breakfast is a great option for sure! Enjoy!
We LOVE these muffins! I make them at least once a month and they’re always gone within days. I appreciate your muffin tips too – so helpful!
Yay! I’m so happy to hear that Tawnie! 🙂
Oooh I wish I was starting the day with these muffins. They look so light and fluffy! Those flavors sound incredible.
Thank you so much Tara!! Can’t wait for you to try these!
There is nothing better then the combination of chocolate and bananas! I can’t wait to make this for my kiddos.
Totally agree! Your kids will love this recipe Shanna!
One of the best muffin. Combo. I will soon try your version. Thanks for sharing
Yay!! Can’t wait for you to try it!
These muffins look delicious. I can’t wait to try them!
Thanks so much!! Enjoy!
Nothing quite like the combination of chocolate and bananas! Looking forward to making these for breakfast tomorrow; looks too good to pass up!
Definitely! Thanks Sara – I’m sure you will love this recipe!
these were a hit, so easy to make!
Hooray! So happy to hear that Janelle!