These flourless peanut butter banana chocolate muffins are rich and decadent, and you’d never know they’re naturally sweetened with banana & a touch of honey. They’re also free of oil/butter, naturally gluten-free, and dairy-free if you use almond milk!
I’ve made these muffins six or seven times already, and it’s taken me way too long to share the recipe with you all. Law school has been more time-consuming than I thought it’d be, so I haven’t blogged quite as often as I’d hoped, but I still plan to keep sharing recipes and other posts as I can!
These peanut butter banana chocolate muffins are one of my favorite muffin recipes EVER, of all of the healthy muffins I’ve tried AND all of the more traditional, super sugary ones.
Grain-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, and naturally sweetened
These muffins have no dairy or gluten, so they’ll fit most people’s dietary needs. You could even sub almond butter for the peanut butter in case of a peanut butter allergy. There’s also no regular flour or specialty flour like almond or coconut flour, so I bet you have most of the ingredients on hand already!
They’re lightly sweetened with honey, but most of the sweetness comes from just banana. Somehow, though, the banana taste isn’t super strong (which is a big plus for me). You can taste the banana only slightly if you use ripe bananas that aren’t way too ripe. Just a bit speckled is the best!
The peanut butter taste is also surprisingly mild, so the chocolate really does shine through most.
These peanut butter banana chocolate muffins have a perfect texture, which is hard to find in a healthy baking recipe! They’re perfectly moist–not too dry and not too wet (ick) and they’re super chocolate-y. I’m convinced these muffins have some kind of magic, because it doesn’t make sense that they taste this great and are so healthy!
Dark chocolate cocoa powder
I love using dark chocolate cocoa powder for these muffins instead of regular cocoa powder. I tested these with both dark chocolate cocoa powder and regular cocoa powder and far preferred the dark cocoa powder. Either will work, but I can’t recommend dark chocolate cocoa powder enough. I think it tastes better in just about every recipe!
I use Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa Powder, which you can find at most grocery stores beside the regular cocoa powder.
When I calculated the nutrition facts for these muffins to add to this post, I’d already made them several times and fallen in love with them. So, I was blown away to discover that they only have 9 grams of sugar each. You’d never know it– they’re perfectly sweet!
Since I have a major sweet tooth and naturally gravitate toward sweet snacks rather than savory, I’ve started trying to be conscious of how much sugar I actually eat because I could easily go way overboard with sugar every single day. But muffins with 9 grams of sugar? Almost too good to be true. 😍
Compared to a typical chocolate muffin like Starbucks Chocolate Chunk muffin with 39g of sugar and 440 calories, these muffins are an awesome option (and I think they taste better, too– for 30g of sugar less and 240 calories less!).
Substitutions in this peanut butter banana chocolate muffins recipe
There are lots of options here to make this recipe work best for you!
• Sub regular dairy milk for the almond milk.
• Sub almond butter for the peanut butter.
• Sub peanut butter chips for the dark chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips on top.
I hope you love these muffins as much as I do! They’re an amazing healthy after-dinner treat!
If you try these peanut butter banana chocolate muffins, feel free to let me know in a comment where you can leave a star rating, or take a photo and tag me @livbane on Instagram!
These flourless peanut butter banana chocolate muffins taste taste rich and decadent, and you'd never know they're actually low in sugar (sweetened with banana and a touch of honey), have no oil or butter, and are naturally gluten-free!
- 2 medium ripe bananas (approx. 12-13 ounces, weighed with peel) (mildly speckled bananas are best)
- 1 cup smooth peanut butter (I use natural peanut butter)
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/4 cup milk (I use almond milk but any milk works)
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate cocoa powder (regular cocoa powder works, but I highly recommend DARK)
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/4 tsp. baking powder
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/4 cup chocolate chips to sprinkle on top (I like semi-sweet or dark)
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Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
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Mash bananas in a medium mixing bowl with a fork or potato masher. Add eggs and mix together.
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Add the rest of the non-dry ingredients: peanut butter, honey, milk, and eggs. Stir to combine.
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Add dry ingredients (other than chocolate chips) all at once on top: cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Lightly stir the dry ingredients together on top and then stir the dry ingredients to combine with the wet ingredients.
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Spray muffin tin cups with cooking spray. Fill 12 regular-size cups with batter. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top of each muffin cup.
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Bake for 14-15 minutes until the muffin tops are almost fully set if you jiggle the pan. (If you insert a toothpick, they'll still be gooey but they'll set as they cool!) Do not over-bake. It's better to under-bake here rather than risk dry muffins!
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Let cool for at 15-20 minutes and then remove from muffin tin, using a knife around the edges to loosen the muffins if needed.
Store leftover muffins on the counter in a container for up to two days. Freeze remaining muffins in a freezer-safe bag for up to 2-3 months.
Since these muffins are already dark, it can be a bit hard to tell when they're done baking. Err on the side of under-baking (they'll be dry if over-baked!)
Adapted from this recipe
These look awesome- can you convince Marissa to make some with me???
I’ll do my best! 😉