These one-bowl apple muffins are naturally sweetened and made with whole grains, chopped & grated apple, and applesauce! They’re lightly sweet, moist, and absolutely delicious.
Weekend baking has been a habit of mine for as long as I can remember. In college, I started a loose system of prepping one or two main dishes and one healthy baked good each weekend in my dorm. I’ve kept that up in law school as much as I can!
The actual experience of baking is relaxing for me, and I love freezing extras to enjoy at a future time or share when I have friends over. I typically rotate through making energy bites (so easy), double chocolate banana peanut butter muffins, banana berry baked oatmeal, and other naturally sweetened goodies, like these healthy apple muffins.
These are everything I could want in an apple muffin. They’re made with whole wheat flour and naturally sweetened with honey. There’s both chopped and grated apple, as well as applesauce, so the apple flavor is strong, and the walnuts add a nice crunch.
These healthy apple muffins also have a lovely, fluffy texture, and they’re perfectly moist with the addition of applesauce and mashed banana.
They’re wonderful right out of the oven and almost just leftover. I always freeze extra muffins, so I love pulling one out of the freezer, slicing it in half, adding a little pat of butter and maybe even a light drizzle of honey, and reheating it in the oven.
Best Apples for Baking
Apples with a firm texture are generally good for recipes where you want the apple slices to maintain their shape. Makes sense, right? I typically choose Granny Smith for baking since they’re tart and a nice balance in a sweet recipe. They’re also widely available and relatively inexpensive! Honeycrisp, Jonagold, and Pink Lady are also great choices for baking in a recipe like this.
I hope you enjoy these healthy apple muffins!
If you try these healthy apple muffins, feel free to let me know in a comment and leave a star rating or take a photo and tag me @livbane on Instagram. I’d love to see!
Healthy Apple Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cups white whole wheat or regular whole wheat flour (I've also used sprouted spelt flour)
- 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon (or apple pie/pumpkin pie spice blend)
- 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 cup applesauce (I use unsweetened)
- 1/3 cup honey
- 1/2 cup plain yogurt or Greek yogurt (I prefer full-fat for baking)
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup melted coconut oil or butter
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 medium apple, peeled and grated (lightly press some of the juice out)
- 1 medium apple, diced into very small cubes
- 1 small banana, mashed well (adds extra moisture & sweetness; can omit if needed)
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
- In a medium or large mixing bowl, stir together dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.
- In a large glass measuring cup or small bowl, stir together applesauce, honey, yogurt, and eggs. Add to the dry ingredients, mixing just slightly. Add melted coconut oil and vanilla and stir just enough to fully combine.
- Add grated apples, diced apples, mashed banana, and walnuts and stir once more, being careful not to over-mix. The batter will be thick.
- Spray a 12-muffin pan with cooking spray and divide the batter between the muffin cups. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, or until lightly golden on top and a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out mostly clean.
- Let muffins cool for 15 minutes, and then loosen edges with a knife. Cool on a wire rack. Freeze leftover muffins for up to 3 month
Notes
Nutrition
Source: adapted from this recipe and this recipe (added banana & nuts, reduced honey & omitted sugar altogether, increased spices, etc.)
Other healthy apple recipes you’ll love:
Healthy Apple Crisp
Cinnamon Skillet Apples
Easy Apple Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal
Glad to see this recipe. Would like to have a muffin now.
You’ll have to let me know what you think if you make them!
Yum! The kids will love this. I’m planning to make it for snack time after they get home from school. Just out of curiosity, how much of a difference does using different types of apples make in terms of taste and texture?
Hi Evelyn! The shredded apple contributes a moist texture and apple taste throughout the muffin and it fades into the background, and then the bigger pieces of diced apple are delicious whenever you get a bite of one!
Agreed!
The goodness of apple and the taste of muffin what else I need. Loved this recipe to the core. Thanks!!
I’ve made three different healthy muffins in the last month and these are the only keepers. They were very good. I made only small change in that I used some leftover strawberry/blueberry homemade yogurt and homemade apple sauce. These are going to make great afternoon snacks for the first few days of the week. Looking forward to trying some of your other ideas.
I’m so glad to hear that you enjoyed these apple muffins, Jeff! Homemade applesauce and homemade yogurt? YUM!
Have you ever used oat flour instead of of whole wheat.
Because I used a 4% milk fat vanilla yogurt that is already sweet, I scaled back the honey by half, and found it to be sweet enough (I prefer less sweet muffins), and only used 1 t. Cinnamon. I have been loving on empire apples, so went with those. LOVE these muffins! A keeper recipe!
I love the muffin backing stones because the muffins bake evenly and are done according to the recipe bake time. I don’t see a lot of baking time variation like I do in some of the other bake-ware I have.
Thank you for the recipe, this is lovely.
Was getting ready to make this recipe, but I discovered someone had eaten one of my bananas. It sounds so good.