Oatmeal Muffins – The Best Easy Recipe!

This delicious healthy oatmeal muffins recipe is soft, moist, fluffy, and easy to make for breakfast or a healthy snack!

Award winning oatmeal muffins

The simple muffins are packed with wholesome ingredients and will quickly become a new morning family favorite.

With a five star rating and over two hundred positive reader reviews, this is the best oatmeal muffin recipe you will ever find.

A few years ago, I entered the recipe into a contest held by Health Magazine, and it won their pick for Best On The Go Healthy Breakfast Option.

You might even already have the ingredients in your kitchen pantry to bake up a batch of moist and delicious oat muffins right now!

You may also like these Tiramisu Overnight Oats

Ingredients

To make oatmeal muffins from scratch, you need oats, flour, milk of choice, vinegar, sweetener, baking soda, baking powder, salt, optional egg, and optional oil, nut butter, or applesauce.

Oats – The recipe calls for one cup of quick cooking oats.

I use quick oats because they absorb liquid better than rolled oats and yield softer muffins. You may use rolled oats or instant oats if these are all you have on hand. I have not tried steel cut oats.

For gluten free oatmeal muffins, go with certified gluten free oats or an equal amount of rolled quinoa flakes.

Milk – Feel free to use any milk currently in your refrigerator.

For dairy free muffins, I like almond milk, oat milk, or coconut milk. The milk adds creaminess and extra nutrition, so I do not recommend swapping it for water.

Flour – All purpose white flour, whole grain spelt flour, oat flour, or some brands of gluten free baking flour work well.

A version with no flour (made with almond meal) is also included below.

For best results, do not use coconut flour because it will yield dry and crumbly muffins.

If you experiment with whole wheat flour, almond flour, rice flour, or pastry flour, let me know how it goes.

Sugar – Choose regular white sugar, unrefined coconut sugar, or xylitol for added sugar free muffins.

I do not recommend substituting stevia or a liquid sweetener like pure maple syrup or honey because it will change the texture considerably.

Leftover oats? Make homemade Energy Balls

Healthy oatmeal muffin recipe video

Above, watch the step by step video showing how to make the muffins.

Oatmeal breakfast muffin flavors

Oatmeal Raisin: Use the basic recipe below, including the optional cinnamon. Add half a cup of raisins before portioning the batter into the pan.

Or use the same idea with dried cranberries, chopped dates, or figs.

Apple Cinnamon: Add a teaspoon of ground cinnamon with the dry ingredients.

Stir half a cup of diced apples with the liquid ingredients. After the muffins come out of the oven, roll them in cinnamon sugar if desired.

Peanut Butter: Use creamy or crunchy peanut butter in place of the oil.

Or use almond butter, cashew butter, or pecan butter. Stir in a scoop of finely chopped peanuts if you wish.

Oatmeal Banana Muffins: Replace one third cup of milk with ripe mashed banana.

Adding a handful each of diced walnuts and mini chocolate chips yields a fun texture and an oatmeal banana bread taste.

Blueberry: For old fashioned blueberry oatmeal muffins, first stir everything together except the berries to form a muffin batter.

Very gently stir in half a cup of fresh or thawed frozen blueberries until just evenly mixed. Overmixing risks breaking the berries and turning the muffins purple.

Orange: Substitute a third of the milk with orange juice. Omit the vinegar in the recipe.

Stir the zest of one orange in with the liquid ingredients.

Maple Brown Sugar: Swap the white sugar for brown. Add three drops of natural maple extract along with the milk.

These taste like those popular instant Quaker maple and brown sugar oatmeal packets, in the form of a muffin!

Pumpkin pie: Replace a fourth cup of milk with canned pumpkin puree.

Add half a teaspoon of cinnamon and a fourth teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice.

Zucchini: Substitute a fourth cup of the milk with very finely shredded zucchini. Or add carrot for carrot cake oat muffins.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Muffins

As a chocolate chip cookie lover, this is my favorite flavor variation.

Add up to three fourths cup of semi sweet or dark chocolate chips to the batter along with the dry ingredients.

For presentation, you can also press a few chocolate chips into the top of each muffin right before cooking.

Sprinkle a few rolled oats or quick oats over everything, then bake in the oven.

Readers also love these Chocolate Baked Oats

How to make vegan oatmeal muffins

Start by combining the oats and milk in a large mixing bowl. Stir well, then let this bowl sit on the counter for about ten minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a muffin pan with paper liners or grease each individual tin with oil or spray.

Add all remaining ingredients to the mixing bowl, and whisk just until everything is evenly combined. To avoid dense muffins, do not over stir the mixture.

Portion the oatmeal batter into the prepared muffin tins.

Place the pan on the center rack of the oven, and bake for twenty minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out mostly clean.

Remove the pan, and let it cool on the counter.

Loosely cover any muffins you do not eat right away with a cloth towel, and store either on the counter or in the refrigerator overnight.

These vegan oatmeal muffins taste even better the next day if you can wait that long, and the liners peel off easily after a day as well.

For optimal freshness, it is best to refrigerate leftovers after a day in a covered container. They should stay good for up to four days.

Or you can freeze the recipe in an airtight container for up to three months. Thaw frozen oatmeal muffins and reheat in the microwave or in a pan on the stove top.

Baking tips and tricks

Soaking the raw oats in milk before mixing them with the other ingredients yields fluffier muffins. This baking trick helps the oats to absorb more moisture.

If you only have old fashioned oats in the cabinet, you can make your own quick oats at home by pulsing them in a food processor or blender for about five pulses.

As mentioned above, the liners will peel off easily if you let the recipe sit overnight. Or if you prefer not to wait, skip the liners completely and grease the pan well or use a nonstick silicon muffin pan.

For those who want oil free muffins, swap out the vegetable or coconut oil for almond or peanut butter heated until easy to stir. Applesauce, Greek yogurt, canned pumpkin puree, or mashed banana also work.

The lightly sweet and wholesome muffins are also a great served alongside savory recipes for lunch or dinner. Try them instead of cornbread with Vegan Chili.

Oatmeal muffins health benefits

These muffins offer similar nutrition benefits to those in a bowl of oatmeal, and they are one of my family’s favorite healthy breakfast recipes.

Just one oatmeal muffin a day gives you nine percent of the recommended daily allowance for fiber and close to four grams of protein. If you want even more protein, simply add the optional nut butter.

The muffins are low in sugar, with just eight grams per muffin (under a tablespoon) even if you use real sugar.

They can also be low calorie, coming in at under 100 calories each.

Finally, the recipe includes nondairy, egg free, nut free, kid friendly, gluten free, low fat, no sugar added, and plant based vegan options for those on special diets.

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