Paleo, Gluten Free, Grain Free Mini Muffins {2 Versions}
I recently had a recipe on my site that quickly became very popular. It was a quick mini muffin that took only 5 minutes to whip up! Here is that recipe:
Got 5 Minutes? Here is The Easiest Gluten Free & Grain Free Muffins Ever
I had quite a few request to make these muffins without using bananas. Easy enough…just had to experiment and bonus…I got to eat more of these amazing muffins!
First, if you haven’t tried that recipe, I encourage you to try it. It is quite amazing! I was a bit surprised how many requests I got for banana free paleo mini muffins.
So today’s version of these amazing muffins is made with applesauce rather than bananas. I will include both versions of this recipe and you pick which one to try first. Both of these paleo, gluten free, grain free mini muffins are terrific!
How To Substitute Ingredients
One of my most frequently asked questions is how to substitute certain ingredients. In today’s recipe I am going to talk about substituting bananas for applesauce.
The first important piece of information is that 1 medium banana is about 1/3 cup smashed. I think you could easily substitute bananas out with unsweetened applesauce or pearsauce or a combination of the two.
Here is what I did to make my own quick homemade apple-pear sauce. Be sure to check out the chart in this post to get the desired consistency of applesauce that you are looking for.
I made a chunky pear-apple sauce and used 2 medium apples and 2 really ripe pears and that made 2/3 cups of chunky pear-apple sauce, exactly what you need for this recipe. Here is the recipe:
Quick and Easy Homemade Apple Pear Sauce Recipe
Simply replace the bananas with 2/3 cup of applesauce, pearsauce or apple-pear sauce. So let’s get to these 2 different recipes.
Paleo, Gluten Free, Grain Free Mini Muffins Made with Applesauce {Version 1}
So here are these little gems made with apple-pear sauce. They taste amazing and have a nice sweetness to them.
Paleo Mini Muffins {Made With Applesauce, Pearsauce or Apple-Pear Sauce}
Prep Time: 5 mins- Cook Time: 10 mins
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 24 mini muffins or 12 large muffins
Prep Time:
Yield:
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
Nutritional Information: Calories: 153 Fat: 11g Carbs: 10g Protein: 6g
Ingredients
- 1 cup nut butter – You can shop for nut butters here
- 2/3 cups applesauce, pearsauce or apple-pear sauce (The more ripe, the sweeter!)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla (try making your own!)
- 2 tablespoons of raw honey (or other sweeteners such as maple syrup, stevia, etc.)
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- Toppings: dehydrated unsweetened coconut flakes, raisins, flaxseed, dark chocolate chips, cinnamon, and/or anything else you can think of. I added even more tupelo honey 😉 Feel free to lather on apple butter, strawberry preserves, or even more peanut butter. Ever heard of carrot jam? It’s very tasty with this snack, too!
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375º degrees F.
- Place all ingredients into a blender or food processor. You can also use a stick blender if you have one.
- Blend until well mixed.
- Pour batter into a greased muffin tin. You can also use a mini muffin tin to make 24 mini muffins.
- Add additional toppings of your choice to each muffin and lightly stir into each cup
- Cook time: 15 minutes for full size muffins and 10 minutes for mini muffins.
- Reheat in a toaster oven for about 4 minutes at 350 degrees F, or eat at room temperature.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 2 mini muffins or 1 large muffin
Fresh out of the oven! I did notice that they did not rise quite as high as the muffins made with bananas, but it didn’t bother me one bit. These muffins are OUTSTANDING!
Paleo, Gluten Free, Grain Free Mini Muffins Made With Bananas {Version 2}
So onto version two of this recipe! I absolutely love this recipe too! Make sure your bananas are super ripe. The more ripe, the sweeter the muffins.
Paleo, Gluten Free, Grain Free Mini Muffins Made With Bananas
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Cook Time: 10 mins
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 24 mini muffins or 12 large muffins
Description
Nutritional Information: Calories: 165 Fat: 11g Carbs: 13g Protein: 6g
Ingredients
- 1 cup nut butter – You can shop for nut butters here
- 2 medium sized bananas or approx. 2/3 cup of smashed bananas (The more ripe, the sweeter!)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla (try making your own!)
- 2 tablespoons of raw honey (or other sweeteners such as maple syrup, stevia, etc.)
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- Toppings: dehydrated unsweetened coconut flakes, raisins, flaxseed, dark chocolate chips, cinnamon, and/or anything else you can think of. I added even more tupelo honey 😉 Feel free to lather on apple butter, strawberry preserves, or even more peanut butter. Ever heard of carrot jam? It’s very tasty with this snack, too!
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375º degrees F.
- Place all ingredients into a blender or food processor. You can also use a stick blender if you have one.
- Blend until well mixed.
- Pour batter into a greased muffin tin. You can also use a mini muffin tin to make 24 mini muffins.
- Add additional toppings of your choice to each muffin and lightly stir into each cup
- Cook time: 15 minutes for full size muffins and 10 minutes for mini muffins.
- Reheat in a toaster oven for about 4 minutes at 350 degrees F, or eat at room temperature.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 2 mini muffins or 1 large muffin
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Hey all one more thing. If you like this post please +1 us by clicking on the +1 in the lower left corner. Thank you!
You asked for it, here it is. 2 Versions of our Paleo, Gluten Free and Grain Free Mini Muffins! Which version do you like better?
Made the banana version of these and they are great! We eat paleo at my house, and these muffins make breakfast and afternoon snacks easy. Made them yesterday before work, and I’m surprised at how many I have eaten. They are so good and small I just wanna keep popping them in my mouth. Will definetly be making these again.
I have only made the banana muffins and I really liked them. We will have fresh apples from the tree soon, so maybe I will make the apple muffins with them.
Marie Gaspari The apple muffins are delicious with walnuts or pecans! Yum!
My grand kids just love this recipe and so do grandpa & grandma !
@Elaine Weitz So glad you are enjoying them!
These are amazing and so easy to make.
My kids love them! Thank you so much for this recipe.
@amanda You are welcome! Agree, the easier the better and this one literally takes 5 min to whip up!
Love love love these muffins! They’re a great healthy, hearty snack!
I found that if you’re not eating them that same weekend :), they have to be refrigerated immediately. I use mine as a weekly snack, so they need to last.
Thanks again for a great recipe that I share with everyone!
thtyrell You are so welcome. I agree with you, it makes for a perfect well balanced snack!!!
I wonder if you can use tahini in these? I’m allergic to peanuts and almonds, and that cashew butter is too dang expensive.
Same with my granddaughter but she can only have peanuts no tree nuts
These have become a favorite quick, on the go breakfast for us. My kids love them, both versions! I tinkered a little (because that’s ow I roll lol) and subbed puréed pumpkin for the bananas/applesauce, used homemade pecan butter for the but butter and threw in a couple teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice…they were divine! They needed to bake slightly longer than your versions because of the extra water in the pumpkin. I’m going to try sweet potato next. Thank you for sharing our versions!
OMGoodness…these are SO good! I used peanut butter and two medium size bananas…had no trouble with sinking, in fact, they rose beautifully. I did have to decrease the cooking time as well as the oven temp. (After 10 minutes at 400 degrees the regular size muffins were getting too brown.) Next time I’ll start at 375 degrees. Thanks for sharing this recipe!!
Can these muffins be frozen? I live alone and would like to make a batch of at least a half dozen, but they would need to last at least a week.
OH MY!!! Just made some homemade cashew butter then made these muffins. They are superb. I added some coconut and choc chips as suggested and used applesauce I made yesterday. I am not a “muffin” person but these are a keeper! Can’t wait for Thanksgiving to share with my paleo family. So fast and easy.
@Moondragon007 I bet it would work!
MommyOnAMission Wow, these sound amazing! Can’t wait to try the pumpkin…thanks for sharing!
@Kendra Thanks for the tip. All oven temperatures vary so it is wise to watch them the first go around!
@Elaina Yep, sure can!
cm756 Oh I am so glad you enjoyed them!!!!
Why Apple Cider Vinegar? What does that do?
@Audrey apple cider vinegar helps the muffins rise. When you add the baking soda and then add the vinegar on top, it creates a fizz like substance. Fold this into the batter. This helps tremendously with the texture and making it lighter more airy.
Mine didn’t rise and are still soggy in the middle -what am I doing wrong? 🙁
Mine did the same thing. I wonder if my oven should be hotter than 375 because I kept leaving them in longer and they still turned out that way.
just made the second version of these with bananas and justin’s maple almond butter. these are really tasty! mine only needed to bake for about 12 minutes at 375. i added raw pecans, a little coconut palm sugar, and cinnamon to the top. when i calculated nutrition, i got closer to 186 calories and 14 grams of fat per muffin but still not bad! thanks for the recipe!
muffins are in my oven, the rise is amazing and my whole kitchen smells wonderful, if they taste as good as they look they will be a new favorite treat, by the way I used braggs apple cider vin. with the mother, and sprinkled the tops with Love Grown foods cocoa goodness oat granola clusters with choc chips and walnuts, yum
Mine came out soggy in the middle too! Any idea why?
Did you cook them long enough? Soggy generally means to much liquid. My nut butter is really thick, are you using natural thick nut butters?
These are so yummy! I did almond butter and 1/3 c pumpkin, 1/3 cup banana. They are amazing!
Way cool! Some very valid points! I appreciate you penning this article plus the rest of the website is also really good.
Is there any suitable egg replacer that would work for this?
Thanks!!
These were my first attempt at grain free baking…..and these are wonderful!
I made the applesauce version and used sunflower seed butter. But I too am wondering if you could use flax or chia “eggs”. Tomorrow will be a “bread” recipe,
Woohoo I’m on a roll…….thanks
If you used sunflower seed butter would that make these nut free? A little girl in my son’s class can’t have nuts.
I blog quite often and I seriously appreciate your information. Your article
hhas truly peaked my interest. I’m going to book mark your site and keep
checking for new details about once a week. I subscribed to your RSS
feed as well.
have you ever tried making them without sweetener? just wondering if it throws off the consistency … thanks!
The fruit offers plenty of sweetener if you choose to leave out the “additional” sweetener, the recipe will work just fine.
Cant wait to try these. I have been looking for a muffin recipe that didn’t require so many eggs. This one requiring two should fit my needs. Also a great way to use up aging bananas instead of tossing them
I made the first verson without banana and used sunflower seed butter, amazing except I’m wondering why they turned green inside after sitting out for 2 hours? My boyfriend loved them at first and is now weirded out.
Sunflower seed butter does that naturally and it is perfectly safe to eat! 🙂
Great recipe! Thanks for sharing!
★★★★★
I can’t have apples and am not really a banana lover – is there anything else I could sub in instead?
Sure! Pumpkin would work great or even mashed sweet potatoes.
Hi! I made these last week and they were fantastic! Went to make them again today and cannot see the actual recipe on this page anywhere anymore please help!
Louise
Our site was down for a few hours, sorry about that. It should be up and runny now. 🙂
I made the banana muffins last night and they are AMAZING, they are already gone! I even made my own almond butter for it. THANK YOU for the amazing recipe!
★★★★★
Yay Lucie, so glad you enjoyed them! 🙂
Baking noob here-we don’t have any apple cider vinegar; is it ok to sub in white or rice vinegar? Thanks!
You can use white vinegar with no issues.
Never tried grain-free baking but wanted to these muffins out and they are AMAZING! I can´t believe they don´t have flour or gluten-free flour! They came out so moist, fluffy and delicious, can´t believe baking with no flour tastes so good! Will make these all the time and get my hubby and kids to have for breakfast and snacks.
Thank you Halle!
So happy you enjoyed them! 🙂
Could I use something else in place of the nut butter? We have a nut allergy here.
You could use sunflower seed butter, but do note that it might turn a shade of green in the cooking process. They are totally safe to consume green, it is just what sun butter does.
Interesting. I blamed the green color on the flax seeds. I’ve made the banana ones twice now. They are very tasty but when cooling they seem to deflate. They come out like your picture but then go flat. The 2nd time I added a T of carob powder. Haven’t tasted one yet but I have done that with zucchini muffins and the taste great.
If you do them as mini muffins, they are more likely not to deflate. Sunflower butter also will color the muffins green FYI!
These are the very best vegan or gluten free puffins we have made!!
I was looking for a quick GF muffin for our “Fun Muffin Friday”(a way to help my kids get out of bed for school in the morning); this recipe was the first I tried. It is THE BEST!
I used applesauce and decreased the almond butter to 3/4 cup. I also added
2 scoops of ARBONNE Essentials Vanilla Protein Shake Mix(did not use vanilla) and 2 scoops of their Daily Protein Boost to increase the nutrition and protein. Made 1/3 with chocolate chips, 1/3 with coconut on top, and 1/3 with a slice of banana in the middle. OH MY GOODNESS!!
These are the best GF muffins we have had or bought anywhere!!! Seriously, with the shake mix and protein, the consistency was perfect t and they are packed with nutrition and protein-and still low fat.
THANK YOU!!!
Posting on all my sites 🙂
FB: janis hedstrom-Arbonne Independent Consultant
Happy you enjoyed them! 🙂