The Best Light and Healthy Chocolate Chip Banana Protein Muffins

This post is all about the best healthy chocolate chip banana protein muffins you’ve ever had.

You’ve put these muffins into the oven and the aroma of cinnamon and banana fills your kitchen…

Can you smell it?

I can.

The smell of a tasty baked good is one of the reasons I love to bake.

As much as I enjoy baked goods, I’ve always had to find ways to modify recipes to make them a bit healthier. There is always so much sugar and butter in everything I see.

This is where I came up with my own guilt-free protein-packed muffin recipe.

These healthy chocolate chip banana muffins are perfect for a quick breakfast, or if you need to grab a snack for the road.

This post is all about the Best Healthy Chocolate Chip Banana Protein Muffins that you’ve ever had.

Why You’ll Love These Chocolate Chip Banana Protein Muffins

Extra Protein: With the protein powder, yogurt, and hemp seeds these muffins have a boost of protein average muffins don’t. Yet thanks to the yogurt and banana they are moist and delicious!

Natural Sugar: The only sweeteners used in this muffin recipe are pure maple syrup and organic honey. Allowing you to indulge in this soft goodness without feeling guilty.

Easy Breakfast or Snack: Muffins are a super simple on-the-go snack or meal. You won’t have to worry about not having a healthy snack when you have these stocked in your fridge. Plus, all you have to do is mix all the ingredients and bake!

Tools Needed to Bake

• Muffin Pan/Tray
• Muffin Liners (optional)
• Large Mixing Bowl
• Small Mixing Bowl
• Mixing Spoon
• Fork or Masher
• Varying sizes of Measuring Cups & Spoons

Ingredients

Dry Ingredients

Rolled/Quick Oats: you can choose which you prefer for this recipe. Either will work fine.

Oat Flour: I usually put my oats into a blender to make my oat flour, but if you have oat flour already on hand then that would work as well.

Protein Powder: With this recipe, I use a vegan vanilla protein powder, Vega or Orgain are the brands in our house right now. I enjoy the texture and flavour of this. Some people may not like vegan protein powder and, in that case, you can use whey or whatever protein you would like. The texture of the muffin may turn out differently based on the type of protein powder you use.

Hemp Seed: I use shelled hemp seed for most of my recipes.

Flax Seed: I use milled flax seed for all my recipes. If you have whole flax seeds you can use those but I prefer the milled/ground because it is easier to digest.

Baking Powder

Cinnamon

Dark Chocolate Chips: I prefer to use dark, but milk would work as well.

Wet Ingredients

Bananas

Eggs: With this recipe, I used brown eggs but any egg would work perfectly.

Milk: Currently I usually have almond milk in the fridge so that is what I use for these muffins. Cows milk or other nut milk is another great option.

Maple Syrup: You can use both maple syrup and honey or pick one if you prefer one over the other.

Organic Honey: Whatever type of honey you have on hand will work for this recipe.

Vanilla Extract: I use pure vanilla extract for all my recipes.

Plain Greek Yogurt: If you don’t have plain, I’m sure a vanilla flavour would still be good with these muffins, however, I don’t know about other flavours. Anything else may overpower the rest of the ingredients, plus I like to use plain because there is no added sugar in the plain vs 15-20 gram sugar in the flavoured kinds. Always thinking of the added sugar content!

How to Make Chocolate Chip Banana Protein Muffins

1. Start by preheating the oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Next, you can either line the muffin tray with muffin liners or spray/oil the muffin tray with your choice of oil. You can use coconut oil, canola oil, or I’ve even thought about using tallow! I haven’t tried tallow yet but I’m sure it would be great too.
3. First in a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients, oats, oat flour, protein powder, hemp seed, flax seed, baking powder, and cinnamon.
4. Grab a separate bowl, peel, and mash the bananas with a fork or masher until smooth.
5. Next, you’re going to add the eggs, milk, maple syrup, honey, & vanilla extract to the bowl of bananas and combine well.
6. Now you’ll pour the wet banana and egg mixture into the dry mix.
7. Scoop in the plain Greek yogurt and stir everything together.
8. After mixing the wet and dry you can add the chocolate chips into the batter, and mix until incorporated, don’t over-mix.
9. Then pour the batter into the muffin tray. Mine usually end up being pretty full, this is fine as the muffins don’t rise an extreme amount.
10. Put the muffins into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown.
11. To test if the muffins are done take a toothpick and poke into the center of the muffin. If the toothpick comes out clean the muffins are done, if there is batter on the toothpick the muffins need a few extra minutes.
12. The best way I love to enjoy these muffins is straight out of the oven while they’re still warm!

Recipe Tips for Chocolate Chip Banana Protein Muffins

• I used both maple syrup and honey, but if you prefer one over the other you can simply do 4 tablespoons of your choice of sweetener, instead of 2 & 2 tablespoons.
• I usually end up with enough batter for 12 pretty full muffins, but if you add anything extra you may have a few extra and that’s okay! You can either get another tray out or bake the remaining couple after the first batch is done.
• If you want more protein in each muffin, you can add a 2^nd scoop of protein powder. You may need to add more milk to keep the consistency the same. This will yield a few more muffins compared to the original recipe.
• You can always make a double batch and freeze half to have on hand for later without having the muffins go bad.

Recipe Notes for Muffins

I use coconut oil in my muffin trays. I enjoy the flavour and I prefer to use it over spray oils.

Before I start making the muffin mixture, I will usually scrape off a few tiny pieces of coconut oil into the various muffin cups. By the time the muffin mixture is made, the oil is soft enough to take a small piece of parchment paper and spread it around each cup.

I don’t usually have oat flour on hand for recipes so I will simply put one cup of oats into a blender to make my oat flour. If you have oat flour already that works perfectly!

When adding the cinnamon and vanilla extract if you love more of a cinnamon or vanilla taste feel free to add more, make it to your liking!

For mashing the bananas I use a masher, but use what works for you. I then will use a fork to mix the eggs and other wet ingredients in.

You could add the Greek yogurt to the wet mixture if you prefer, and then add all wet to the dry. I simply find it easier to mix the yogurt in with both the wet and dry ingredients.

Now regarding the added chocolate chip flavour choice. Here I said to mix them in with all the ingredients, but sometimes I like to make batches that are half blueberry and half chocolate chip.

Those are my two favourite kinds.

What I’ll do is leave the flavour toppings out of the mixture and when I’m putting the mixture into the trays I will scoop a tablespoon-ish of batter in the trays and then add a couple of blueberries/chocolate chips. Add another bit of batter, then more blueberries/chocolate chips. I usually do about 3 layers of that.

Now this method is a little more tedious and time-consuming but sometimes I only want 12 muffins and I want 6 of each.

You can always double the batch and make blueberry muffins in one bowl and chocolate chips in another. Depends on how many muffins you want to make.

How to Store

Store these chocolate chip banana protein muffins in an airtight container in the fridge. You can leave them in an airtight container on the counter for a couple of days, however, anything after 4 days I would transfer into the fridge for best storage.

You can also freeze them for longer storage.

My absolute favourite way to enjoy these delicious healthy chocolate chip banana protein muffins is straight out of the oven with a nice cup of tea.  It is the perfect little treat.

They would also be wonderful paired with your morning coffee. A guilt-free protein-packed snack!

This post was about baking the best healthy chocolate chip banana protein muffins.