Mini Spinach Muffins are healthy, delicious, and a great way to sneak in some fruits and veggies. Made in a blender with spinach, avocado, apple sauce, honey and bananas, these mini muffins are packed with nutrients. Add a few chocolate chips and your kids will be begging you to make more!
My kids (and me!) love snacks, but sometimes it’s hard to find healthy ones that taste good too! These bite-sized muffins are packed with good stuff, but they taste like a treat. Because I add some chocolate chips in them, my kids think they are dessert, even though they are healthy enough to serve for breakfast.
MINI SPINACH MUFFINS
Mini Spinach Muffins are made with spinach, avocado, applesauce, honey, milk and bananas. The best part? Everything gets mixed together in a blender! The applesauce, honey and bananas add all of the sweetness to the muffins – no extra sugar needed! Well, except for the chocolate chips, but you can leave those out and the muffins are still delicious. Yes, the muffins end up being bright green, but if you can convince your kids to at least try them, they won’t even care. These mini muffins are fantastic for breakfast, packed lunches or an after school snack.
INGREDIENTS IN MINI SPINACH MUFFINS
Spinach – A 10 ounce bag of fresh spinach works great in the recipe. This is about 5 cups of fresh spinach.
Avocado – Make sure the avocado is ripe or it will be hard to blend into the batter.
Applesauce – I usually use unsweetened applesauce, but sweetened works fine too. You can use cinnamon applesauce if you’d like a little extra flavor. If you don’t have applesauce, you can substitute this with oil. Coconut oil works great – just make sure it is melted to a liquid before adding.
Honey – A little bit of honey provides a lot of sweetness and flavor for the muffins.
Milk – Any type of milk works great, even non-dairy alternatives.
Bananas – You will need two large over ripe bananas. No need to mash them up with a fork – just peel them and throw them in the blender with the other ingredients!
Egg – One egg binds everything together.
Vanilla extract – The higher the quality of the vanilla, the better! The vanilla just adds a little bit of flavor to the muffin recipe.
Flour – The recipe calls for all-purpose flour, but you can swap this out with wheat flour or oat flour or a gluten-free alternative.
Baking powder & baking soda – These act as the leavening agents in the muffins. For best results, make sure they aren’t old or expired.
Chocolate chips – Just 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips will tempt even the pickiest kids to try these muffins! You can swap them out with mini chocolate chips and just add a few on top of each muffin if you’d like, or you can leave them out completely.
HOW TO MAKE MINI SPINACH MUFFINS
Preheat oven to 350°. Prepare a mini muffin tin by greasing the cups with baking spray or filling them with liners.
Mix spinach, avocado, apple sauce, honey, milk, banana and vanilla in a blender or mixer until well combined.
Add egg, flour, baking powder and baking soda and mix just until combined – you don’t want to over mix. Some flour will still be seen around the edges of your blender and that’s fine.
Add the chocolate chips and use a spatula to stir them into the batter, along with any flour that may not have mixed in while blending.
Scoop or pour batter into the mini muffin tin. I use a small cookie scoop and it works great!
Bake for 15 minutes. The cooking time may be a little more or less depending on how full you fill the cups. I usually fill them pretty close to the top. Use a cake tester or toothpick to check the centers to make sure they are done!
MINI SPINACH MUFFINS
Ingredients
- 1 10 oz bag of spinach
- 1 avocado peeled and pitted
- ½ cup apple sauce
- ⅓ cup honey
- ¾ cup milk
- 2 large ripe bananas
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 ⅓ cups flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips the miniature ones work great too!
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°. Prepare a mini muffin tin by greasing the cups with baking spray or filling them with liners.
- Mix spinach, avocado, apple sauce, honey, milk, banana and vanilla in a blender or mixer until well combined.
- Add egg, flour, baking powder and baking soda and mix just until combined – you don’t want to over mix. Some flour will still be seen around the edges of your blender and that’s fine.
- Add the chocolate chips and use a spatula to stir them into the batter, along with any flour that may not have mixed in while blending.
- Scoop or pour batter into the mini muffin tin. I use a small cookie scoop and it works great!
- Bake for 15 mins (may be less depending on how full you fill the cups). I usually fill them pretty close to the top. Use a cake tester or toothpick to check the centers to make sure they are done!
Nutrition
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How to make Mini Spinach Muffins healthier
These little snacks are pretty healthy as is, but there are a few swaps you can make to maximize the nutrition even more.
- Swap out the flour. Instead of all-purpose flour, you can use wheat flour or a gluten free substitute. I actually like to blend up oats to make oat flour and I use that often. The texture will be a bit more dense with wheat or oat flour, but the taste is nearly the same.
- Leave out the chocolate chips. There aren’t many chocolate chips in the recipe, but sometimes I leave them out. I also like to use mini chocolate chips, because I can use even less!
- Add some protein. I tend to try to find ways to add protein to every snack. Of course, you can serve the muffins alongside other high protein snacks, but you can also add protein powder into the batter. I usually swap 1/3 cup of the flour with vanilla or unflavored protein powder. This will make the muffins even more filling!
How to convert mini muffins into regular sized muffins
We rarely make regular sized muffins because I love the bite-sized convenience of the mini muffins for my kids. If I give them a whole muffin, they tend to only eat part of it anyways!
That being said, it’s super easy to convert any mini muffin recipe into regular sized muffins! If you’d like to make 8 regular sized muffins instead of 24 mini muffins, you can scoop the batter into regular sized muffin cups. Bake for about 25-30 minutes.
MORE DELICIOUS SNACK RECIPES TO TRY
- CHOCOLATE CHIP BANANA BARS
- OATMEAL PEANUT BUTTER PROTEIN BALLS
- CREAMY PEANUT BUTTER DIP
- HOMEMADE SOFT PRETZELS WITH CHEESE DIP
- CHOCOLATE BANANA BARS
- ORANGE CREAMSICLE FRUIT DIP
- OATMEAL BANANA BREAKFAST COOKIES
- HOMEMADE FRESH FRUIT SHAVED ICE
- HOMEMADE STOVETOP POPCORN
- SNICKERDOODLE FRUIT DIP
Mini Spinach Muffins are delicious and perfect for an after school snack. They are great for packed lunches and a quick breakfast too. Healthy muffin recipe full of fruits and veggies!
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