These Apple Muffins are EVERYTHING. Wholesome and nutritious, moist and dense, perfectly but not overly sweet, and honestly divine with a little butter and honey.
Feel-Good Apple Muffins
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These are so good! I loved the zucchini version in the summer and am so glad to have the apple variation in the fall.
Claire
These apple muffins are EVERYTHING in my life right now – moist and dense in a good way, perfectly but not overly sweet, and just honestly divine smeared with a little butter and honey.
Oh, one other helpful little thing: they’re wholesome. Real-food healthy ingredients. Feel-good for the body.
Here’s a universal scenario that happens to us food lovers almost every day in the fall.
- I want to bake a cozy treat!
- Wait though, I don’t have a ton of time.
- Wait though, I also don’t want to eat 100 grams of sugar.
- Hmm.
Enter: THESE apple muffins of the 100% comforting and treat-like but also healthy variety. They are made with:
- Oats
- Apples
- Dates
- Maple syrup
- Olive oil
- Eggs
And there you have it. Talk about FEEL-GOOD! I have been eating these on repeat for little “coffee breaks” throughout the day and happily sharing them with my daughter as one of those unicorn “treat” foods that feels both special and also wholesome.
Oh, and the low-on-time part? All you do is blend and pour into a muffin tin. Very unfussy.
Top with flaked unsweetened coconut if you’re really keeping it clean. Top with butterscotch chips if you walk on the wild side.
And even though they don’t *need* it, just the tiniest bit of butter with the quickest drizzle of honey will just take the whole thing to an entirely new fall baking level.
And if you’re now in muffin hog mode, we have a ton of muffins that follow this same cozy-treat-but-also-healthy policy!
Enjoy. Like seriously, take a pause, breathe in that warm cinnamony muffin in front of you, and just enjoy this cozy moment.
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Feel-Good Apple Muffins
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 10–12 muffins 1x
Description
These Apple Muffins are EVERYTHING. Wholesome and nutritious, moist and dense, perfectly but not overly sweet, and honestly divine with a little butter and honey.
Ingredients
Scale
- 2 cups rolled oats
- 8 medjool dates, pitted (about 3/4 cup)
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup real maple syrup
- 1–2 apples, grated (about 1–2 cups total)
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- pinch of sea salt and/or cinnamon (optional)
- coconut / seeds / nuts / butterscotch chips (optional, for topping)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Mix all ingredients in a blender until a chunky batter comes together.
- Pour batter into a greased or lined muffin tin. Sprinkle with butterscotch chips. Bake for 15-18 minutes, until the tops gently spring back when you press into them.
- Sprinkle warm muffins with sea salt if you’re into that kinda thing. Serve warm or cold ALL DAY LONG. ♡
Notes
For a sweeter muffin, add a little more maple syrup.
Bake times and textures will vary by batch, because every apple is different! I use Honeycrisp apples which are very sweet and juicy, and I don’t drain out the liquid or anything before adding them into the batter. Just know that each batch will be a little unique, and watch your bake time, adding minutes as necessary to get them baked to perfection!
The longer you blend them, the more “smooth” and puffy they will be. Less blending = a more textured, dense muffin. I like them both ways!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Category: Breakfast
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: healthy apple muffins, apple muffin recipe, sugar free apple muffins
One More Thing!
This recipe is part of our collection of best healthy fall recipes. Check it out!
Filed Under: All Recipes Baking Breakfast Dairy-Free Fall Gluten-Free Healthy Recipes Snacks Sugar-Free
October 28, 2019
Nice to meet you!
I’m Lindsay and I ♡ FOOD. I used to be a teacher, and now making food and writing about it online is my full-time job. I love talking with people about food, and I'm so glad you're here.
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Oh my heavens… autumn perfection! These look beautiful and delicious!
Amazing brownish look, Must be delicious 🙂
Hi Lindsay! These apple muffins look delicious. I wanted to let you know I’ve had great success with your freezer meals post. I’m a big freezer meal person and I’ve tried making many a “bag to slow cooker/instant pot” recipe and Have always been disappointed – but yours are SO good. The wild rice soup! The African peanut stew! The Korean beef! All huge hits and so unbelievably easy to prep. Would you ever consider doing a second edition of that post with new recipes?!
Hi, Andrea! Thanks for the kind comment. Love hearing that you enjoy the freezer meals. Good news! We actually just updated it last month. 🙂
Would a blender or food processor work better for these??
We’d recommend a blender here. 🙂
The other 3 variations of this recipe are regularly in rotation in my kitchen. I particularly appreciated the banana ones when I was breastfeeding.
I’m currently 23 weeks pregnant and apples have been my pregnancy OBSESSION this pregnancy. I’ve been eating at least one a day. I’m so sad I ate the last one last night and can’t make these this very moment. Will have to wait until this afternoon.
So excited for these!!
Enjoy, Jessica!
Hi! 36 weeks pregnant and using your freezer meals post to get prepped so thanks for that! Any experience with freezing these muffins? Cheers!!
These muffins freeze wonderfully!
Do you peel the apples before grating?
Nope, totally okay with the peel on. 🙂
Where was this recipe last week when I needed recipes for using up old apples 😭
I have homemade applesauce. Could I sub that for the grated apples…..seems obvious but you never know😀
Hi, Marianne! We haven’t tried that yet, so we’re not sure how that’d turn out. Let us know if you end up trying this out – we’d love to hear how this goes!
Oh these are yummy! I LOVE making them in the blender…totally do-able on busy mornings! The sprinkled salt at the end…perfection! Loved the zucchini version and now obsessed with these! Thanks!
Glad to hear that, Kim!
Hi! Do these have any fluffiness associated w reg muffins? I see no flour so curious! Also, curious why baking soda not powder – is one of these ingredients acidic? Thanks again!!
Hi, Lesley! The fluffiness of these muffins will vary based on how long you blend them. The longer you blend them, the more “puffy” they’ll be. The apples provide enough acid in this case, too. 🙂
oh my! ive got to make this. this is in my ballpark.
You need these!
Would stirring in the shredded apple after blending change them?
Hi Alison! It might change the consistency a little bit because the batter won’t be smooth – we think it can totally work though. Just a little more texture in there! 😉
Any substitution recommended for the dates? Thank you!!
Hi, Kathleen! We haven’t tried subbing out the dates yet, but you could try a mashed banana. Let us know how this goes!
I’ve made these a million times. I throw in whatever fruit is about to go bad or my toddlers’ leftover apples, pears, carrot, zucchini. I ise extra virgin olive oil because that’s what we have. We call it chocolate surprise and pit in chocolate chips sometimes. We add 1 tap salt and 1 tsp cinnamon. I use a mini muffin tin usually or a mix of normal and mini. Because I have made them frequently, I feel comfortable experimenting and today I had a little too much fruit so I added almost 1/4 c AP flour in fear that the batter would be wet. They came out great. A very forgiving recipe. Also I am too lazy to shred the fruit so everything goes in the blender. Thank you for a great recipe!
I assume extra virgin olive oil should not be used? If I don’t have regular olive oil is safflower a good substitution?
Extra virgin olive oil would probably be a-okay in this case. 🙂
I substituted prunes instead of dates a few times! Also works great. Prunes can be a tad smaller, so I throw in a couple extra. I always have prunes in the cupboard along with the rest of the ingredients, so it’s an easy substitution.
Hi I’m just curious as to what makes the fat content so high? 12g per muffin? What if no butterscotch chips? They sounds delicious but I could see eating a few of these a day!
Hi, Suzanne! Most of the fat content here comes from the eggs and the olive oil. Hope this helps!
Your instructions say ‘sprinkle with chocolate chips’ but the list says butterscotch, which do you recommend? I’m thinking butterscotch but wanted to double check 🙂
Oops, small typo. We think butterscotch chips would be amazing here!
These look amazing! Can I sub the olive oil with apple sauce? Or at least half of it?
yes, I did on another recipe (half) and turn out great
Hi, Coral! We haven’t tried this substitution yet, but it might work. We’d suggest trying to sub out half of the oil to start.
Do you think I could substitute for flax seed “egg” for this recipe?
Hi Martha! We haven’t tried this yet, but we think it could work. 🙂
Hey there, I tried making them wih the flax eggs instead of regular eggs. They tasted great, but were simply a bit more dense than I would expect them to be when baked with regular eggs. Received lots of compliments though.
Pro tipp, in order not to waste any of the goodness: once I’ve scraped the dough out of the blender, I fill in a bit of plant milk and blend again > muffin dough smoothie 😉
These look great! I have tried both the muffin and zucchini muffins that are very similar to this and I adored them. Is it possible to bake this in a loaf pan, or will that throw everything off?
Hi, Abigail! We haven’t made these muffins in a loaf pan yet, so it’s hard for us to say how it’ll turn out. You could try changing the cooking temp to 325 degrees and baking longer. Depending on how “wet” your batter is, it could take 30-45 minutes to bake. Let us know how this goes for you!
Baked it in a 8×4 loaf pan for about 45 minutes and it came out wonderfully! Super moist and delicious!
So happy to hear that! Thanks for sharing this with us, Abigail!
These are delicious! I whipped up a batch tonight. So easy and quick. Thanks for sharing .
Glad you enjoyed the muffins, Angie! 🙂
These are phenomenal!! I subbed the dates for a mashed banana since I didn’t have any dates on hand. I was also too lazy to grate the apples so I diced them then pulsed in the blender a few times instead before blending up with the rest of the ingredients. Also subbed olive oil for avocado oil. Everything came together SO fast! And they are SO yummy!!
So happy to hear that, Chelsea! 🙂
Lottery sambas today
I’m going to try this today as is, but I’m nervous my toddler won’t like the texture of the oats. If so, I’d like to blend them first next time. Do you know what the quantity would be for blended oats?
Hi Kim! We’d suggest blending 2 cups of rolled oats.
Heyy I was thinking about making this but I wanted to freeze them. Do you guys think that’s possible?
Definitely!
I was concerned that these might be dry, but they are far from it. They are delicious and I love the texture. Thanks for the recipe!
Glad you enjoyed these muffins, Kristin!
Yes!!! These look amazing! And I’m fascinated that they include olive oil – this is an ingredient I put in almost every recipe now even if it doesnt necessarily call for the oil.
These are amazing! I added leftover fresh ginger and it was the perfect addition.
YUMMY! Ginger sounds so good in these. 🙂
This look yummy. Can I use deglet noor dates instead of medjol dates? Will it make any difference?
Thanks
We haven’t tried using deglet noor dates yet, but we think it would work!
I loved these muffins!!! SO yummy. I was feeling lazy and didn’t grate my apples ahead of time, so I just pulsed them in my blender before adding all of the other ingredients. Worked great!
Glad you enjoyed ’em, JoAnna!