Vegan Banana Muffins
This easy vegan banana muffins recipe comes with an irresistible crunchy cinnamon-spiced crumb topping. Add some vanilla glaze for fun! You’ll love these moist, delicious banana bread muffins. See my favorite tips for making these muffins with applesauce and chocolate chips.
I love serving muffins with this Green Tea Hot Chocolate for breakfast.
If winter weather leaves you feeling the winter blues this best vegan Banana Muffins Recipe might just be the cure. The smell of the muffins baking, the happy smiles from a grateful family, and the delightful flavor of these banana-infused muffins certainly did the trick for me.
Of course, I wanted to make these banana muffins vegan! It was easy to do and now you can enjoy this healthy muffin recipe for breakfast or as a snack.
What Makes This Recipe Shine?
- Using coconut sugar (or brown sugar) adds caramel rich flavors to these muffins
- A delicious streusel is easy to make and adds dimension of flavor and texture to every bite
- Using vegetable oil creates moist muffins that you’ll want to make time and time again!
Key Ingredients
You can find the full printable recipe, including ingredient quantities, below. But first, here are some explanations of ingredients and steps to help you make this recipe perfect every time.
Here are the ingredients you’ll need for this recipe, including substitution ideas:
- Flour — You can use either all-purpose or whole wheat pastry flour. To make gluten-free vegan banana muffins, substitute high-quality gluten-free baking flour.
- Coconut sugar — If you don’t have coconut sugar, you can substitute brown sugar
- Vegan butter — I used Earth Balance buttery sticks or make your own vegan butter.
- Baking powder + Baking soda — Make sure yours is fresh by testing baking powder in hot water and baking soda in vinegar. If it bubbles, your batch is good.
- Salt
- Plant-based milk — I like using soy milk, but any plant-based milk should work
- Vinegar — I prefer apple cider vinegar, but you can use white vinegar.
- Bananas — You’ll need 3 ripe bananas.
- Vanilla extract
- Vegetable oil — You can use canola oil or melted coconut oil.
What Bananas are Best?
I like using bananas with a few or even a lot of brown spots. If the banana is too ripe (verging on dark brown or even black), the flavor may be too overpowering.
How to Make Vegan Banana Muffins
- Make the streusel topping by stirring together the flour and sugar and cutting in the vegan butter.
- Stir together the dry ingredients, from the flour to the salt, in a large bowl.
- Mix the milk and vinegar.
- Stir mashed bananas, vanilla, and vegetable oil with the milk.
- Make the batter by stirring the banana mixture into the flour mixture.
- Spoon the batter into muffin compartments, filling them about 2/3 of the way.
- Sprinkle the streusel over the batter.
- Bake for approximately 20 minutes until golden brown around the edges.
Here are more detailed step-by-step instructions.
Step One: Make Vegan Streusel
First, we begin by making the streusel topping. Be sure and use softened vegan butter (not melted) and combine that with flour and sugar. Stir until crumbly.
You can do half and half flour and oatmeal if you’d like.
Streusel is a German-inspired topping for muffins. It adds both flavor and texture. Make the streusel first and then place it in the fridge. Keeping it cold (especially if the weather is hot outside), will help keep it crumbly while you prepare the muffin batter.
Step Two — Make the Muffin Batter
Next, make the basic eggless banana muffins batter. In fact, the ingredients involved are very similar to what you would see in a vegan banana bread recipe.
Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and give it a stir until combined.
Next, stir together the milk and vinegar in a bowl. This is basically a vegan buttermilk. Then mash the bananas.
Combine the plant-based milk with mashed bananas, vanilla, and oil. Stir this all together.
To make the batter, pour the wet ingredients in with the flour mixture and stir until the you don’t have any big lumps of flour. It can be hard to tell with the banana bits in the batter, but just watch the batter closely as you stir. If you don’t see clumps of flour, your batter is ready.
Step Three — Fill Muffins and Bake
Use a cookie dough or ice cream dispenser to evenly distribute muffin batter in prepared muffin tins. Top the muffin batter with some of the streusel crumbles.
Finally, bake the muffins around 20 minutes, until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool before devouring!
Storage Tips
Store muffins in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days. They can be refrigerated for up to 1 week or frozen for up to 2 months. To serve, cook in the microwave until heated through.
Frequently-Asked Questions
Can you make banana muffins with no eggs?
You can easily make banana muffins without eggs or even egg replacers. Sometime’s you need to add ground flaxseed to make eggless muffins, however, bananas act as a natural egg replacer in addition to providing yummy flavor and moisture. That’s why making eggless banana bread muffins is so easy!
Can you add applesauce to this muffin recipe?
Adding applesauce to muffins makes them nice and moist. You can use anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce with many muffin recipes.
Banana Muffins with Chocolate Chips
I love these vegan banana muffins just like they are. Anything with bananas makes me happy. That said, you can transform these muffins into something entirely decadent by adding 1/4 cup dairy-free chocolate chips to the batter.
Or you could add a dollop of vegan chocolate frosting on top and create banana cupcakes!
Marly’s Tips
- Use muffin papers or spray each of the muffin compartments with vegetable cooking spray.
- Use a cookie dough or ice cream scoop to distribute the muffin batter and keep it neat.
- It’s ok to have lumps in the mashed bananas; it adds texture and flavor to the finished muffins.
- Once the batter is prepared, bake immediately to get nice, fluffy muffins.
- Add a little drizzle of vegan royal icing or combine 1/4 cup powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon plant-based milk.
- Transform these into vegan banana nut muffins by adding 1/4 cup chopped walnuts to the batter.
More Muffins
Yes, these vegan banana muffins are delicious. Here are even more tasty vegan muffins:
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Vegan Banana Muffins
Ingredients
Streusel topping:
- ½ cup whole wheat pastry flour
- 3 tablespoons coconut sugar
- ¼ cup vegan butter , softened
Muffin batter:
- 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
- ⅓ cup coconut sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup plant-based milk
- 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
- 3 ripe bananas , mashed
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F/190°C. Spray a muffin pan with vegetable spray or use paper liners.
- Streusel topping: Combine the flour and sugar in a bowl and cut in the vegan butter until the crumbles are pea-size. Refrigerate.
- Muffin: Stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.
- In a separate bowl, add the milk and apple cider. Let this sit for a minute so the vinegar can combine with the milk. Add the mashed bananas, vanilla, and vegetable oil. Stir until combined.
- Add the banana mixture to the flour mixture, and stir until combined. Don't overmix. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin pan, until about ⅔ full.
- Sprinkle an even amount of streusel over each unbaked muffin.
- Bake for approximately 20 minutes until golden brown around the edges of the streusel. A tester inserted in the middle of one of the muffins should come out clean. Remove from oven and let cool for about 5 minutes.
- Store muffins in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days. They can be refrigerated for up to 1 week or frozen for up to 2 months. To serve, cook in the microwave until heated through.
Recommended Equipment
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Notes
The nutrition information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator and should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
Enjoy!
This post was originally published in 2019 and was updated to include new photos, new text, and an updated recipe in 2020.
oh my, i love little banana muffins! and i love pretty ribbons! 🙂 congrats on top 9!
Thanks, Junia. Making the FoodBuzz Top 9 is always such a fun thing!
Beautifully presented. So easy to eat in just a bite. Lovely! Thank you for sharing this recipe.
You’re so welcome, Julie. Glad you liked it. Since it’s easy to eat in just one bite, it might require two muffins!
They are the best! looks awesome! Clicks are beautiful…..they are making me drool! Congrats on top9!
I am with Pooh, Piglet & you. Breakfast is the most exciting meal of the day. I dash out of bed for it. These muffins look amazing. Fun twist with the banana.
Hi Marla, You know, our names are only different by one letter! I’m not always enthusiastic about breakfast, but I do love cooking it. It just seems to take me awhile to get hungry. I more than make up for it the rest of the day though!
Like your strategies 🙂 And these muffins look so delightful, especially withe the ribbon 🙂
I have never been a ribbon kinda gal myself, but I love ’em on other people…and on muffins…they’re not too shabby on cookies either. OK. Maybe I do like ribbons after all…
Ahhhh yum!! These look so yummy, I can’t wait to try them!
Marly drooling on this end, these muffins look yummy and I am so loving the pics, stunning!!! I find cooking and baking relaxes me, all my worries take a back burner when I am in the kitchen, do you know what I mean?
I do know what you mean. It’s one of the things I love about cooking/baking.
The snow has been here since late November, I am now a professional car pusher. These muffins are just the thing to cheer me up.
Professional car pusher, eh? I think they could start a reality TV show about you! Ryan the Carpusher – pushing cars…whether they want it or not!
Hey Marley, I’m loving these photos and recipes:-)
We had sun today and temps in the high 60’s so no complaining here:-)
I used to listen to the Indigo Girls all the time, thanks for bringing back a good memory and have a great weekend.
I knew there was something I liked about you Patty!
Fabulous muffin recipe! Love the pink ribbon too:)
Thanks, Maria. Ribbons are now my new favorite thing!