Soft, buttery and lightly cinnamon-spiced – these gluten free banana muffins are the perfect way to use up your overripe bananas! Made with basic pantry ingredients that you probably already have in these muffins are super easy to make and will be ready before you know it! Look in the recipe notes for dairy free/egg free options!
Ok now, hear me out.
I know I already shared a paleo banana crumb muffin recipe a couple of days ago, but can you really have too many banana bread type recipes? I think not.
These gluten free banana muffins are a more traditional, simple and accessible gluten free banana muffin recipe. There are no fancy ingredients and they’re super easy to make. The end result is a light and buttery muffin that you can whip up in no time without needing to make a quick trip into a health food store! This recipe is an essential one to keep in your back pocket if you’re into gluten-free baking!
So let’s get to it!
How to Make Gluten Free Banana Muffins
Altogether these muffins are super easy to make. We’re sticking with simple ingredients that you probably already have stocked if you’ve baked anything in the past six months.
There’s also no need for any special equipment other than a couple of mixing bowls, a whisk and a wire rack for cooling. That being said you can totally blend this all together using an electric mixer or blender if you prefer. Both of those are great options in you want to make sure you blend out large chunks of mashed bananas.
The process:
- Mix together your wet ingredients in a large bowl.
- Whisk in the dry ingredients
- Prep your muffin tin by greasing or adding muffin liners to the pan. Fill up your muffin cups & bake.
Easy!
Key Ingredients
- Brown Sugar – I like using brown sugar here because it has more moisture in it thanks to the molasses but white sugar will also work. Coconut sugar can also be used if you’e like a refined sugar free options.
- Melted Butter – Butter makes for a better flavour but you can use coconut oil here too!
- Eggs (Flax Eggs) – Chicken or plant based. Check out my post on how to make flax eggs if you need a few extra tips.
- Banana – What’s a banana bread with banana? Mash up your banana mixture before mixing it into the other ingredients.
- Gluten Free All Purpose Flour – Most generic gluten free flour blends will work whether it’s a homemade blend or your favourite store bought. Xanthan gum does not need to be included but it is ideal if possible.
- Cinnamon – This adds a gentle warmth to your loaf!
- Baking Powder – It’s what helps these muffins rise.
Leftovers & Storage
- These keep best stored an airtight container or individually wrap up in plastic wrap.
- On the counter/at room temp these muffins will 1-2 days. Keep them stored in the fridge to last up to a week.
- Tip: Pop these in the microwave for about 20 seconds before eating so that they’re feel and taste like they’re fresh from the oven.
Can I use different flours?
- This recipe is based on my gluten-free banana bread recipe. When I originally tested that recipe I used a 1:1 rice flour and tapioca blend that came out pretty well. Ultimately I decided on using a gluten free flour blend because it’s usually easier to find a generic blend as opposed to two separate gluten free flours. The bread does have a much chewier texture with just rice/tapioca but is still very enjoyable.
- If you’re interested in using grain free flours you might prefer one of these great snack recipes instead:
- Paleo Banana Crumb Muffins (coconut flour + almond flour or almond meal)
- Chocolate Chip Paleo Banana Muffins – also good if you’re interested in healthy banana muffins (coconut flour+ tapioca flour)
- Vegan Chocolate Chip Chickpea Banana Bread (chickpea flour)
Can I make these vegan and ditch the eggs and dairy?
- You can use two flax eggs or chia eggs in place of regular eggs.
- If you’re interested in an egg free banana bread that was designed to be egg free then I’ll refer you back to my Chickpea Flour Banana Bread.
- You can use melted coconut oil or vegan butter in place of the dairy butter.
Why adjust the temperature as the muffins bake?
- Cooking at a high temp and then lowering it down to a second temperature does two things for your muffins:
- The initial hot temperature encourages your batter to rise and puff up. It’s what makes for a nice, domed top.
- The hot temp also helps create a slightly more crispy crust on top while keeping the inside nice and soft.
Make sure to fill your liners up all the way.
- For tall muffins that rise, don’t be afraid to fully fill up your paper liners.
If you’re still hungry for more gluten free banana recipes make sure to check these out:
- Gluten-Free Banana Bread Recipe
- Banana Nut Scones
- Paleo Banana Bread with a Chocolate Swirl
- Flourless Carrot Banana Pancakes
- Banana Bread French Toast
- Banana Date Granola Bars
- Homemade Banana Fritters
Gluten Free Banana Muffins
Soft, fluffy and perfectly moist - these gluten free banana muffins are the best way to use up your overly ripe bananas! Vegan option available in the notes!
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup | 135 grams light brown sugar or coconut sugar
- 1/2 cup | 113 grams melted butter (see notes for vegan option)
- 2 eggs (see notes for vegan option)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups ripe bananas, mashed (about 3 medium-larger bananas)
- 1 1/2 cup | 210 grams all purpose gluten free flour blend
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F/200°C. Grease or line a 12-cup muffin tin. You'll only need to grease/line 10 muffins cups.
- In a large mixing bowl whisk together the sugar and butter. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until combined. Stir in mashed bananas.
- Add the flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Whisk until no lumps remain.
- Spoon the batter in the prepared muffins cups. Fill up the liners/ cups all to the top.
- Place the muffins in the oven and bake at 400°/200° for five minutes. Without opening the oven door, lower the heat to 350°F/175°C and let bake another 16-18 minutes.
- Let cool and enjoy.
Notes
Make it Vegan
- You can use two flax eggs in place of regular eggs.
- You can use melted coconut oil or vegan butter in place of the dairy butter.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
10 MuffinsServing Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 242Total Fat: 10gSaturated Fat: 6gTrans Fat: 3gUnsaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 61mgSodium: 232mgCarbohydrates: 37gFiber: 2gSugar: 17gProtein: 3g
Heidi says
Made this wonderful muffin today for GF/DF retreatants . Got rave reviews!One thing I added was DF chocolate chips.
Sarah Nevins says
So glad to hear that! Thanks Heidi!
Steph says
Oh my goodness these are delicious. Bookmarking your page and following for other inspiration. These are going to be great snacks for work.
Now to not eat all of them in one sitting!
Sarah Nevins says
Thanks, Steph! I’m so thrilled to hear that – thanks for coming back to let me know what you thought! I hope you enjoy anything else you try out just as much 🙂
anonymous says
Delicious!!!
Sarah Nevins says
Thank you!
Leticia says
Oh this muffins are amazing!
I used maple instead of sugar and added shopped walnuts to the batter. Topped with a chocolate chip to make it pretty.
Delicious recipe! My kiddos loved. Thank you!
Sarah Nevins says
Yay! So glad you enjoyed them! That’s great to know about the maple as well – I’ll have to play around and try it with maple myself!
Kayla says
These are my go-to for banana muffins and are a staple in my home. I make them with the help of my 3 year old and we both love them! Thank you for such an awesome recipe 🙂
Sarah Nevins says
Yay! Thanks Kayla – that makes me so happy to hear 🙂
Kathie says
I was wondering about gluten free flour in your recipes you dont specify what type. I was wondering for example can I use only millet flour where this is indicated. Most of the qluen free flours are rice based which I can not tolerate
Thank you
Kathie
Sarah Nevins says
Hi Kathie!
If you read through the post above the recipe card I give a bit more detail about the flour – I recommend an all purpose gluten free flour blend – the idea is that you should be able to make these with most generic all purpose flour blends. I also live in the UK, but most of my readers are US based and from all over the world which makes it really difficult to recommend things that my readers will be able to find.
I usually use Doves Plain Gluten Free flour, and I’ve also made this using my basic flour blend (that one has rice flour so I won’t bother linking it here).
I’m not sure about millet flour here, but I’ve got some spotty bananas that need using and I’ve been wanting to get more familiar with millet flour so this has given me a great excuse to make banana bread 🙂 I’ll play around with this recipe today and update my comment later tonight to let you know how it went.
In the mean time I have a different banana muffin recipe that you might be able to try: https://www.asaucykitchen.com/paleo-banana-muffins/#mv-create-recipe This recipe uses coconut flour and tapioca starch (or tapioca starch). You can swap out the starch for almond flour (use 1/2 cup or about 50g) but you do need the coconut flour for these work. I hope this helps and I’ll let you know how it goes with the millet flour here 🙂
Sarah Nevins says
Hi Kathie, Sorry I’ve come back a bit late – I completely forgot to update this last night!
So I made a couple of banana breads yesterday using mostly millet flour as the main flour. The one made with only millet flour was a bit too crumbly and not quite right with the texture.
I then tried it using 1 cup millet flour (120g) and 1/2 cup potato starch (80g). I kept everything else the same and baked it in a 9×5 inch loaf pan at 350°F (abut 175°C) for an hour. I would like to do a bit more testing on slightly different ingredient ratios, but overall I really liked how it came out! The millet flour flavor wasn’t too overpowering and I thought the texture was soft and chewy.
The main issue I found is that the bread sank in the middle a bit after I took it out of the oven. I wasn’t too bad, but I think it can be an easy enough fix if I play around with the recipe more. I might just need to decrease the baking powder by 1/2-1 teaspoon and that might be enough to fix that problem. I also plan on testing this with different starches other than potato starch just to see what differences that make.
I’m going to work on this recipe some more in the next week before I share a finished one on this site. If you have any more questions or ingredient preferences, please let me know and I’ll keep that in mind as I work on the recipe 🙂