These healthy banana gingerbread muffins are moist and soft with a mildly sweet gingerbread and banana flavor. They're made with almond flour and ripe bananas and flavored with warming spices like ginger and cinnamon. This healthy muffin recipe is gluten free, dairy free and paleo friendly.
Tis the season for lots of holiday treats and I've been doing my fair share of baking, from chocolate gingerbread cookies to biscotti and hazelnut truffles! But I wanted to take a break from all the sugary treats and these gingerbread banana muffins are the perfect way to do that.
While these muffins contain all your favorite warming gingerbread spices and nostalgic winter flavors, they're actually healthy since they're low in sugar and made with simple, wholesome ingredients.
This banana gingerbread muffin recipe is made with almond flour and only sweetened with bananas - no sugar added. They're flavored with molasses and warming spices like ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg. The gingerbread flavor is mild and perfectly compliments the sweet banana taste.
Why You'll Love these Gingerbread Banana Muffins
- gluten free and grain free - made with a combination of almond flour and tapioca starch
- paleo friendly - this recipe contains simple, whole food ingredients that you can feel good about eating
- dairy free - no butter or milk
- easy to make - a one bowl batter that's poured into a lined muffin tin and baked in under 30 minutes.
Ingredients
Here's a list of the ingredients you'll need to make these gluten free banana gingerbread muffins. The full recipe can be found in the recipe card below, near the end of this post.
- mashed banana - just mashed ripe bananas. Ripe, meaning yellow with many brown speckles.
- large eggs - to bind the ingredients. An egg substitute has not been tested.
- avocado oil - this gives the muffins plenty of moisture. You may swap avocado oil for olive oil.
- molasses - for gingerbread flavor
- vanilla extract
- blanched almond flour - the best substitute would be tigernut flour
- tapioca starch - this is an important ingredient for texture purposes. The best swap would be arrowroot starch.
- ground spices - cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove
- baking soda
- salt
How to Make Banana Gingerbread Muffins
The batter for these gingerbread muffins is made in one bowl, poured into a lined muffin pan and then baked in the oven. Here are the steps:
- First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Line a muffin pan with 12 paper or silicone muffin liners.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine all of the wet ingredients.
- Whisk in the dry ingredients.
- Pour the batter into your lined muffin pan. Place in the oven and bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes.
- After baking, cool the muffins for 5 minutes in the muffin pan, then place them on a wire cooling rack and cool to room temperature.
Tips and Tricks
- Measure ingredients by weight - although I give measurements by volume, it's best to measure ingredients like almond flour by weight (given in grams). You can easily do this with a small kitchen scale. It's less cleanup too!
- Use ripe bananas - since bananas are the only sweetener in this recipe, be sure to use ripe bananas. I recommend yellow bananas with many brown speckles.
- Play around with the ground spices - if you don't have a particular spice on hand, or aren't a fan of one then feel free to omit it. For instance, take out the cinnamon or remove the nutmeg and clove and replace with allspice.
- Mix in chopped nuts - chop your favorite nuts like walnuts or pecans and add them to the batter
- Top the muffins - drizzle icing over the muffins or top them with a cream cheese frosting
Storage
These muffins are best kept in an airtight container in the fridge, up to one week. For longer storage, place them in a baggie in the freezer, up to one month. You can reheat them in the microwave for a few seconds, or let them defrost on the countertop.
FAQ
For a nut free version, swap the almond flour for tigernut flour. This will slightly change the taste and texture, but the muffins will still be great.
The avocado oil is what makes these muffins moist and tender. I like avocado oil because it is tasteless, stable at high heat and high in monounsaturated fat. That being said, any liquid oil will work as a substitute. You can probably replace the oil with yogurt as well, but I have not tried this myself.
More Muffin Recipes You'll Love
Looking for other recipes like this? Try these:
Healthy Banana Gingerbread Muffins (Gluten Free, Paleo)
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 12 muffins 1x
Description
These healthy banana gingerbread muffins are made with almond flour and only sweetened with bananas - no sugar added. They're moist and tender with a mild gingerbread flavor.
Ingredients
- 1 cup mashed ripe bananas (245g)
- 3 large eggs
- ¼ cup avocado oil
- 1 Tbsp molasses
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups blanched almond flour (180g)
- ⅓ cup tapioca starch (42g)
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- ¼ tsp ground clove
- ¾ tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp salt
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Line a muffin pan with 12 paper or silicone muffin liners.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the wet muffin ingredients. This includes the mashed banana, eggs, avocado oil, molasses and vanilla.
- Add in the dry ingredients: almond flour, tapioca starch, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove, baking soda and salt. Whisk until well combined.
- Pour the batter into your lined muffin pan, filling each slot about ¾ full.
- Place the muffins in your preheated oven and bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.
- After baking, let the muffins cool about 5 minutes in the pan, then transfer them to a wire cooling rack.
- Store in an airtight container in the fridge, up to one week. Or in a baggie in the freezer, up to one month.
Katie
Hope you all love these muffins as much as we do! Enjoy!
Christina
Hi Katie, I realised I’d run out of muffins and loaf this afternoon and was just looking for a new recipe and came across this one. These muffins were so quick to make, yet so delicious. Plus the kitchen smelt so Christmassy whilst they were baking because of those lovely spices. I’m sure I’ll be making these again soon as this batch won’t last long!
Katie
Oh, I can't believe you already made them! I'm so glad you like them Christina 🙂 Thank you again for always taking the time to leave a review.
Hilda
Can you substitute olive oil instead of avocado oil if you don’t have it on hand?
Katie
Yes!
Ella
These are on weekly rotation! I bake them all the time! I sub arrowroot, my favorite grass-fed butter and unbalanced almond flour- they turn out amazing every time!! thank you!