Healthy Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

Whenever I buy bananas, I am never able to eat them all before at least one gets over ripe. Every time, with out fail. I will peel the over ripe banana and put it in a bag in the freezer. When I have collected 4-5 of them, I usually make banana bread. Over-ripe bananas are the best to use when making something like that because they are so soft and easy to blend in without being too lumpy.

However, this last time when the bag of bananas was full, I decided to go on an adventure and make muffins instead. I came across a recipe using lots of healthy ingredients so I decided to give it a whirl! Of course, I had to put my own spin on it and mix it up. They turned out great and Darin especially loved them! One thing I would have loved was to add some chopped nuts, walnuts would have been great! Feel free to mix some in if that sounds good.

Word to the wise: eat them quickly! Because they are so fresh and use such natural ingredients, they will go bad fairly quickly. You can freeze them if you don't think you can eat them all right away.

INGREDIENTS

(Yield 12 muffins)

2 cups whole-wheat flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

2 ripe bananas, peeled and mashed

1/2 cup applesauce

1/2 cup agave nectar

1/4 cup coconut oil, melted (but not hot) 

1/4 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup chocolate chips, optional

2 tsp flax or chia seeds, optional (I prefer to grind them up first)

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, combine bananas, applesauce, agave, coconut oil, milk and vanilla. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients with a wooden spoon. Batter will be slightly lumpy. Stir in chocolate chips/flax/chia if desired. Divide batter into a greased muffin pan. Bake for 15-20 minutes until light golden brown on top. Enjoy!

Batter with out chocolate chips

Read for the oven!

They are so yummy, hot from the oven!

With chocolate chips!