healthy muffin recipes

Change your favorite muffin recipes to include whole grain flour, fruit, and nuts.

What's a morning without muffins?

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—If you love muffins but have relegated them to the “special treats” list, that's a good instinct. However, as our healthy muffin recipes will show you, these individually portioned quick breads don’t always have to be full of empty calories and bereft of healthy fats. In fact, you can create your own healthy muffin recipes by starting with a favorite muffin recipe then using whole grain flour instead of white flour. Healthy whole grains have been linked with lower risks for major diseases. Tufts University scientists found that study participants who consumed an average of three servings of whole grains daily were 33 percent less likely to have metabolic syndrome than those who ate less than one serving a week (metabolic syndrome is a risk factor for heart disease and diabetes). Since research shows that Americans average less than one serving of whole grains daily, most of us could use a way to fill the whole grain gap.

Eating whole grain, high-fiber versions of your favorite muffins can actually help control your weight, too. Harvard researchers found that women who ate more than two servings of whole grains a day were 49 percent less likely to be overweight than those who consumed refined white flour. Going to whole grains is an easy switch with all sorts of payoffs: more calories burned during the digestion process, a longer-lasting feeling of fullness, and the triggering of less insulin.

For other healthy additions to your muffins, consider swapping in one cup of canola or grapeseed oil for that cup of butter or vegetable oil in your favorite recipe. And you can boost the nutrient content of almost any muffin recipe with the addition of nuts and seeds. Walnuts, a great addition to banana muffins, have the most omega-3 fats of any nut. They’re one of the few plant sources of these healthy fats, which appear to fight inflammation, arthritis, asthma, and heart disease. Add heart-healthy almonds to any fruit-studded muffin for extra taste and crunch. University of California–Davis, scientists found that when almonds were substituted for half the fat in the diets of study participants, the result was lower total cholesterol levels, lower LDL levels, lower triglyceride readings, and increased HDL levels.

Read on to see more muffin-making tips, plus healthy recipes for sour cream muffins, cranberry-orange muffins, and more.