Overripe bananas on hand?! Perfect!
Get ready to fill your home with a mouthwatering aroma and better yet, sink your teeth into the most delicious grain-free Banana Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins.
There are no added sugars other than what the chocolate chips contain! Not even honey or maple syrup. The overripe bananas and mini-chocolate chips provide all the sweetness you need in these muffins. Cinnamon and nutmeg add a nice spice of flavors and who doesn’t love the addition of chocolate chips?! This recipe is grain-free, gluten-free, dairy-free {if using dairy-free chocolate chips such as Enjoy Life} and paleo-friendly.
These Banana Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins will cure any sweet tooth and are perfect for adding to lunch boxes or freezing in individual portions for later. Baked goods are a food I sure do enjoy. I like the challenge of creating recipes that are made with wholesome ingredients and that are lower in sugar. And lucky you, because I share all of my favorite recipes with you so that you can enjoy them too!
So what causes bananas to turn brown/ripen?
According to scienceline.ucsb.edu:
Bananas, like other fruits, are ripened due to a hormone called ethylene. Ethylene breaks down complex sugars into simple sugars and breaks down pectin, a substance which keeps bananas hard. This is also the reason why overripe bananas are sweeter and perfect for baking.
In addition there are hormones that break down green pigments which you see in un-ripe bananas and replace them with yellow pigments. However as the banana continues to ripen these yellow pigments are broken down and not replaced at all producing the brown color.
Using overripe bananas in baked goods is a great way to replace added sugars and will reduce the overall grams of sugar in recipes.
There is no need to add any form of sugar to this recipe because of the delightful and natural sweetness the overripe bananas provide. In fact, you can even eliminate the chocolate chips and still end up with a perfectly sweetened, but not too sweet, banana muffin!
If chocolate isn’t your thing, you’ve got options!
I know not everyone is as crazy for chocolate, so here are some options for you.
- Omit the chocolate chips (you’ll still end-up with a delicious banana mini-muffin). I make them all the time without chocolate chips.
- Replace chocolate chips with chopped nuts of choice
- Replace chocolate chips with no-sugar added dried fruit
- Replace chocolate chips with fresh blueberries or chopped strawberries
- Replace chocolate chips with a 2 Tbsp. chia seeds
These options would also transform this recipe into a less sweet and delicious breakfast muffin. I also love a slathering of almond butter on top of these muffins!
Making mini-muffins is a great way to quicken the baking time when compared to regular sized muffins and breads.
One of our goals is to create recipes with less than 10-ingredients and that do not require hours upon hours in the kitchen. We’d rather spend our time with our family, with friends, outdoors, etc. So one way to quicken baking time with muffins and breads is simply by using a mini-muffin pan rather than a bread/loaf or regular muffin pan. Making this Banana Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins recipe into bread, would require 40-50 minutes of baking vs. 10-12 minutes. Plus, the shorter the baking time the faster you’ll be able to pop one of these crazy delicious muffins into your mouth!
Is your mouth watering yet?!
Are you ready to give this recipe a try? Good thing is, it only takes about 25 minutes to make so you’ll be able to enjoy these muffins in no time! However, if you’re not planning to make this recipe at this absolute very moment – feel free to pin the image below on your “recipes to try” Pinterest board! We love Pinterest – you can check out what we’re pinning here!
Grab your overripe bananas, a mixing bowl, a mixing spoon, measuring utensils and a mini-muffin tin and give this recipe a try!
Banana Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins
Overripe bananas on hand?! Perfect. Here is a mouthwatering grain-free Banana Chocolate Chip Mini Muffin recipe. No added sweeteners in this recipe, the ripe bananas and chocolate chips provide plenty of sweetness!
Ingredients
- ¼ cup almond flour
- ¼ cup coconut flour
- 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp. ground nutmeg
- ½ tsp. baking soda
- ¼ tsp. sea salt
- 2 bananas, mashed (~¾–1 cup)
- 3 eggs, whisked
- ¼ cup coconut oil, melted
- 2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup dairy-free mini-chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease mini-muffin pan with olive oil or coconut oil well or use mini-muffin liners.
- In a medium bowl, combine all of the ingredients.
- Mix until just combined.
- Fill each well about 1/2-3/4 full with batter.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes or until center of muffins are firm and spring back when gently pressed in the middle.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan.
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Notes
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Nutrition Information
- Serving Size: 2 muffins
- Calories: 143
- Fat: 10 g
- Sodium: 125 mg
- Carbohydrate: 11 g
- (Fiber: 2 g
- Sugar: 6 g)
- Protein: 3 g
Dietary
We want to know! What is your favorite way for using up ripe bananas?
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These looks delicious. Wondering if I could use buckwheat flour instead of coconut flour and almond flour.
Hi Patti,
We haven’t tested the recipe with buckwheat flour (or any other flours) so we can’t say for sure what the end product would be. However, my hunch is that if you did use buckwheat it wouldn’t be a 1:1 substitution for the coconut flour since coconut flour soaks up a lot of liquid – so you’d have to ‘eyeball’ it until you get a batter-like consistency.
If you try the recipe using buckwheat flour we’d love to hear how it turns out.
Love this recipe! After making it a few times and my whole family devouring them I subbed the banana for 3/4 C of raw pumpkin and they turned out just as great! I decided to omit the chocolate chips and do a couple tbs of maple syrup and also added about 2 extra tbs of the almond flour since I added more liquid – so good thanks for the great recipes!
Hey Megan,
Your version with the pumpkin sounds amazing – thanks for sharing!
Great recipe! I used 1 Tbs of cocoa vs chips and added a TBS of chia seeds and 1/2 c of chopped pecans for crunch. I’m going to try the pumpkin version next with some pumpkin pie spice. Mmmmmmm I love mini muffins!
Hi Mary Kay,
That sounds fantastic! Thanks for sharing!
These are incredible. Have you ever tried converting this to make pancakes? Or do you have any suggestions on how ?
Hi Dee! I have not tried making them into pancakes but I like that idea. You might just need to thin down the batter a little with some almond milk. If you try it, I’d love to hear how they turn out!
Ok these are also incredible as pancakes.
I used blueberries instead of chocolate chips and thinned down with just about a tablespoon of milk, don’t thin too much. Used about 1/4 cup batter per pancake because you have to be careful flipping them. Makes 10 pancakes.
Dee, you’re a genius!!
Thanks for sharing your muffin to pancake makeover with us. They sound amazing.
These are so good! I have tried so many healthy muffin options and they are always disappointing. Thank you so much for sharing!
Yassssssssss!! (Insert fist pumps)
I hear you about the many muffin fails – I’ve had plenty of them myself. These, however, always turn our perfect for me and my kids just devour them. I also bring them to school for birthday treats since they have no added sugar and they’re free of gluten and dairy.