You’ll love these simple applesauce muffins because not only are they incredibly quick and easy, they’re deliciously moist, flavorful, and satisfying. Packed with wholesome ingredients like whole wheat flour, oats, and applesauce, these healthful muffins are naturally free from refined sugar and contain no dairy if using non dairy milk. There’s no mixer required and you can play around with the add-ins for varying flavors and textures. Enjoy!
When I’m looking to bake something quick, easy, and wholesome—I always rely on muffins. Banana muffins, bran muffins, or these apple cinnamon oatmeal cups are my top choices because they’re simple, relatively healthy, and adult + child approved. Preparing muffin batter is a no-fuss task and you can enjoy muffins right away, which is definitely a bonus when baking for or with kids. (By the way, here are many kid-friendly baking recipes.)
These applesauce muffins join my top favorites and I know you’ll love them too!
By the way, if you’re looking for a more indulgent apple muffin, try these apple cinnamon muffins.
Well well well. What ended up as a fairly easy muffin recipe began as complicated mess of sticky flavorless muffins. I started testing this applesauce muffin recipe using the base of my blueberry oatmeal muffins. Adding applesauce did the batter no favors and the entire muffin tasted bland and gloppy (technical terms). I adore that recipe and now know that it’s best to leave it alone.
So I turned to my whole wheat banana walnut muffins as a starting point. The batter includes oats as an add-in, so it’s less of an oatmeal muffin and more of a standard muffin with some oats in it—if that makes sense. I swapped applesauce for the mashed banana, added more oats, and slightly reduced the baking soda. (1 full teaspoon is simply not needed.) As it turns out, I think I prefer these applesauce muffins because I don’t always have brown & spotty bananas on hand. Convenience is key!
You also need cinnamon, baking powder & baking soda, salt, eggs, milk, and vanilla extract. Before baking, you can sprinkle the tops of the muffins with oats and/or coconut sugar or coarse sugar for a little crunch. I like adding it to pumpkin muffins, too.
The best applesauce to use for baking is typically unsweetened. In this recipe, you can use homemade or store-bought and the consistency doesn’t make a difference—thick, thin, smooth, or chunky. Applesauce with cinnamon is also a great choice, but if you don’t want too much cinnamon flavor, I would slightly reduce the cinnamon in the recipe.
My best advice is to use whatever applesauce you enjoy eating!
Imperative Success Tip: Make sure you grease the muffin liners before adding the batter or skip the liners and grease the 12-count muffin pan. This batter sticks to the liners, but greasing helps. After the muffins cool completely, they do not stick as much.
The muffins above look like they have chocolate chips, don’t they? Chocolate chip lovers will be disappointed to learn those are raisins. HA! (Oh-so-good with raisins!)
Yes, apples are a wonderful choice as the add-in. See recipe note below.
These moist and flavorful whole wheat applesauce muffins come together with a handful of healthful and wholesome ingredients. See notes if you wish to replace the raisins.
