Quinoa Banana Oat Muffins
Hearty and filling without being too sweet. Freeze well and good for travel, hiking, breakfast and snacks.
Ingredients
- 20 ounces mashed overripe banana – about 2 1/3 cups of mashed banana frozen bananas thawed out is fine
- 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1/2 cup prewashed quinoa -dry – uncooked ground into a powder – see video – if you can’t find prewashed quinoa try using ground millet instead or quinoa flakes or quinoa flour or ground oats
- 2 cups Quick Cooking Steel Cut Oats* see note below recipe
- 2 1/2 cups Rolled Oats or old fashioned oats – use certified gluten free oats to make these gluten free
- 1/4 cup ground golden flaxseed meal
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon baking powder - optional it doesn't seem to make them rise very much and it adds a lot of sodium
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg – freshly ground is best – see video
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla powder or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large bowl mash the bananas using a potato masher or a large fork. Mix in the applesauce. Add the cinnamon, baking powder, cardamom, nutmeg and vanilla powder or vanilla extract. Stir until well incorporated. Add the quinoa powder, quick cooking steel cut oats, old fashioned oats and ground flaxseed meal. Stir until well combined.
- If using metal muffin tins use baking cup liners to prevent sticking or use silicone muffin pans. Using a 1/2 cup measuring cup divide batter evenly into 12 muffin cups. Bake for 30-35 minutes – depending on your oven. They take 30 minutes in my Breville Smart Oven Air on the bake function.
- Let cool completely. May be frozen for future use.
- Yield: 12 muffins
Notes
Note: To make these Gluten Free be sure to buy gluten free oats.
You can use all rolled oats instead of the various grains I use in the recipe. It would be a total of 5 cups of rolled oats and grinding 1/2 cup of oats into a flour in your blender or food processor.
If you don’t want to use banana you can try using mashed or pureed mango or very sweet oven roasted Japanese Sweet Potato or Hannah Yams mashed. You might have to use more applesauce to make it more moist. Bananas would be my first choice because of the moisture and sweetness.
* Some people have told me that they use the regular steel cut oats but first they put them in their food processor and using the pulse function they cut the steel cut oats smaller – which is what is done to make quick cooking steel cut oats. So give that a try if you can’t find the quick cooking steel cut oats. Others say they use all rolled oats or old fashioned oats with good results. I did try that and it does work, although I like the texture of the muffins using my original recipe the best.
Variations:
Pumpkin Quinoa Banana Oat Muffins – Sub 1 cup unsweetened canned pumpkin puree for the applesauce and add 1 tablespoon Pumpkin Pie Spice in addition to the spices in the original recipe.
Apple Raisin - Add 1 finely diced apple and 1/2 c raisins.
Cranberry Orange - Add 1 cup chopped fresh or frozen cranberries. zest from 1 orange and 3 tablespoons fresh orange juice.
You can add dried fruit or frozen blueberries if you wish.
A Nutmeg Notebook Recipe
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