Green Smoothies are all the rage right now. But try as I might, I just don’t like smoothies…no matter what color they are. :) I recently had a whole bunch of extra spinach and three over ripe bananas that needed eaten that day or else it would all need to be tossed. I ran across a recipe for Green Smoothie Muffins (original recipe found here) and decided to give it a shot. They are delicious and sooooo moist! They taste like a banana bread dessert…all while getting a good dose of spinach!
Everyone in our family loved them. The recipe makes around 15-16 muffins and they were gone within a 48 hour time frame. Little Brother ate at least four of them in one day (and that’s saying something because he is currently the pickiest eater in the world).
*Update*: I made these with honey and coconut instead of the sugar and canola oil in an effort to make them even healthier. They turned out great and were just a teensy bit less sweet than the original recipe. Please see the substitutions in green below.
Recipe for Green Smoothie Muffins (printable recipe here)
3 ripe (or overripe) bananas
8 strawberries
2 cups of raw baby spinach, packed down as much as possible
1 1/2 cups King Arthur’s White Whole Wheat Flour
3/4 cups sugar (or 3/4 cup honey plus 1/4 cup extra flour)
1 egg
1/4 cup canola oil (or coconut oil)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
Makes 15-16 Muffins. Approximately 140 calories per muffin.
1. Add your bananas to your food processor or blender. I have the Ninja and love it.
2. Cut the stems off of the strawberries
3. Grab your spinach…Sam’s Club sells these giant tubs of spinach for cheap!
4. Pack the spinach into your measuring cup as much as possible.
5. Blend together.
The boys loved helping with this step (even with his shirt on backwards). :)
6. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, egg, oil, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
7. Mix together. It should be coarse and crumbly at this point.
8. Add the fruit/veggie puree.
9. Mix together well.
10. Line your muffin tin with cupcake liners (or grease if you don’t have any liners like me) and add the batter until it is about 2/3 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, or until your toothpick comes out clean.
Yum!!!
Now go make some…you won’t be sorry!
Awesome! I’ll be making these soon! :)
It’s funny you mentioned the honey and coconut oil because those are the 2 things that I wanted to change it to when I make them. Thank you!
Perfect timing! I had all of the ingredients on hand and made them today. I agree – they are delicious! I subbed coconut oil and reduced the sugar and used half sucanat. I already copied the recipe over – it is a keeper! Wish I would have made these for St. Patty’s!
A way to get the nutrition of flax into my kids is to sub for the egg in muffin recipes 1 Tbsp ground flax plus 3 Tbsp water. Bakes up just the same. I agree – these would have been great for St. Patrick’s Day! -Amy
Does it really work the same? I don’t keep eggs on hand, but I always have ground flax!
Thank you for sharing this recipe – I can’t wait to try it this weekend!
Thanks this looks like a great recipe. I’m going to make a batch for my kids and also one to take to a friend who just had a baby.
Thanks for the recipe! We made them this weekend and my girls LOVED them and I’m happy they’re getting a serving of fruit/veggies!!
So glad you and your family liked them! :) I have made 3 batches within the last week and a half!
do you use Baking powder?
Can I use regular whole wheat flour.
Thnx
These turned out awesome!! I used applesauce instead of oil and they turned out perfect. We used mini muffin tins and cooked for only 10 minutes and they made 48 mini muffins. The kids love these!! We did try using the recipe using honey instead of sugar and for some reason they didn’t rise and didn’t turn out so now we use sugar and they always come out perfect. Thanks so much
We have the same blender, and son’s with the same ‘backward shirt’ habit. :-) I always thought it’d be a 50/50 chance of getting it on the right way, but now I think shirts must naturally go backwards. And pants. And underwear. And sometimes even socks go upside down. ;-) Curious though, how much/long did you have to blend the spinach to get it that pureed? I feel like my spinach always stays a little flakey with the ninja, an I have to ‘finish it off’ with a stick blender.
Thank you so much for sharing. I substituted 1/2honey for sugar and light tasting olive oil for canola. I call these HULK muffins, my kids say they r HULK SMASH mffins, which make you strong!
Love the name “HULK muffins”. Awesome! Thanks for sharing! :)
These sound really good! Could you use frozen strawberries instead of fresh?
Yes, I’m sure you probably could! I’ve always used fresh, but it shouldn’t affect the recipe at all. Let us know how it works!
I will as soon as I make a trip to the store! Thanks for sharing!
mine came out flat twice. Not sure what I’m doing wrong :(
I just reduced the sugar to 1/3 cup and used coconut oil, turned out great and reduced the overall sugar count. Thanks!