These healthy apple cinnamon oatmeal muffins make an easy breakfast or grab and go snack. Packed with juicy apples, fragrant cinnamon, and wholesome oats, this muffin recipe is perfect for meal prep!
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These muffins are the perfect healthy comfort food in the fall or anytime you have some extra apples on hand. And that’s usually always.
The list of ingredients may seem a bit long but there’s really just two steps to mixing up these easy muffins.
Ingredients
- Apples
- Old fashioned oats
- Buttermilk
- White whole wheat flour
- Salt
- Baking powder and baking soda
- Ground cinnamon
- Brown sugar
- Egg
- Avocado or other oil for baking
- Vanilla extract
If it doesn’t feel like fall where you are, these Apple Oatmeal Muffins will help. I promise. Once these muffins start baking, the house will smell like fall. The heartwarming aroma will give you all the fall feels.
Not into apples? Try these Pear Oatmeal Muffins instead!
Directions
To make these muffins, you’ll need to prepare the dry ingredients in one large bowl. Simply whisk them together.
The most important step to keep these muffins tender and moist is soaking the oats in the milk. Once the oats are soft and well-hydrated, stir in the grated apples, eggs, oil, sugar, and vanilla. Combine the two and get ready to bake!
Switching out flours
These muffins are fine with basic all-purpose, white whole wheat, or whole wheat pastry flour. Using half oats helps add a bit more bite to the muffin along with extra fiber. So they are not light or cakey but a bit more hearty – good for breakfast with a smear of peanut butter.
Don’t have buttermilk?
I know now everyone stocks buttermilk. You can easily make some at home by combining 1 tablespoon white vinegar or fresh lemon juice with enough milk to total one cup of milk. Let sit for at least 5 minutes. Substitute that for each cup of milk in the recipe.
You can also use regular milk or non-dairy milk like almond or cashew milk. Please note that the muffins may be a tiny bit drier and less tender with the nondairy milk because of the lower fat content.
Enjoy these for breakfast tomorrow. Smear a muffin with a little nut butter, peach jam, or eat it plain.
These muffins freeze well too. I like to freeze the majority of the batch on the first day to enjoy for days and weeks to come.
To reheat the oat muffins: Reheat from frozen at 350ºF for 15 minutes or more depending on desired crispiness. I like to use a toaster oven for a quick reheat while I’m getting dressed.
More healthy muffin recipe ideas
And if these have you hungry for more muffins, you’ll love these Strawberry Oatmeal Breakfast Muffins in the spring, these no-flour Healthier Blueberry Blender Muffins in the summer, and my Flourless Gingerbread Muffins when it turns chilly outside. Those last two come together in the blender!
And you’ll flip over these Carrot Cake Oatmeal Pancakes!
Go ahead a make a batch. Let me know what you think.
Healthy-ish Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 cup old fashioned oats
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 cup white whole wheat flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 1 egg beaten
- ¼ cup avocado or olive oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1½ cup apples, shredded (about 1½ medium apple)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F. Lightly spray or grease a muffin tin with oil. Set aside.
In a large bowl, combine oats and buttermilk. Let sit 15 minutes. - In a second mixing bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.
- Stir the oil, egg, brown sugar and vanilla into the soaked oat mixture. Add dry ingredients. Stir just until combined. Do not overmix. Gently fold apples into the batter.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin. Bake 12 minutes. Remove from the oven. Let the muffins cool in the pan 5 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack.
Tammara Rigby
Delicious!! Me and my husband eating healthy and we loved them
Linda moore
O used applesauce in place of oil, only 3 points on weight watchers. And my 14 month old grandson loved them !!!
Anita
These are perfect. Very moist and not dry. I used half coconut sugar and half golden monk fruit and coconut oil. Will add some raisins next time. These are a keeper for sure
Charity
Turned out yummy. I didn’t have whole wheat flour so I substituted 1/2 wheat flour and 1/2 buckwheat flour. Then added walnuts.
April
I made these this morning, added a handful of walnuts and ate 4! Planning on making another batch to freeze and use up some apples. Love this recipe, thanks for sharing!
Wendy
These were so fabulous! I had diced dehydrated apples I needed to use up, which is how I found your recipe. They worked fine, but I can’t wait to try it with fresh apples. I also subbed walnut oil for part of the oil. For me, these had the perfect hint of sweetness without feeling like a dessert.
Mikaela
I’ve made this recipe 3 times now and it turns out AMAZING every time! I used pears one of those times too (but still cinnamon as I didn’t have cardamom) and they were also delicious. I freeze them and literally just pull one out of my freezer and put it straight into my lunch bag. By the time I’m ready to eat it a few hours later it has thawed beautifully and tastes almost as still cool as it does fresh and warm! Such great, easy snack prep.
TerryF
Very good – thank you!
Olivia
Could I use quick oats instead of old-fashioned? and can you taste the olive oil at all?
Marisa Moore
The recipe measure is for old fashioned and I recommend keeping them for texture. Quick cooking are cut smaller so you’ll need adjust the amount.
I don’t notice the flavor of the olive oil but you can use any neutral-flavor oil you prefer. Just make sure it’s fresh.
Valerie Robertson
Hi Marisa, these baked up wonderfully well. I subbed all sprouted buckwheat flour, used monk fruit as the sweetener too as I’m diabetic. They were delicious and smelled heavenly.
Jane
Just pulled these out of the oven! The house smells wonderful.
The muffins turned out great; I subbed GF quick oats and GF all-purpose flour.
Added chopped pecans. The batter was thinner than most muffin recipes but it bakes up fine with a delicate ‘crumb.’ Watch the baking time—ovens do vary and these bake fast. I love trying new recipes; thanks for a tasty new apple muffin recipe.
Marisa
So glad you enjoyed the recipe with the gluten-free flour! This and the pear muffins are my fave!
LauraH
Delicious! Subbed buttermilk for oat milk+ 1T ACV, used coconut oil and added walnuts! Love that they’re not too sweet.
Marisa
Love this and the walnut addition!
Anne Taylor
Delicious! I tweaked slightly. Replaced oil with 4 ozs. unsweetened apple sauce. In the future, I shall add additional 1/4 tsp. cinnamon.
Thank you for sharing!