Healthy Carrot Pumpkin Muffins
These Healthy Carrot Pumpkin Muffins are silly easy to make and full of wonderful flavor. Loaded with a cup of pumpkin puree and a cup of grated carrot, these muffins are made from blended oats and are naturally sweetened with a little maple syrup or honey! The perfect healthy breakfast, snack or lunch box addition.
Veggie-loaded muffins have kind of become what I am known for. Who would have guessed? Certainly not me when I was 18 years old, filling out college applications and trying to figure out how I was going to make my impact on the world. And while my education and years as a teacher have certainly helped me in understanding why my veggie-loaded approach is so successful with some many families, I still can’t help but giggle when I think about the interesting twists and turns life takes you on. Like putting veggies into muffins and changing how so many people feel about the vegetable food group!
These healthy carrot pumpkin muffins are my latest veggie-loaded muffin offering. They are incredibly easy to make (either in your blender or in one single bowl) and are full of great flavors. Made from blended oats, naturally sweetened with a little maple syrup or honey, and rocking 1 cup of pumpkin puree and a cup of grated carrots EACH! This recipe is easily made gluten free when you use certified gluten free oats and makes a batch of 10. These muffins are the perfect healthy breakfast option, but definitely will make for a wonderful snack or lunch box filler, too!
Suggested Adaptations
- Sub the pumpkin with butternut squash puree or sweet potato puree. Either will work beautifully!
- Blend in the carrots! If bits of carrot just won’t fly with your crew, go ahead and blend them in versus folding in!
- Add raisins or chocolate chips! These add a little extra kick of sweetness and fun!
- Make them dairy-free by using your favorite plant milk.
- Make them egg-free! Sup the 2 eggs in this recipe with 2 “flax eggs”.
- Sub oat flour with whole wheat flour. If gluten free is not important, you can use whole wheat flour instead.
Tips
- Let them cool completely. If you want to dive right in and enjoy a healthy carrot pumpkin muffin warm, go for it. But don’t worry if they stick to the papers a little or are slightly soft in the middle. Both are normal and as the muffins cool, both issues should resolve.
- Do not over mix. If you are using your blender to make this batter, it can be easy to over mix if you are not using a high-speed blender. Over mixing will leave you with a dense muffin. If you don’t have a blender that can easily handle this recipe, mix this recipe in a bowl by hand so that you can enjoy a soft muffin!
Wondering how to store your carrots so they stay fresh as long as possible? Check out my post on How to Keep Cut Carrots Fresh and get the most out of your produce buck!
Other veggie-loaded muffin recipes you are going to love:
- Chocolate Chip Zucchini Muffins
- Oatmeal Green Smoothie Muffins
- Sweet Potato Peanut Butter Muffins
- Nut-Free Paleo Chocolate Butternut Squash Muffins
- Almond Butter Blueberry Zucchini Muffins
Did you try this veggie-loaded muffin recipe and now you’re hungry for more?
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Healthy Carrot Pumpkin Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cups rolled oats, be sure oats are certified gluten free if gluten free is needed. Can sub whole wheat flour if gluten free is not important
- 2 teaspoon pumpkin spice
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ cup avocado oil , or melted coconut oil
- 2 large eggs, of sub 2 "flax eggs" for an egg free option
- ⅓ cup maple syrup, or honey
- 1 cup pumpkin purée , (not pumpkin filling)
- ½ Tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- ¼ cup milk of choice
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 cup grated carrot
Equipment
- Muffin tin
Instructions
- Preheat you oven to 375℉ and line a muffin tin with 10 liners. Set aside.
- In your blender, combine uncooked oats, pumpkin spice, salt, baking powder, and baking soda, Blend on high-speed until the oats break down into a fine flour. Pour oat flour mixture into a medium mixing bowl and set aside.
- In your now empty blender, add oil, eggs, maple syrup, pumpkin puree, vanilla, milk, and vinegar. Blend on high-speed until the mixture is smooth a and there are no leafy pieces remaining.NOTE: If you have a high-speed blender prefer to blend everything together all at once, you absolutely can. Just combine everything (starting with the wet ingredients first) in your blender and puree until you have a smooth batter. However, I found in testing that is can be easy to over mix the batter when doing this and that can lead to dense muffins.
- Pour contents of the blender into the bowl with the oat mixture. Stir until combined, being sure not to over mix (this can lead to dense, flat muffins).
- Add carrots to the bowl with the batter and fold in them in.
- Portion out between the 12 prepared muffin cups.
- Bake for 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out cleanTIP: If you have a kitchen thermometer, cook until the muffins have an internal temperature of 200℉.This will ensure they are cooked through, but not overcooked.
- Cool in a pan for 10 minutes before transferring the muffins to a cooling rack.
- Allow muffins to cool completely before storing in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to 5 days or in a freezer for up to a month.
Notes
- 1 cup grated carrot
- 1/4 cup avocado oil
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup honey or maple syrup
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 2 teaspoons pumpkin spice
- 1 3/4
- 1/2 Tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/4 cup milk of choice
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
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Preheat you oven to 350℉ and line a muffin tin with 10 liners. Set aside.
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Wrap grated carrots in a paper towel and squeeze out as much moisture as possible. Set aside.
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In your high-speed blender or in a bowl (whichever you prefer) combine all ingredients except the grated carrots.
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Mix until everything is just combined and you have a smooth batter. Do not over mix! Over mixing can result in a dense muffin.
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Fold in grated carrots.
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Portion out between the 10 prepared muffin cups.
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Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean
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Cool in a pan for 10 minutes before transferring the muffins to a cooling rack.
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Allow muffins to cool completely before storing in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to 5 days or in a freezer for up to a month.
Your recipe sounds scrumptious! Do you think I could substitute 1-to-1 an all-purpose gluten-free flour blend for the oat flour without any other adjustments, such as more eggs or some non-dairy milk? Thanks in advance.
Usually that is a successful swap, but I haven’t tried it with this specific recipe to be sure!
Just made them with fresh pumpkin. More work that way but it’s all I had on hand. Super yummy warm out of the oven w/butter thanks!!!!
These look delish! Thanks for the recipe I’ll have to give them a try 🙂
Is the consistency of these supposed to be like a “typical” muffin? I made them and they’re super thick. They didn’t pour out, I had to spoon them. And, as they baked, they maintained their exact shape rather than “melting” down into a circular shape with a domed top. Any ideas?
Because of the oat flour, they are denser than the typical muffin. The batter is supposed to be thick and, as you can see from the pictures on the post, they don’t have the dome top like a typical muffin. If gluten free is not needed, you could swap out the oat flour with whole wheat flour for a more traditional texture.
With that said, I am always up for reviewing recipes to see if I can make them even better! I’ll make these again soon to see if they can be flufflier and more like a traditional muffin
I cooked these again with the new measurements and really noticed a difference. Thanks!!
Hi! I saw on your instastory that you did try the recipe again recently for a traditional texture. Is that recipe version listed someplace? I’d like to try the other version next time.
I updated this recipe for a softer texture. If gluten free isn’t important, I have also found these work well with white whole wheat flour
I saw that you updated the recipe and had to try them again. I’ve always loved the flavor of these muffins but the texture is on point now!!
I’ve made a lot of muffins like this over the last couple of years for my almost three year old, and these are my absolutely favorite! I sneak them for snacks myself 🙂
Love that!
Do you think its possible to make these without any honey or maple syrup? Would like to try sugar free for my under 1. Thanks!
I would add some mashed banana or unsweetened applesauce to add sweetness! I haven’t tried it but I think it would work!
Yum!
Delicious! I think I need to make a goal to try EVERY recipe Natural Nurturer puts out. Love veggie loading for my toddler, first time trying this recipe and she devoured them! I can’t wait to make them again. I added some raisins because she loves them and they made them even better, Thanks, Taesha!
That is so awesome to hear! I am so glad she loved them!
These are delicious! Pumpkin isn’t my favorite flavor but I wanted to make them for my daughters. The pumpkin flavor is balanced and not over powering. We made mini muffins and sprinkled mini chocolate chips on top for fun! My whole family loves these muffins!
I love to add chocolate chips to these too! So glad you liked them, Emma! Thanks for sharing!
I just joined your email list but have to eat grain free (and dairy free). Should I be able to use almond flour or cassava flour in these and most of your other recipes? TIA 🙂
Welcome! I haven’t tested these with grain free flours but often find almond flour is a good swap with oat flour. I have oodles of Paleo muffin recipe on my site that are tried-and-true though!
I followed this recipe exactly and these are SUPER DENSE and lack flavor- I kinda feel like I’m eating a ball of dough. For all the time and effort it made to make these i have to say I’m disappointed. The recipe is too complicated to bother with tweaking.
Sorry these didn’t work out for you, Taylor. Oat based recipes do tend to be denser in texture, but not that dense. Sometimes that happens to muffins when they are over mixed. As for the flavor, this is a beloved recipe by many, so maybe it is simply not a recipe that you enjoy. I’d also be open to thoughtful ideas of how I could simplify the recipe for a reader, since I feel it is pretty straightforward as far as a blender muffin recipe goes.
I just made a triple batch of these (since my pumpkin puree comes in 3 cup tins and I didn’t want to waste it). I added cinnamon & nutmeg to liven up the flavours and it still wasn’t enough to add pizazz. I left out the chocolate chips and pecans, but wish I would have added either pecans or coconut for texture. I knew going into this that they’d be a healthy breakfast muffin so I’d rate this 3/5.
Is it possible to swap yogurt for the milk?
I haven’t tried but it might work!
Recipe is great I forgot acv Added tbsp pumpkin spice 1/2 c nuts Made cookies No muffin tin Best cookies I have ever made
Very good recipe. I added some hemp, chia, flax, almonds, walnuts, and upped the milk a little to compensate. Also added some dried tart cherries and some turbinado sugar on top. So you’d never know these are so healthy because they taste like dessert!
Oh love the toppings! And so glad you enjoyed them, Suzy!
These are so good! My husband and I love them. My son was turned off seeing the carrots (even though he likes carrots) and my daughter will only eat it with cream cheese (so it’s like carrot cake), but we’ll get there.
Forgot to give a rating!
So glad you and your husband liked them. I totally get your son’s iffiness about seeing the carrots. Sometimes seeing veggies in a baked good can either be helpful for eating more veggies or not so much. You could blend them in next time, if you want…though it sounds like carrots are already enjoyed in your house. And I love your daughter’s idea of topping it with cream cheese. Yum!
Mine came out dark, sank in the middle and wet on the bottom. Is it still safe to give to baby? I did 350 for 25min and didn’t over mix
Hi Emily! Did you make any modifications to the recipe? Usually when a muffin sinks, it is an indication that the batter was too wet. Also, do you have an oven thermometer? Since you mentioned that they came out dark, I am wondering if your oven is cooking at a higher temperature than you think (so many ovens do not cook true to temp!).
It is hard for me to say if they are cooked through via comment, but for future info, my rule of thumb is to use a food thermometer and bake muffins until they have an internal temp of 200F. That way, you can be sure they are cooked through without over baking.
These were so delicious! We devoured them within two days. Will definitely make again.Â
So happy you enjoyed them so much!
If I want to make mini- muffins to take to a potluck, do I bake for less time?
Yes, I would say same temp and bake for about 13 minutes or until they have an internal temp of 200℉
These were amazing! I made them into mini muffins for my girls’ school lunches.
I am so happy you and your kiddos enjoyed these! Muffins are one of my go-to lunch box fillers. Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a review, Kari!