Best Easy Banana Bread Muffins Recipe

I don't title things with "best" often, because usually I haven't made enough variations that aren't mine to be bold enough to say that. But this recipe? I've tried loads of other banana breads, and this is our favorite banana bread, hands down. This probably should have been my first recipe here, because I make it almost every week and have made it for years. Given the choice, my oldest will pick this for breakfast every day.

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Why You'll Love These Easy Banana Muffins:

• Forgiving: If you're a banana short or put in one too many, it'll be fine.
• Fruit filled: Part of what makes these such moist muffins is the excessive amount of bananas. This means even picky kiddos get a decent serving of fruit.
• Versatile: Add whatever toppings or mix-ins you like. My oldest prefers them as-is, my youngest requires chocolate chips.
• Quick: Well, quick compared to a classic banana bread loaf. Putting banana bread into muffin form cuts the cook time by over half.

Let's Get Started! Here's What You'll Need:

Ingredients:

Bananas- About 2.5 cups, which is usually 5 or 6 overripe bananas. If you have 4, it'll be fine.

Butter- Regular salted butter. If you buy unsalted, add another ¼ teaspoon of salt to the recipe.

Brown Sugar- Either light brown sugar or dark brown sugar are fine. I've swapped regular white sugar in when I ran out before and it's not quite the same but still good.

Eggs- These act as a binder. I haven't personally swapped them but you can use an egg substitute if you need to.

All Purpose Flour- I'm using regular bleached flour, no need for fancy cake flour or sifting.

Baking Soda- Make sure it's reasonably fresh, baking soda can lose it's rising properties once a container has been open a few months. If you don't have any you can use triple the amount of baking powder instead.

Salt- For seasoning, we'll keep it simple yet effective with classic sea salt and black pepper.

Vanilla Extract, Cinnamon & Nutmeg- Please don't skip these. Especially the vanilla and cinnamon, but I highly recommend the nutmeg as well.

Baker's extract- this is a combination of vanilla extract and chocolate extract. I found it at Costco years ago on a whim when vanilla was particularly expensive and loved it- so they stopped carrying it, obviously. Luckily I can still get it online. If you don't have it in your kitchen you can just use more vanilla.

Cooking Spray- If you're not using muffin liners, make clean up easier on yourself by spraying your muffin cups.

Equipment:

You'll need either mini-loaf pans or a muffin pan, two good size bowls (one for dry ingredients and one for wet), a spatula, and your measuring utensils.  A mixer is not technically required but is highly recommended, creaming butter and sugar together is quite an arm workout without one. I use my stand mixer, but a hand mixer is a good choice too. Likewise, muffin liners are optional, I typically skip them when cooking just for my own family. A third bowl can be used for mashed bananas, but if you don't mind small banana chunks in your muffins you can just mix them in whole.

How to Make The Best Banana Muffins

Step 1: Soften Butter & Combine Dry Ingredients

First things first, make sure that the eggs and butter are out of the fridge so they can start to come up to room temperature. I generally cut my butter into 4-8 pieces and toss it in the wet ingredient bowl while I get the dry ingredients ready.

In your dry ingredient bowl, add the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon to the mixing bowl and stir it together.  If you're using the optional nutmeg, mix that in as well. I use a rather large bowl so I can combine the wet and dry ingredients in this bowl.  My stand mixer bowl works fine too, just be sure one of the bowls is large enough for everything.

Step 2: Cream the Butter & Sugar

If you haven't, preheat your oven now to 325 degrees F. Check that your butter is soft, if not you can use Sally's microwave trick and make yourself a cup of coffee. Cream the brown sugar and butter together with a mixer on low speed.

Don't add the creamed butter and sugar to your chosen caffeine source.  Or sneak a taste of it straight.  If you do, you may no longer be making banana bread and your family may riot.

Step 3: Add Eggs & Vanilla (and baker's or chocolate extract, if using)

Mix in the two eggs, vanilla, and if you're using it the baker's extract. You will probably need to stop and scrape your bowl down mid-mix.

Step 4: Add the Over-ripe Bananas

If you or your family don't like banana chunks then grab a third bowl and mash your bananas in them.  Add either those, or whole bananas right into the mixer one by one.  Using whole bananas results in some banana pieces in the bread, but they're not large chunks.

Now your wet ingredients are ready.  It will probably look like one of these two pictures.  I'm not sure why the bananas sometimes seem to blend in perfectly and other times seem to separate a bit.  In my experience they look the same after mixing with the dry ingredients and baking.  Most importantly, they always taste delicious!

Step 5: Gently Combine the Dry and Wet Ingredients

A lot of quick breads get a bad rap for being overly dense.  The reason for this is generally overmixing.  It's fine to beat the living daylights out of the banana mixture BEFORE adding it to the dry ingredients, but you want to mix as little as possible when combining them. Give a few full, slow stirs to initially mix it, and then carefully combine from there.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and gently combine

A lot of sweet breads get a bad rap for being overly dense.  The reason for this is generally overmixing.  I use my stand mixer to beat the living daylights out of the butter and bananas BEFORE adding them to the dry ingredients, but mix as little as possible and by hand when combining them.  Give a few full, slow stirs to initially mix it, and then carefully combine from there.

The way I've explained it to my son is that we're going on a treasure hunt for flour, and when we find some we mix it in, and then look for more flour.  Once we make three passes in a row of scraping the bottom and don't find any flour, it's time to spray the muffin tin (or mini loaf pans) with cooking spray and put the batter in the pan. This is also the time to add any mix-ins if you want these to be banana nut muffins or banana chocolate chip muffins..

Step 6: Spoon the Banana Muffin Batter & Bake.

Start with 2 spoonfuls of batter in each greased or lined muffin tin spot, then if you have extra divide it on any muffins that look a bit smaller. Or divide evenly into 4 greased mini loaf tins. Then pop them in your 325 degree oven for 25 minutes.

Set your timer for 25 minutes, and do your best to enjoy a hot beverage.  You deserve it, you just made breakfast!

When the timer goes off, stick a toothpick in the tallest muffin/loaf and make sure it comes out clean.  If not, give it another 2-3 minutes.

Step 7: Cool & Enjoy!

Once the muffins are done move your pans to a cooling rack. As soon as you reasonably can transfer the muffins directly to the wire rack. If you let them cool entirely in the muffin pan they'll end up with moisture collecting around the sides in the muffin pan. Enjoy! If you have leftovers, let them cool fully to room temperature, then store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.

FAQs

Happy baking, and let me know in the comments what you make the most often for breakfast!

Have more bananas you need to use up? Try these banana oatmeal "cookies" or chocolate banana peanut butter popsicles. Want more muffin recipes? Try these sweet potato muffins the next time you have leftover mashed sweet potatoes!

Looking to use some time in the morning to set dinner up for success too?  Try my Slow Cooker Pepper Seak or Crock Pot Ribs.

📖 Recipe