Healthy Chunky Monkey Muffins
Healthy Chunky Monkey Muffins made with greek yogurt, bananas and dark chocolate chips. Delicious way to pack in protein, potassium, and minerals!
Healthy Kid-Friendly Muffins
Kids love muffins. And what kid can resist a chocolate muffin? The key is to use ingredients that aren’t full of sugar and fat like a lot of muffins you can buy. These muffins have delicious ingredients that are familiar to kids, while also providing them with good nut
Healthy Chunky Monkey Muffins
So what makes these muffins healthier than normal? Well, using whole wheat flour, bananas, greek yogurt and dark chocolate chips! Lets talk for a minute about the health benefits of these ingredients for your kids.
Health Benefits of Bananas
- Regulates Bowel Movements-Bananas contain pectin which is a soluble fiber that helps to regulate bowel movements. Kids who suffer from constipation can benefit from eating bananas.
- Better Brain Power -Some research has shown that children who eat bananas on a regular basis perform better in school.
- Healthy Bones -High Potassium content in bananas help to neutralize the high amounts of sodium in our diet. This prevents the weakening of bones.
- Muscle Performance – Bananas are high in potassium which helps prevent muscle cramping. Kids who are very active and involved in sports or other highly intense physical activities should eat bananas regularly before or after events.
- Natural Energy – Bananas contain three types of natural sugars-Glucose,Fructose and Sucrose .When combined with fiber, these natural sugars provide instant and substantial energy to our body.
Health Benefits of Greek Yogurt
- Protein Power – Protein is vital to cell growth, building muscle, and repairing tissue and maintaining immune system. Kids are growing quickly and constantly building new cells. Protein gives kids the amino acids needed to keep up with all the healthy growth!
- Probiotics – The idea behind probiotics is to boost the kind of helpful bacteria in the body that can destroy harmful bacteria and reduce infection.
- Strong Bones – We only get one chance to build strong bones — when we’re kids and teens. Children who get enough calcium start their adult lives with the strongest bones possible. That protects them against bone loss later in life.
In this recipe, t28he bananas and greek yogurt replace any added fat like oils or butter. The greek yogurt adds protein and calcium. Dark chocolate chips are considered to be an antioxidant-rich superfood and have several other benefits. I love these muffins because sometimes I’m just craving something sweet and instead of reaching for overly processed cookies from the grocery store I can whip up a batch of these Chunky Monkey Muffins!
Tricks to Making Muffins
There’s one biiiiig trick to making muffins. Don’t over-mix the batter! When you add the dry ingredients just stir until barely combined. If you stir the batter too much the muffins will end up with a tough texture. The second trick is to make sure your eggs are always at room temperature. This helps the ingredients to combine evenly. This trick is really important when the recipe you’re using has either coconut oil or butter, cold eggs can solidify those ingredients on contact.
One of our most popular recipes is our Sweet Spinach Muffins! There’s a reason they’ve been pinned thousands of times and people just can’t get enough of them. The bananas in the recipe (and this one) is the secret to keeping them super sweet and moist.
Chunky Monkey Muffins
Ingredients
- 3 medium banana
- 2 medium egg
- 1 container (8 oz) Greek Yogurt
- 1/2 cup almond milk, unsweetened
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cup flour, whole wheat
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder, unsweetened
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips, dark
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease muffin tins or line with cupcake liners.
- In a large bowl, add bananas and mash well. Add eggs, greek yogurt, milk, honey, and vanilla. Stir well.
- In a separate bowl whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.
- Add dry ingredients and chocolate chips to the wet mixture; stir just until combined. Avoid over mixing.
- Fill muffin tins evenly (should make 12 muffins) and bake for 25-30 minutes.
Nutrition
www.superhealthykids.com
Natalie Monson
I'm a registered dietitian, mom of 4, avid lover of food and strong promoter of healthy habits. Here you will find lots of delicious recipes full of fruits and veggies, tips for getting your kids to eat better and become intuitive eaters and lots of resources for feeding your family.
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Can’t wait to try this one! I intend to make them in the form of mini muffins. What should I keep in mind?
The baking time is the only thing to watch! They’ll take less time but I can’t say how much depending on your oven and the size of your minis it can vary!
Can you make these with regular milk instead of almond milk? My son has nut allergies!
Could you suggest an alternative flour? Could I use chick pea or quinoa flour?
I love the spinach muffins so I thought these would for sure be a hit, but they wouldn’t bake all the way through and I followed it with no substitutions. Not sure what I’m doing wrong
Followed precisely but unfortunately would not cook through. I think mixture was too wet and also stuck to well -greased sides. Had to throw it all away ????
I’m so sorry – we have made them lots of times with no trouble. I would be curious if any ingredients are different because it looks like you are in the UK?
Should I use plain Greek yogurt or vanilla flavored?
also wondering about substitutions for the almond milk – my kids can’t have tree nuts
Is the Greek Yogurt full fat or 0%? Does that matter? Thanks!
It is totally a preference – won’t effect the recipe.
Excellent, Thank you
I’m adding these to my “to make” list as other SHK recipes have been a big hit with our young toddler! I have a question about the banana fact above. Our pediatrician has told us to avoid bananas for our LO since she tends to get constipated very easily. This isn’t the first clinician we’ve heard this from. I’d love to know the source of your banana fact, so I can do a little research. Our toddler LOVES bananas and I feel badly telling her that she can’t have them since they are such a heathy snack/breakfast treat.
Made them according to the recipe and they came out flat and did not cook through. I put them back in the oven and they still wouldn’t fully cook through. Taste was good, but may need a bit of tweaking since I see some reviewers had the same issue?
I have made these today and they tasted good. The only issue I have is that the muffins are stucked to the paper I use.. Do you know what went wrong?
Have made these multiple times even though there are no kids in the house! Delish!!!!!!!!!! Only thing different was to us unsweetened cashew milk and maple syrup! Love this recipe!
I don’t write reviews often, but felt compelled this time because these really are GREAT. Particularly when you take the advice in the article to use room temperature eggs and not to over-whip the batter – makes all the difference and results in a great texture and – ‘healthier’-tasting, yes, but nonetheless – light, flavourful and popular muffin in this household. I make and bake healthy food all the time for my kids, and these stand out in my ever-growing recipe pile as something special. Thank you!!
Thanks for the recipe! Just made a batch and they were good. My picky toddler though wont eat them when he saw the small pieces of banana. Next time I’ll make them, I’ll just throw the bananas in the blender to completely hide them.
The other issue I had is that they got stuck to the liners . What can I do next time to avoid that?
You can use silicone liners, or just spray your pan and not use liners at all. Also, we have tried parchment liners that work great!
I’m in the UK and made these today and they turned out well. Sprayed silicon muffin cases with sunflower spray first and cooked for approx 27 mins at approx 180 in fan oven.
Plain Greek yogurt or vanilla? Do you know if there is a high altitude substitution?
No subs! We are also at high altitude and plain!
Can something be used in place of the yogurt to make these dairy free?
very good
very delicious, Thanks.
I tried 2 cups regular flour since I don’t have whole wheat… Has anyone else tried all purpose flour? Texture was a little funny, but I think that’s cuz I over mixed the batter…. I added a little pureed veggies and you couldn’t taste them! 🙂 I keep a veggie baby food pouch handy to add to meals 😉
I had the same issue as everyone else. They were so wet, they did not rise and are flat. Ive had to throw mine out too, they’re just a soggy mess. Really frustrating as we specifically went to the shops to make these and they turned out not great.
I made this once before and they were the best healthy muffins I’ve ever made. I’ve come back to make it today and I think some measurements are wrong in the list. It says 3/2 cups flour and 3/2 teaspoons taking soda.. I just guessed it was 2 cups and 2 teaspoons I hope it’s right. Thanks for the recipe though love it!
Hi Emma, sorry for the confusion! We had some glitches to our recipes following a big update to our site last weekend. The amounts should look normal to you now. Thanks for your patience!
Hi what can I substitute almond milk with ? For kids with but allergies
Hi Karishma! You can substitute any other milk (dairy milk, soy milk, etc.) for the almond milk in this recipe.
Both of my preteens (who are usually sceptical of my healthy baking) love does these. If I am not mistaken the words delicious may have been used. Enough said. ?
when you say a cup how much in grammes is this
Hi Danielle, are you wondering about the flour? A cup of whole wheat flour contains around 120 grams, so for this recipe (which calls for 1.5 cups) you would use 180 grams. I hope this answers your question!
I doubled the recipe and it made 38 muffins in the large If You Care baking cups! They are delicious and my kids are excited about this coming week’s lunch box muffin! Have you tried freezing them before? Just curious as we are about to try it so we don’t have any that are wasted! Thank you!
Hi Michelle, so glad you like them! Yes you can definitely freeze these. Just toss them in a zip-top bag and into the freezer. If you pull them out the night before they’ll thaw by breakfast.
Needed to use up some bananas so decided to try this recipe out – wow! DELICIOUS! I noticed that some people mentioned how they were flat and didn’t raise up, so I added a tsp of baking powder and they turned out very fluffy and perfectly muffin-shaped. I didn’t have any greek yogurt so I used regular, vanilla flavored. I also added in a tbsp of chia seeds like I do with all muffins. Great recipe! It’s going to be a big hit with my chocolate-loving daughter when she gets home from school today.
The flavour of the muffins is yummy and they cooked well for me in the time. I am struggling with peeling the paper liners off of them. At least one quarter of the muffin is stuck to the liners. If you have silicone liners that might work better but I would not make this recipe again with paper liners.
These look yummy for my son! I was wondering-I wanted to make these as high calorie as possible. Can I just add butter to this recipe? (I am also not doing almond milk, but adding heavy cream, substitutes his RD recommends). I am just wanting to know if I can just add butter to the recipe because I am not sure where to include it, thank you!
Brinda, good question! You could try replacing some of the Greek yogurt with butter. I wouldn’t add more than 1/3 cup of butter to the recipe, or the muffins may turn out too heavy. But I think you’ll be fine up to that point. Good luck!
Just a comment–bananas do NOT help constipation in any way so I think you should delete that false information from your post. It can actually be detrimental to a constipated little one. I know from experience.
In addition, these seem to be full of sugar–bananas, chocolate chips, and 1/2 cup of honey–20g in one muffin is a ton! Yes there are benefits to some of the ingredients but don’t be fooled that there is also a ton of sugar for a kid to be eating a lot of these. A whole yogurt pouch has 8-10g of sugar to compare for reference. Not sure I’d call that healthy, sorry!
AH-MAZE-ZING!!
unfortunately I did not have whole wheat flour on hand.
So… my substitute made it a little less healthy *covers eyes … 1cup reg four, 1/2 cup oat flour … so far it smells and looks good ?
Great thing about these, the kids can bring them to school ?
I made these with my 7 year old granddaughter. I gave a 5 star because she just loves them. Me a 4 star,needs a little more flavor. But if my granddaughter gives a ? then that’s all I care about.
I made these for my grandkids the other day. My 7 year old daughter helped. Unfortunately neither grandchild liked them. Their parents and myself also tried, nope.
They smelt weird and not so good in the taste department. All ingredients were fresh. Sorry I was so hoping the kids would like these.?
I made these muffins today, and everyone thought they were just ok. I thought they were a tad bitter for my taste. They also had a bit of an odd texture compared to my usual muffins.
I made these this evening, and although they taste and smell amazing and my family just scoffed several each, they were rather soggy. I will up my temp a bit next time from 170c to 180c, but I am wondering if I translated the yogurt proportions wrong. Is 8oz of yogurt fluid oz or weight oz please?
Do you think I could add a scoop of pea protein powder for extra protein?
Totally! Let us know how that turns out! 🙂
Good, but not great. These actually taste a little too healthy and lack on a bit of flavor.
I think this recipe is missing baking powder
This recipe just requires baking soda. 🙂
I made these last night and they are DELICIOUS!! My kids have high cholesterol, so I am always looking for healthy recipes. They loved them and so did I. Thank you!!
THESE WERE GREAT! I made this for my family and it tasted rich and sweet. It wasn’t soggy at all and I will make this in the future 🙂
Lovely muffins. A real hit with us. BUT in future I won’t bake them in cupcake liners, instead I’ll just grease the muffin tray and bake them because this is a really sticky recipe and the cupcake liners stick to the muffins. That’s fine for adults, we can fiddle a bit and pull of the liners, but I think for kids it would be an issue. So in future, I’ll go cupcake liner free for these.
To make dairy free what do you replace the greek yogurt with without sacrificing the protein?
I would just look for a dairy free yogurt! Ripple brand is very high in protein.
We loved these today with our preschool crew. I only had homemade whole yogurt, so instead of straining it to make Greek yogurt, I just used a cup and a half and did not add almond milk. I also subbed 1/2c sugar for the honey as well to try and keep the batter from being too liquid with my yogurt sub and so they would cook all the way through. I made 21 muffins. They definitely are DARK (not milk) chocolate muffins, which we love around here! Thanks for the great recipe!
Thanks for sharing- so glad you loved them!
Too much cocoa for the amount. If I was to do it again I’d use a 1/4 of a cup
I tried this recipe today, and it was a disaster. It would not cook in the middle and was very flat. I followed the recipe, but just would not cook.
In the oven and I can’t wait to eat them when they come out of the oven!
my son has a dairy allergy. What can I use instead og greek yogurt?
You can try applesauce- or a dairy free yogurt alternative!
My kids love these! My son has a dairy allergy so we sub the milk for almond milk and the Greek yogurt for silk soy vanilla yogurt. They don’t taste overly healthy to me. My whole family enjoys them! Thanks for the tasty recipe 🙂
I am just now reading the reviews. I wish I would have prior to making a full batch. We are also having a hard time with them baking all the way through. I’m so bummed.
These have a great flavor however mine didn’t rise or fluff up. I see some say they added baking powder (tsp) and not just baking soda which makes sense. Probably would make it fluffier. I used GF coconut flour. Not sure if it made a difference. Also I use Lily’s dark chocolate chips as opposed to regular chocolate chips. Doesn’t have refined sugar.
Made this recipe (added some pecan chips) absolutely delicious
Was wondering- can I freeze the batter? If yes, for how long?
We wouldn’t recommend freezing the batter- but the muffins freeze great! They will last up to 3 months in an airtight container.
Yes made these today. Haven’t tried them yet, my concern is they said makes 12 muffins, mine made 18. Also they turned out really dark, not like the picture. Any suggestions?
It could be due to the brand or type of cocoa powder you used. Hope you enjoyed them!