These Healthy Chocolate Muffins help you eat well and have your chocolate too! They are richly chocolate, so my kids love them. And healthy enough that I can actually serve them for breakfast with no guilt!
Healthy Chocolate Muffins
How do you make chocolate muffins healthy?
First, you switch out the traditional white flour for a healthier option. We like to use whole white wheat flour because it tastes milder than traditional wheat flour but is more nutritionally dense than regular white flour. (I have nothing against having a treat –> these chocolate mint cupcakes are amazing!)
We also lighten up the sugar content and switch out white sugar for maple syrup. These muffins are lightly sweetened, they definitely don’t taste sweet like store-bought muffins but they are delicious and super chocolate tasting.
We also make these healthier by increasing the moisture and protein content in these muffins with a dose of Greek Yogurt!
All these changes give these healthy muffins a really tender crumb – sometimes a challenge to overcome when baking with whole wheat.
How to Freeze Muffins
Luckily these freeze great so I make a big batch and pull them out of the freezer to pack in lunches or as a special treat anytime.
Some advice: If you actually want them to make it to the freezer, you should put them there before you tell your kids you made them.
To freeze chocolate muffins, make sure they are completely cooled. If they are the slightest bit warm, they will sweat inside the freezer bag and make the tops of the muffins sticky when they thaw. So make sure they are completely room temperature.
Freezer Tip: Six of these muffins fit perfectly in a gallon size freezer bag. When thawing, move them from the freezer to the refrigerator to thaw overnight. You can pull them from the fridge for lunchboxes or heat them for breakfast.
Chocolate Muffins Can Be Healthy and Delicious!
This muffin recipe has been around our house awhile and it is always the one I come back to. My little kids especially love them as mini muffins. I think because they can fit a muffin in each hand. 🙂 I absolutely love this brand of pans. They are heavy enough that they don’t warp and pop in the oven. But are still really affordable. This is the mini muffin pan that I have.
I feel like I get extra mom points when I bake these. If you don’t believe me, check out the picture below.
I’ve created recipes at home during my kids’ whole lives. The tiny baby hands below are my then 2-year-old. That has been a few years now. But before she was tall enough to see over the table, she would feel around up there hoping to snag something good while I was taking pictures.
She got especially excited to steal chocolate muffins – but was pretty darn happy to make off with silverware, napkins too. I have about a dozen other pictures just like this one. It was a challenging day as an at-home photographer but a pretty awesome day as a mom.
More Healthy Muffin Recipes
- These carrot cake chocolate chip muffins are amazing!
- If you’ve never tried these sweet potato muffins, you’re missing out. They are kind of like pumpkin muffins (and a great way to use up a leftover sweet potato!)
- One of the most popular healthy muffin recipes on this site —> Blueberry Lemon Muffins!
- Of course, healthy banana muffins are a staple!
Healthy Chocolate Muffins
Ingredients
- 3 cups white whole wheat flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 cup maple syrup
- 3/4 cup coconut oil, warmed to liquid
- 1/2 cup Greek Yogurt, Plain I have used sour cream in a pinch and it works well too!
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- 3/4 cup milk
- 3 tbsp strongly brewed coffee
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly oil muffin pans or line with paper liners.
- Use a whisk to combine all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
- Use whisk to combine all wet ingredients in a separate mixing bowl and whisk until ingredients emulsify and become uniform. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix well.
- Spoon batter into muffin pan until cups are 2/3 of the way full. If using chocolate chips, drop a couple on top of the muffin batter.
- Cook muffins for 18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out of the center cleanly. Enjoy being mom of the year!
Ok, so we made these last week and the kids were so excited and what we ended up with we’re little brownie rocks (which by the way we are being desperate to enjoy your luscious muffins). EXPIRED BAKING POWDER – WHO KNEW?!? (sad, but not me, so…) Second run with FRESH baking powder – went with the double acting just to make sure – and we could tell the difference right away as we were mixing them! They’re rising in the oven, and I’ve never been so excited to eat a muffin in my life!! 3 mi s to go, thanks for this fantastic recipe!
Unfortunately, I am not impressed. I subbed about 1/4 cup of oil with sweetened applesauce and I added maybe half a cup of natural sweetened peanut butter and half a cup of chocolate chips and I still find these quite bland. Yes, kind of guilt free but also kind of taste free. 🙁 bummer!
That is unfortunate that you changed the recipe and didn’t like your creation. But good luck finding a recipe you love!
I just wanted to say I made these and they were amazing! I also substituted maple syrup for 1/2 maple syrup and 1/2 honey and they turned out great! Such a great recipe for when you want guilt free dessert!
Can’t wait to try these. Can I use unbleached flour?
You can! Hope you like them!
Could you substitute honey in place of the maple syrup?
You can substitute. Keep in mind honey will change the flavor quite a bit. All kinds of honey taste different – so pick one that tastes really neutral.
Is there a substitute for greek yogurt??? They don’t sell low fat greek yogurt where I live
I often use 2% but if you can’t find that, you might try sour cream!Let me know if that works out for you.
Hi
I have both wholemeal flours… would I use plain or self raising?!
Thanks
I always use plain flour and then use baking powder, baking soda – or a combination for rise. 🙂
Is it possible to add spinach to these? If so, how would you add it in?
I have actually never tried. I would processes it in the food processor first. I think it would work! Let me know if you try it! I’d love to know if it works.
Hi
Do you know if this recipe would work as one whole cake? I’d love to make a big chocolate cake for my son’s birthday and I love this recipe-we make the cupcakes every weekend! Just wondering if the same proportions will work as a sandwich cake?
Thanks
Lisa
I would think so! Though I am not sure about the actual cook time. Cook time would depend on how deep the batter is in the dish. Let me know how it turns out!!
Excited to find this, and make this weekend. Also, I love the blue and gold dishes, do you mind sharing the pattern?
very yummy! love how rich they are … I substituted the flour with oat flour and added apple sauce to half coconut oil. They turned out great!
I am so glad you loved them! They are my favorite!
Do you have the nutrition facts per muffin? Amazing recipe!
I don’t but you can find lots of nutrition calculators online if you need to check!
What can be substituted for coconut oil?
Hi Christine. Any neutral flavored oil or melted butter should work.
hi can i use whole wheat flour?.. I mean does it have to be white? What is the difference? . And thanks for sharing the recipe this looks so yummy ???
You can use whole wheat. The nutty flavor of the whole wheat might be a little stronger than with whole white wheat but it will still work. Whole White Wheat is just milled from a different type of wheat than traditional “red wheat.” You can read more about it here: http://mynourishedhome.comwholegrainscouncil.org/whole-grains-101/whats-whole-grain-refined-grain/whole-white-wheat-faq
Can I use something else instead of mayple syrup?
I have never tried anything other than maple syrup. We generally use very little refined sugar and tend to sweeten naturally. You could try to sweeten with a granular sugar but will need to add a touch of liquid to make up the difference. The general rule of thumb is 1 TBSP of additional liquid in the recipe for every cup of maple syrup you exchange for dry. Also keep in mind that maple syrup is more sweet than traditional sugar. So you will likely want more granular sugar than syrup. I hope that helps!!!!
I’m sorry, healthy chocolate muffins??!! I’m sold! Thanks for sharing
Just made these with my 7 year old daughter……they are baking in the oven as I write this. Looking forward to trying the end product! 🙂
Very exciting! I can’t wait to hear what you think!!
Can you make these without coffee? We’re not coffee drinkers, so we don’t have any in the house.
You absolutely can! They are still delicious. The coffee just makes the chocolate taste richer.
Really yummy! I love now semi sweet they are and you can’t beat the ingredients! I used the sour cream! Thanks so much!
Coffee? What a delicious idea! I can’t wait to try these.
Hi Kristine! You won’t really taste the coffee – it just makes the chocolate taste more chocolaty. Which is always a win in my book! Send me a picture if you try them!
These turned out really good! They’re very rich, not too sweet, mature tasting muffins. I put a salted chocolate glaze on top, although it’s not shown in my picture.
Thanks for the recipe! I’ll definetely making them again.
Thank you Barbara! I love your description of them! I also love the idea of a salted chocolate glaze!!!
Quick- we are in the middle of trying to make these- do you measure the coconut oil before its warm to liquid or after???
After it is warm!
Is there a good substitute for coffee? I don’t do well with caffeine.
You can omit it if you need to. It just makes it taste more chocolatey!