These easy Baby Banana Muffins are the best baby-led weaning muffins for toddlers with a delicious, soft, fluffy texture.
Plus, they are egg-free baby muffins and sugar-free, naturally sweetened by ripe bananas. A healthy baby-led weaning banana recipe for kids from 6 months.
If you are looking for an easy baby-led weaning muffin recipe, easy for toddlers to hold and eat. This is the one!
These baby-led weaning muffins with bananas are naturally:
- Vegan
- Egg-free
- Dairy-free
- Sugar-free – naturally sweetened with ripe banana.
When Can Babies Eat Bananas?
Banana is one of the first solid food you can offer to babies. It’s soft, easy to eat, and it has a low allergy risk and a low choking hazard risk.
How To Make Banana Baby Food
You can offer plain raw banana pieces to babies. You don’t have to cook bananas for babies.
You have a few options for feeding bananas to babies. You can, for example, cut chunks of bananas that toddlers can hold by hand and suck or bite on.
You can also offer banana puree. It’s basically raw mashed bananas that you make by mashing ripe or yellow bananas with a fork. Feel free to play with the texture by mashing the banana more or less to introduce pieces to your little one.
Another nourishing way to offer bananas to babies is to make 3-ingredients baby oatmeal muffins or the egg-free baby banana muffin recipe below.
How To Make Baby Banana Muffins
It’s super easy to baby-led weaning banana muffins for your toddler.
All you need is a high-speed blender and a few ingredients listed below
Ingredients
Mashed ripe bananas – these egg-free banana muffins are naturally sweetened with bananas, so the ripest, the sweetness they are. I recommend using ripe bananas with black spots on the skin for the best flavors.
- Melted coconut oil or any oil you have on hand, melted butter works as well.
- Milk of choice – I used dairy-free soy milk fortified in calcium. But, breastmilk, and baby formula milk works as well.
- Old rolled oats – this is the coarse version of oats. It’s higher in fiber than quick oats and less processed. Therefore it’s a healthy option for baby muffins as it adds fiber, and plant-based protein to their snack.
- Baking powder
- Baking soda
- Apple cider vinegar or lemon juice – this helps the muffin to rise and get fluffy. The acid in lemon juice or vinegar activates the baking powder and baking soda, creating the soft muffin texture seen in the pictures.
Making The Muffin Batter
First, preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line two 12-hole mini muffin trays with paper liner and lightly oil them with oil spray to prevent the baby muffins from sticking to the paper. You can also skip the paper and bake them in the greased muffin pan.
Next, peel and mash the banana and measure 1 cup. Since these are vegan baby muffins, they don’t use eggs, and the amount of bananas is important to keep the texture perfect, not too dense or too wet.
Place all the ingredients in the jug of a high-speed blender, not a food processor. It’s not powerful enough to create a smooth blender muffin batter.
Blend on high speed for 1 minute in total. With my Vitamix, I blended on speed 10 for 20 seconds, scraping the sides of the jug with a silicone spatula and repeating the blending/scraping until my muffin batter was smooth.
Baking The Muffins
Fill the muffin pan with 1-2 tablespoons of batter and bake in the center rack of the oven at 350°F (180°C) until the baby muffins puff up and are golden brown on top.
Also, insert a toothpick in the center of the muffin to check they are cooked through, not wet inside.
Cool them down immediately on a wire rack before offering them to kids. It takes about 3 hours to fully cool down.
Storage
This recipe makes 24 baby muffins. They store up to 4 days in the fridge in a sealed box or freeze very well for up to 3 months.
Thaw the baby banana muffins the day before or 3 hours before offering them to toddlers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use all-purpose flour?
You can swap rolled oats for all-purpose flour or all-purpose gluten-free flour but don’t add all the ingredients in the blender! Blending wheat flour creates packed, dense baked goods, so work with a mixing bowl only!
First, mash the bananas and combine them in a bowl with the wet ingredients: lemon juice, oil, and milk. Finally, stir in flour, baking powder, and baking soda.
Can I add fruits or vegetables?
You can stir 1/2 cup of grated carrots for a banana carrot muffin baby version.
Or, if you want to make blueberry banana muffins for babies, stir in 1/3 cup of fresh blueberries in the batter.
Finally, you can swap some mashed bananas for applesauce and create delicious baby banana applesauce muffins.
Transfer the blended batter to a mixing bowl and fold in the ingredients. Then, fill the muffin pan and bake as recommended below.
Have you made these baby banana muffins? Share a comment or review below to tell me how much your baby enjoyed this recipe.
Baby Banana Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 cup Mashed Bananas equivalent to 3 large bananas
- ¼ cup Melted Coconut Oil
- ¼ cup Milk of Choice can use breastmilk, baby formula, or dairy-free milk
- 1 cup Old-Fashioned Rolled Oats not quick oats!
- 2 teaspoon Baking Powder
- ¼ teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1 teaspoon Lemon Juice or apple cider vinegar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Line two 12-hole mini muffin trays with oil spray. Set them aside.
- Peel, mash the bananas with a fork and measure 1 cup – precision is important to avoid gummy muffins.
- Place the mashed bananas in the jug of a high-speed blender along with the remaining ingredients: coconut oil, milk, lemon juice, baking powder, baking soda, and rolled oats.
- Blend on high-speed – speed 10 of my Vitamix – for 1 minute, stopping every 20 seconds if needed to scrape down the sides of the jug. Keep blending until the batter is smooth and no bites of oats are showing.
- Fill the muffin holes with about 1-2 tablespoons of batter.
- Bake in the center rack of the oven until golden brown, and a pick inserted in the center of the baby muffins comes out clean – about 12-15 minutes.
- Cool them down immediately on a wire rack.
- Serve plain or with fruits and yogurt on the side.
Storage
- Store in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 4 days or freeze in ziplock bags and thaw 3 hours before eating.
Hi! If I were to swap out oats for all purpose flour, how much flour would you recommend using? Thank you!
I didn’t try this option so I am not too sure. Try with same amount and see how the batter look like, if too dry add more milk.
Hi! Mine didn’t rise well at all. Followed the recipe directly except, substituted butter for coconut oil and used dairy milk.
Any idea what went wrong?
Your baking powder is maybe expired or you made larger muffins. Try increasing by 1 teaspoon next time.