Unlink most oatmeal based muffin recipes, these blueberry muffins with oats are surprisingly light and fluffy. Ditch the dense, loaf-like texture of your current oat muffin with a secret step that makes all the difference! There’s also a bonus for my juicing friends: you can add 1 cup of pulp to up the nutrition and reduce juicing waste without changing the texture.
There’s a running joke in my family because I’m continually experimenting with healthier recipes and substitutions. With baking, as opposed to cooking, there seems to be a fine line between the goal, which is a healthier version of a favorite bakery item, and what we call ‘healthy loaf’, which is an all encompassing term for baked good gone blah because they’ve been healthified to death. Healthy loaf occurs when the taste, texture, consistency, or the dreaded trifecta, are off and no one enjoys/eats them except, well, me! Regardless of whether you have juice pulp to add, these blueberry muffins made with oats are sure to satisfy without feeling like a glorified cupcake for breakfast.
NOTE: There is a 1 hour wait time before baking. The oats must soak in your milk and lemon juice mixture for an hour to soften. There’s nothing more annoying than being ready to bake only to find out the recipe has a surprise like this for you.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup milk
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice (*Can substitute 1 cup buttermilk for milk and lemon juice if desired.)
- 1 cup whole rolled oats
- 1 egg or substitute 1/2 cup applesauce
- 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/3 cup butter or ghee, softened
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen (*This recipe is also GREAT with fresh raspberries!)
- Optional: 1 cup of juice pulp from your electric juicer – combo of fruit and vegetables okay but sift through it to remove any larger pieces or seeds.
Tips for using juice pulp:
- Pulp will keep well in the fridge for a day or two so don’t feel like you have to tackle both on the same day.
- Sift through the pulp with your fingers to remove large pieces, seeds or anything hard. This makes your final product WAY more enjoyable as the pulp essentially hides in the muffin.
- A mixture of fruit and vegetables makes for a healthy juice that tastes good, too. Feel free to juice only what you want to use as pulp, remove from the juicer and continue on. I tend to juice everything together and get a mixture in my pulp. The above muffins include a mixture of carrot, broccoli, orange and lemon pulp. If you only use fruit your pulp may be more wet. Add a touch more flour as needed to match the thickness of the batter seen below or in the first photo.
Instructions:
- 1 hour prior to baking: Mix milk and lemon juice and let sit five minutes. I get out all my other ingredients during this time wait. Mix oats with milk/lemon juice (or buttermilk if using) and let sit 1 hour.
- Using a hand mixer or a strong arm :), mix together the egg (or applesauce), brown sugar and butter (or ghee).
- Add your oats and milk mixture to this.
- Combine your dry ingredients in a separate bowl (flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda).
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir lightly.
- Gently fold in juice pulp if using.
- Gently fold in blueberries or raspberries.
- Line a muffin pan with paper or parchment liners or grease each cup.
- Fill cups and bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, inserting a toothpick to check for doneness.
Regardless of whether you opt to add the juicing pulp to these blueberry muffins with oats, you’ll still discover a muffin recipe you’re sure to love. While I have used a muffin recipe from iheartvegetables.com many times and it served as the main launchpad for my own variation because it is SO GOOD, I was looking for a muffin recipe that would be just perfect! So with a little less sugar, a substitution for buttermilk (which I NEVER have on hand) and a chance to repurpose some of my juice pulp were all tweaks I made to boost nutrition and use ingredients I would have on hand. I hope you enjoy this recipe and take a chance on using juice pulp in your baking!
Looking for recipes that can help you boost nutrition without sacrificing taste (or your families trust in your cooking)?! Schedule a free consultation or call 651-895-0774.
Addie Kelzer is a certified personal trainer and nutrition consultant. She believes that by making fitness and good food practical, her clients will hold the power to positively change their health and the health of those closest to them.