EASY Gluten Free Banana Muffins Recipe: One Bowl

Do you have some overripe bananas that you don’t quite know what to do with? Before you reach for that banana bread recipe again, you could try something a bit different: Gluten-free banana muffins! This snack is easy to grab on the way out the door or just whenever you want an easy snack that isn’t super complicated to fix.

Why This Recipe for Gluten-Free Banana Muffins?

What I like most about this recipe is that it’s an easy way to use up slightly overripe bananas. In fact, for banana muffins, you want them to be slightly overripe so they’re easy to mash with a fork. Using bananas also makes it easy to cut back on the sugar for muffins since they have a natural ,fruity sweetness.

The neat part is that it’s hard to tell they’re gluten-free! Replacing the gluten in baking is often the tricky part. (Keep reading to learn more about that!) However, you’ll know you succeeded when these muffins have perfect, tall golden domes and a tender crumb with just the right amount of banana flavor in every bite.

Best of all? You only need one bowl and nine ingredients to make these banana muffins, so it’s not super complicated!

Equipment for Gluten-Free Banana Muffins

You probably have most of the equipment you’ll need for these muffins in your kitchen already! Let’s double-check, though:

• Medium-sized mixing bowl
• (Optional) small dishwasher-safe bowl
• Wooden mixing spoon
• Muffin Tin (Your choice whether you want to make large muffins in a 12-cup muffin tin or more small muffins in a mini muffin tin. You may just have to adjust the baking time to suit.)
• Cooling Rack

Ingredients for Gluten-Free Banana Muffins

This recipe works best if all the ingredients are already at room temperature. Plus, having them out on your counter already is an easy way to make sure you have everything! If you need to make a quick grocery run, be sure to print or save the recipe card below for easy reference.

Quick Scan: What You’ll Need

• Bananas
• Brown sugar
• Vegetable oil
• Eggs
• Gluten-free flour mix
• Baking powder
• Baking soda
• Salt
• Chopped walnuts

How These Ingredients Work Together

Why these ingredients in particular? For some of them, it can make a difference exactly what you use, so let’s take a closer look!

Bananas

3 overripe bananas

I like to use the three bananas that have been sitting on my counter the longest, as long as they haven’t gone completely bad. Bananas provide a lot of the flavor and some of the necessary moisture for this recipe.

Brown Sugar

66 grams brown sugar (about 2/3 cup)

I like to look at the ingredients for brown sugar to make sure it’s just sugar and molasses. If it just says “brown sugar” or “organic brown sugar,” it’s harder to tell exactly what they added to the sugar to make it brown. Amazon Grocery brand brown sugar is actually the one I use most often because I like to keep it simple.

Vegetable Oil

1/2 cup vegetable oil

Vegetable oil adds the healthy fat that helps give these muffins their shape and texture. I like to use olive oil to maximize the amount of healthy fat with less unhealthy fat.

Eggs

2 large eggs

Most baked goods need a binder, like eggs, to hold together.

Gluten-Free Flour Mix

260 grams gluten-free flour mix (about 2 cups)

Flour usually makes up the bulk of the dry ingredients you need for baking. It provides structural support while reacting with other ingredients during the baking process.

I like to make my own gluten-free flour mix. It’s a blend of white rice flour, brown rice flour, tapioca flour, cornstarch, and potato flour.

Baking Powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

Without the gluten, we’ll need extra leavening to help the banana muffins get that fluffy texture and the tall golden dome you want. Baking powder is one of the two leavenings we’ll need.

Baking Soda

1 teaspoon baking soda

The baking soda is the other leavening agent we’ll need to support the muffins’ structure.

Salt

1/2 teaspoon salt

Salt enhances the flavor and helps balance the sweetness in baked goods like muffins. It can also help regulate the leavening process to make sure the dough doesn’t rise too fast or too much. This may be a little less important in a recipe like this one that doesn’t contain yeast, but it does help get a nice, balanced structure in the muffins.

Chopped Walnuts

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

These are very much optional, but nice to have! Walnuts can make a nice complement to the banana flavor and add a nice crunch.

Did you make and love this recipe? Give it your review and rating below! And make sure to follow me on Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook too!

How to Make Gluten-Free Banana Muffins

These muffins really are super easy to make. What I like to do is get started on it right away once all the ingredients are at room temperature, so nobody’s sitting around waiting for me to make them. Let’s jump right into it!

Step One: Preheat Oven

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (175 degrees Celsius).

Step Two: Mash Bananas With a Fork

One thing you’ll probably notice right away is that those overripe bananas are super easy to mash with a fork. It’s actually okay to leave little bits of unmashed banana in the bottom of the bowl. You just want to get most of it mashed.

Step Three: Add Brown Sugar, Vegetable Oil, and Eggs

First, I’ll crack the eggs into a separate dishwasher-safe bowl to make sure I don’t accidentally get any eggshell in there. Then I’ll add the eggs, oil, and brown sugar and mix well with a spoon. (I’ll sometimes get a bit rough with the egg yolks to make sure they break and get mixed in.)

Step Four: Add Remaining Dry Ingredients

Add flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir until all the dry ingredients are thoroughly mixed in.

Step Five: Let Sit for Half an Hour

Set the bowl aside to sit for half an hour so the ingredients meld together better and the leavening agents can start to do their work.

Step Six: Prepare the Muffin Tin

Lightly grease the cups of a muffin tin while letting the muffin batter sit.

Step Seven: Stir In Walnuts

Stir the walnuts into the batter if using until the walnuts are evenly distributed.

Step Eight: Fill Muffin Cups With Batter

Fill each muffin cup about 2/3 full of batter. (Keep in mind that they will rise while baking, so it helps not to overfill them.)

Step Nine: Bake for 20-22 Minutes

Place muffin tin in oven and bake for 20-22 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Step Ten: Remove from Oven and Let Cool

Remove the muffins from the oven and place them on a cooling rack to cool until safe to touch with a finger. They can be served warm with a bit of butter or stored in an airtight container or resealable plastic bag for later. (I like to keep individual muffins in these Ziploc sandwich bags for easier grabbing on the way out the door.)

Nutrition Information for This Gluten-Free Banana Recipe

As you might expect, the bananas add a lot of good nutrition to this recipe! Amounts can vary depending on ingredients and amounts used. If you’d like to explore the nutrition information of individual ingredients, please visit the USDA’s FoodData Central database.

Substitutions and Variations for Gluten-Free Banana Muffins

While walnuts are my favorite mix-in for these muffins, I also like chocolate chips and blueberries. Pecan pieces, macadamia nuts, and almonds are good too.

You can reduce the salt by about half if you are on a low-salt diet.

The eggs can be replaced by mixing 1 tablespoon of flaxseed meal or ground chia seeds with 3 tablespoons of water for each egg you want to replace.

Banana Muffin Storage & Reheating

If you happen to have any of these muffins left over, they store really well. Just add the extras to an airtight container or freezer bag, seal well, and store them at room temperature for 2-3 days. Any longer than that and they can be frozen in the same bag (just remove all of the air before freezing).

I would not recommend storing muffins in the oven, even if you need the extra counter space! My grandmother did that once and nearly ended up with burned muffins!

Frozen muffins can be thawed out overnight in the fridge, and then set out until they reach room temperature. What I like to do is put a little butter on a muffin, and then heat it in the microwave until the butter is melted. It shouldn’t take longer than 30 seconds.

Note on storing muffin batter: If you’d like to mix the batter, then store it before portioning and baking, cover the bowl with a piece of plastic wrap, and refrigerate the batter. Bake the muffin batter within 1 day of mixing.

FAQ for Gluten-Free Banana Muffins

While these muffins are super easy to make, sometimes we do get questions about one of the steps or how the muffins turned out! If you have a question that we haven’t answered, feel free to ask in the comments.

Is the rest time necessary?

Yes, letting the batter rest for 30 minutes is necessary because it helps the leavening agents get started on the structure and texture you want for these muffins.

How ripe is ripe enough or too ripe for the bananas in this recipe?

As a general rule, the darker brown the peel is, the riper the banana is going to be. I like to aim for the banana peel being at least half dark brown to make sure the banana is overripe without overdoing it! This means the bananas are the right sweetness level since their starches turn into sugar as they ripen. They’re also easier to mash when they’re overripe.

Can I leave out the nuts?

Yes, the nuts are optional. Sometimes I’ll leave them out if I know somebody doesn’t like nuts or is allergic to nuts. And sometimes I like to replace them with another mix-in like chocolate chips or blueberries.

I don’t feel like greasing the muffin tin. Can I use muffin liners?

Sure, I’ve done that, too, when I was making muffins to take somewhere. Muffin liners do make it super easy!

Why did my muffins come out dry?

The thing to remember about gluten-free flour is that it does absorb more moisture, so it’s usually necessary to add more wet ingredients to compensate. Dry muffins can often be fixed by melting some butter on them.

Is it necessary to compensate for the lack of gluten in these muffins?

Gluten is a protein in grains like wheat, barley, and rye that normally acts like a binder and allows more “stretching” in many doughs, like pizza dough.

Without gluten or some way to compensate for the lack of gluten, baked goods like these muffins often come out too dense and dry. If you are leaving gluten out of your favorite baked recipes, you will need to compensate with extra fats like butter or oil and extra liquids like mashed bananas. You will also need an extra-good binding agent, like eggs.

Tell Us What You’re Baking

Did you try one of these muffins, or mix a few flavors together? Share what you made in the comments and let us know how they turned out. We’ll be there to respond if you have questions.