These sourdough blueberry muffins have an incredible texture and flavor thanks to sourdough discard! My recipe takes just 30 minutes from start to finish and makes a dozen beautiful muffins.
Sourdough Discard Blueberry Muffins
Before I talk about these sourdough blueberry muffins, I think I should admit that I might have a bit of a blueberry muffin obsession. If you’ve been following along, you know that I recently shared a recipe for blueberry muffin cookies that is simply incredible (if I do say so myself). I also have classic blueberry muffins, plus blueberry cream cheese muffins. How many blueberry muffins recipes is too many?
Correct answer: the limit does not exist.
Now back to today’s recipe, which I absolutely love. Not only are these muffins full of blueberries, but they have a truly amazing texture; they are so, so, SO soft and tender. The sourdough discard is a key player in creating this lovely texture, and of course, it also adds a beautiful depth of flavor too.
What to love about this recipe:
- Comes together fast.
- No mixer needed (seriously, please don’t use one!).
- Beautiful tall muffin tops, thanks to my special muffin trick (also used in my banana muffins).
- Amazing flavor and texture from sourdough discard.
What You Need
Most of these ingredients are pretty standard, except for the sourdough discard–obviously! Here are the most important ones:
- Sourdough discard. You should have some of this lying around if you’re feeding an active sourdough starter! If you don’t, check out the FAQ section below.
- Melted butter. Not only does melted butter make this recipe super easy to mix together by hand, but it also yields a buttery flavor too.
- Blueberries. Fresh or frozen blueberries will work here, but just know that frozen berries will dye your batter purple. If I’m using frozen berries, I prefer to thaw and drain them before adding them to the batter.
- Sour cream. Similar to buttermilk, sour cream adds moisture, tenderness, and flavor.
- Room temperature egg. It’s important that your egg is at room temperature so it incorporates easily; otherwise, you might end up over-mixing your batter. If you forget to set yours out ahead of time, read my post on how to quickly bring eggs to room temperature.
SAM’S TIP: For a pretty, bakery style look I recommend sprinkling some extra granulated sugar on top of your sourdough blueberry muffins just before baking. Or, if you’d really like to take your muffins to the next level, skip the sugar and add some streusel!
Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Sourdough Blueberry Muffins
- Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
- Combine the wet ingredients in a separate bowl.
- Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until the batter is 50% combined.
- Add the blueberries and keep folding until just combined. Do not over-mix!
- Portion the batter into a lined 12-count muffin tin. I like to use an ice cream scoop for this!
- Sprinkle granulated sugar over the tops (if using) and bake for 8 minutes at 425F.
- Reduce the oven temperature to 350F (don’t open the door!) and bake for an additional 12 minutes or until cooked through.
- Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack to cool completely.
SAM’S TIP: Using two oven temperatures ensures our muffins will have a beautiful rise. We’ll start off high, then reduce the temperature (without opening the door!) to finish baking. You’ll see this technique used in most of my muffin recipes, including my bakery style chocolate chip muffins.
Frequently Asked Questions
These sourdough blueberry muffins were carefully designed to be moist and tender, so they should not be dry at all. If yours are, it’s possible that you over-measured your flour (it’s easy to do!), over-mixed your batter, or simply baked them too long.
Over-mixing will doom any quick bread, muffin, or pancake; it makes them dense and dry. To avoid this, make sure you stir everything together by hand (do not use a mixer!) and stop once everything is just combined.
Sourdough discard is actually a byproduct of feeding/maintaining a sourdough starter. Before you feed your starter, you always discard half of what is in the jar. Instead of wasting that discard (it still has lots of nutritional benefits), I like to use it in other recipes, like these muffins or my sourdough crackers or sourdough pancakes.
If you are interested in baking with sourdough, check out my post on how to make a sourdough starter!
Yes! Just make sure to wrap them really well in plastic wrap beforehand and store in an airtight container. They’ll keep this way for a few months.
To thaw, you can let your muffins sit at room temperature, or you can microwave them for a few seconds.
The muffin liners I’m using here today are my parchment paper muffin liners! They are so easy to make and instantly elevate the look of your muffins.
Enjoy!
Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook
Sourdough blueberry muffins
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups (187 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon table salt
- ½ cup (113 g) unsalted butter melted
- ½ cup (105 g) sourdough discard
- ¾ cup (180 g) sour cream or plain full-fat Greek yogurt
- 1 large egg room temperature preferred
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups (210 g) fresh blueberries
- Granulated sugar for topping optional
Recommended Equipment
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425F (220C) and line a 12-count muffin tin with paper liners. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.1 ½ cups (187 g) all-purpose flour, 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar, 2 teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda, ½ teaspoon table salt
- In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together melted butter, sourdough discard, sour cream, egg, and vanilla extract until ingredients are evenly mixed.½ cup (113 g) unsalted butter, ½ cup (105 g) sourdough discard, ¾ cup (180 g) sour cream, 1 large egg, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Add wet ingredients to dry and use a spatula to gently fold together. Once batter is about 50% combined, add blueberries and continue to mix, gently, until blueberries are well-distributed and batter is just combined. Do not over-mix or muffins will be dense and dry.1 ½ cups (210 g) fresh blueberries
- Evenly divide batter into prepared muffin tin. If desired, sprinkle with granulated sugar.Granulated sugar for topping
- Transfer to center rack of 425F (220C) oven and bake for 8 minutes, then, without opening the oven door, decrease oven temperature to 350F (175C) and bake for 12 minutes longer/until muffins are baked through. The tops will be beginning to turn a light golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean or with moist crumbs.
- Allow muffins to cool for 10 minutes in the muffin tin before carefully removing to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Notes
Blueberries
Frozen blueberries will work but may streak your batter blue/purple. I typically thaw and drain the berries before using.Storing
Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days. Muffins may also be tightly wrapped (after cooling) and frozen for up to 3 months.Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Barb
Hi Sam! These muffins are amazing!! So moist!! I was wondering, what would your recommendation be if we wanted to try a sourdough Black Forest type of muffin where we keep it as a vanilla muffin, but replace the blueberries with cherries and chocolate chunks. Any suggestions for how to do that replacement? Like you use 210 grams of blueberries. If we were to replace that with canned cherries (Oregon tart cherries) and perhaps use a semi sweet choc bar to get the choc chunks in the muffin, what would you recommend for those portions? Thanks 🙂
Sam
Hi Barb! I haven’t tried it, but I think it could work. I would probably drain the canned cherries first so you don’t add a lot of extra liquid. Let me know how it goes if you try it! 🙂
Amy
Thèse muffins are soooogood. Easy to make too. Moist and delicious. Made 18.
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Amy! 🙂
Dina
These were absolutely delicious
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Dina! 🙂
Karen Ellis
This has been the best blueberry muffin recipe so far! I put sugar in the raw on top before I baked it. Delicious and I will make them again…so long as I have sourdough starter.
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Karen! 🙂
Stevie
I usually never bother to comment but just had to drop in and say that this is the most well written recipe I’ve ever used! The fact that you took the time to write out the instructions to include the measurements so I didn’t have to scroll back up. *chefs kiss*
I thought I had blueberries but didn’t so ended up using frozen strawberries instead. The muffins are still in the oven but I can already tell they’re going to be amazing. Will definitely be using this recipe again.
Thank you so much
Sam
Thank you so much, Stevie! I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much! I appreciate the feedback. 🙂
Adrienne
Just made these muffins and they were amazing!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Adrienne! 🙂
Lynda
I made three batches of this recipe in the last two days. One to try out for ourselves and then two more batches for my daughter’s water polo team after a game.
A few technique tips for future bakers of this recipe:
1. If your self-made parchment cups aren’t shaping up, consider dipping can in water then wrap paper around it making sure to crease around the can. Alternatively you can wet your fingers a little with a bowl of water besides you.
2. I found parchment paper stayed in shape better when wrapped around the can such that the curled side is against the can. Experiment with the “other” side of the parchment paper if you are having trouble.
3. I always seemed to have too dry a batter (lots of loose flour mixture) following this recipe with a scale. Even when I used a jumbo egg. It could be the type of all-purpose flour around here is very “thirsty”. Or that my starter is not as hydrated as the author’s. So now I add a couple TBSP milk to the wet mixture. I’d rather err on the wet side than dry side. One can always bake longer.
4. Instead of mixing in the wet mixture to the dry mixture I do the opposite. I put the wet mixture in a large bowl. Mix up the dry mixture in a medium bowl. Then I slowly pour and mix the dry mixture into the wet mixture. It is so much easier to pour dry mixture out of a bowl than to pour and scrape wet mixture out of a bowl so that’s why I do it that way. There’s no waste of the wet mixture the way I do it.
5. If using frozen blueberries, go ahead and gently mix the dry mixture in with the wet mixture until just barely blended then gently fold in the blueberries. If you put the frozen blueberries in as the recipe indicates at the 50% combined stage, you will have a tougher time mixing up the batter the rest of the way because the frozen berries make the batter cold and stiff and you run the risk of overmixing just to incorporate all the flour into the batter.
6. These consistently took longer than 30 minutes to make – the most time consuming part is mixing the starter with the sour cream and butter etc. I wanted to make sure nothing curdled so I took it slow each time. Plus my starter was gluten-y and needed a lot of whisking to incorporate.
These muffins were delicious and the team gave them a thumbs up. You can’t really taste the starter being there, it was just the perfect amount. The muffin was tender but held up nicely and the amount of blueberries was perfect. I tried it with sugar on top and no sugar on top and both ways were delicious so it’s just a matter of preference. I made these in Wilton muffin tins for Jumbo-sized muffins and just ended baking them longer, testing with a skewer, and they turned out lovely.
Thanks for a great and easy recipe, Sam! And double thanks for writing out the amounts of ingredients needed within the instructions. Really appreciate not having to scroll up and down repeatedly when following the recipe. It’s what made me decide to try this recipe. I thought, if the recipe developer was that thoughtful, she must have put just as much care into developing this recipe and it seems that was very true! 😀
Sam
I’m glad everyone enjoyed the muffins, Lynda! The tips for the parchment paper can be helpful. Thank you for sharing them. 🙂
Stevie Farrant
I forgot to rate them! I made these Saturday morning and by Monday morning I only have 1 left. Working on the next batch now. Great recipe
Rebecca
These were absolutely incredible! For some reason, they didn’t dome at all and actually sank in the middle (my flour, baking powder, and baking soda have all been opened within the past month), which I don’t ever have a problem with and I don’t know why! They tasted unreal, nonetheless, and the whole family loved them!
Sam
Hi Rebecca! I’m so sorry to hear this happened! Did they need to bake longer? Is it possible that the muffin liners could have been slightly over-filled?
Kristen
Wow! These were fantastic! Not too sweet and so fluffy!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We’re so happy you enjoyed them, Kristen! ❤️
Melissa
I’ve made sooo many different blueberry muffin recipes. This one is the best ever! Light, fuffy, buttery so flavorful. Perfect.
PATRICIA WRIGHT
the best blueberry muffins I have ever eaten
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We’re so happy you loved them, Patrica! Thanks for using our recipe and coming back to leave a review ❤️
Lisa
I always appreciate a good sourdough discard recipe. Thank you. However, these didn’t get baked at all after the final 12 minutes, not brown on top and still wet. I’ve had to bake them for longer, at least 10 mins more, I split the difference and baked longer at 380. I added lemon zest to give them more flavor as well.
Sam
That’s so strange, Lisa, I haven’t run into this issue nor have I had anyone else mention this happening.
nico
delicious!! will make this again!! only change i made was i mashed half of the blueberries to help them incorporate more.
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much! 🙂
Theresa
Easy to make and soooooo tasty!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them, Theresa! 🙂
Jheni Claire
This is the best blueberry muffin I’ve had! Thank you for sharing this recipe! My kids devoured this so fast! And kept asking for more!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed it so much, Jheni! 🙂
Leslie
Love, love, love all of your sourdough recipes. Keep them coming. Do you think I can sub out chocolate chips for the blueberries? My kids like chocolate chips.
Sam
Hi Leslie! I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed them so much! That will work just fine! Who doesn’t like a little bit of chocolate?
Terry
What can you use in place of sourdough discard? I do not have any.
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Hi Terry! We’d recommend making our regular blueberry muffins instead 😊
Miriam Blanar
Can’t wait to try these!!! I’m in love with blueberry muffins.
Sam
I hope you love them, Miriam! 🙂