The Best Banana Muffin Recipe
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My well-loved Banana Muffin recipe makes incredibly soft, moist muffins with tall, bakery-style tops, sweet banana flavor, and an optional streusel topping. Recipe includes a how-to video!
Your New Favorite Breakfast Muffin
Today I’m re-sharing one of my favorite muffin recipes on the blog, and apparently, it’s one of your favorites too! With nearly 500 five-star ratings, this banana muffin recipe is so well-loved–and for good reason. These aren’t bland, boring, or basic banana muffins; they’re fluffy, moist, and loaded with banana flavor! And if that’s not enough, I recommend topping them with a crumbly, buttery streusel topping…yum.
It took a lot of tries and tweaks to get this recipe just perfect, but it was well worth the trial and error. This recipe makes the softest, most flavorful banana muffin I’ve ever tasted–with or without the streusel on top–and I’m so proud to share it with you!
What Makes My Banana Muffin Recipe the BEST:
- It produces big, beautiful muffin tops, thanks to a nifty oven trick.
- They truly taste like banana muffins, not banana bread in muffin form.
- No mixer needed–these come together easily by hand!
- They take just 30 minutes from start to finish.
What You Need
I found I needed several key ingredients for super flavorful banana muffins:
- Three ripe bananas. Ripe bananas mash easier and impart a stronger banana flavor, so save this recipe for those dark brown bananas lingering at the bottom of your fruit basket (unlike the ones pictured above!).
- Butter and oil. We’re using a blend of both for the best flavored and textured banana muffin (same reason I use a blend of the two in my vanilla cake!). Stick with a neutral oil like canola, vegetable, or grapeseed, and make sure your butter is unsalted.
- Sugar. Using some brown sugar gives the muffins a rich flavor that granulated alone wouldn’t provide.
- Buttermilk. This keeps the muffins nice and moist. If you’re low on buttermilk, give my easy buttermilk substitute a try!
SAM’S TIP: Overmixing your batter can lead to muffins that are too tough and dense. To avoid this, I strongly recommend stirring your banana muffin batter completely by hand. Luckily, we’re using melted butter in this recipe, so mixing by hand is a breeze!
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 Banana Muffins
- Mash your bananas, then add the oil and melted butter.
- Stir in the sugar, then add the eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk.
- Combine your dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then gently fold them into the wet ingredients.
- Portion the batter into a paper-lined muffin tin, filling each liner is ¾ of the way full.
- Prepare your streusel, if using, and portion over each muffin.
- Bake your muffins for 8 minutes, then reduce the temperature and bake for another 7-8 minutes until done.
SAM’S TIP: While I personally love and recommend the streusel topping, I know not everyone wants the extra sugar or dishes. As you can see, the “naked” banana muffin pictured below baked up beautifully with an even tidier, higher muffin top. So feel free to skip it!
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, although I do have a separate banana nut muffin recipe you might want to try (it uses browned butter too 🤤). You can add between 1-1½ cups of add-ins (chocolate chips work well!) to this banana muffin recipe. I recommend adding them when you’re almost done incorporating the dry ingredients.
Yes! To do this, you’ll follow the same instructions I provide for my bakery-style chocolate chip muffins:
Bake at 425F for 8 minutes, then reduce the oven to 350F (don’t open the door!) and continue baking until the muffins begin to turn golden brown. This can take anywhere from 7-15 minutes, so keep an eye on them!
This banana muffin recipe freezes very well! In fact, I did this in preparation for Luke’s arrival so I always had a quick breakfast handy during his newborn phase.
If you want want to freeze yours, allow them to cool completely, wrap individually in plastic wrap, place in a Ziploc bag, and freeze. To thaw, either set your muffins out at room temperature or microwave them (just use the defrost setting or they’ll become hard).
So, do you agree? Is this the BEST banana muffin recipe? Let me know in the comments!
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
The Best Banana Muffin Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups (385 g) well-mashed ripe bananas, This is typically 3 large bananas for me
- ¼ cup (60 ml) avocado oil or vegetable oil or canola oil, (may substitute vegetable or avocado oil)
- ¼ cup (60 g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled at least 5 minutes
- ½ cup (100 g) sugar
- ½ cup (100 g) light brown sugar , tightly packed
- 2 large eggs, room temperature preferred
- ¼ cup (60 ml) buttermilk, room temperature preferred
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
Streusel (optional)
- ½ cup (65 g) all-purpose flour
- ½ cup (100 g) brown sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup (60 g) unsalted butter, cold
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425F (220C) and line a muffin tin with paper liners*
- Place peeled bananas in a large bowl and use a fork or a potato masher to mash them – bananas should be well-mashed.1 ½ cups (385 g) well-mashed ripe bananas
- Add oil and melted butter and stir well.¼ cup (60 ml) avocado oil or vegetable oil or canola oil, ¼ cup (60 g) unsalted butter
- Stir in sugars until well-combined.½ cup (100 g) sugar, ½ cup (100 g) light brown sugar
- Add eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla extract and stir well. Set aside.2 large eggs, 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract, ¼ cup (60 ml) buttermilk
- In a separate bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients — flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour, 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda, ½ teaspoon salt
- Add dry ingredients to your wet batter and gently fold in until ingredients are just combined (don't over-mix the batter!).
- Portion batter into prepared muffin tin, filling each liner ¾ of the way full. Set aside and prepare your Streusel topping.
Streusel Topping (optional)
- Combine flour, brown sugar, and salt in a medium-sized bowl and use a fork to stir the ingredients together.½ cup (65 g) all-purpose flour, ½ cup (100 g) brown sugar, ¼ teaspoon salt
- Using a pastry cutter, cut in your cold butter until the butter is well-worked in and your mixture resembles coarse crumbs.¼ cup (60 g) unsalted butter, cold
- Sprinkle streusel topping evenly over each muffin.
- Bake muffins on 425F (218C) for 8 minutes and then reduce the oven temperature to 350 (175C) (do not open the oven door or remove the muffins, just leave them in and reduce the temperature) and bake another 7-8 minutes on 350F (177C). A toothpick inserted in the center of the largest muffin should come out clean or with few moist crumbs (no wet batter) to test for doneness.
- Allow muffins to cool before enjoying.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this? Leave a comment below!
This recipe was originally published 01/05/2018. Updated with more information and better photos 10/17/2019.
I’m anxious to try these wonderful sounding. Didn’t have buttermilk but decided to usie receipe for making buttermilk. Well , darn don’t have any milk.. sooo I’m determined to make them so thanks for the receipe
Aw, I hope you love them when you get a chance to try them, Cecelia!
Can this recipe be halved if I don’t need the yield of a full set of 15?
Yup! Enjoy 🙂
I made this recipe with a few tweaks & loved it! we made mini muffins with it & I loved the info about the buttermilk you posted with a link to follow.
We used a stronger vanilla (so we cut that amount in half), we blended our bananas w/ a lil blueberry, but also added in a little bit of chopped banana as well. Added in some ground flax seed. Oh & added a little cinnamon to the crumble topping 🙂
Keeping this recipe to use again in the future. Thank You for sharing it with us!
So happy to hear you enjoyed!! Thanks for commenting, Amber!!
I just wanted to tell you that your recipes are really, really good. I’ve tried two so far and they’ve become staples at my house. You are talented! Thanks for sharing your talents with the world.
Nora, a baker from New England
Thank you so much, Nora! ☺️ I am so glad you enjoy everything you have tried and I hope you love everything else you try. 🙂
I’m not much of a baker but I have to say that These are the best banana muffins I’ve ever made – light & fluffy! I also learned a lot regarding making the buttermilk & salted vs unsalted butter.
I am so glad you enjoyed the muffins, Terri! Also happy to help with the little bit of baking knowledge. 🙂
Made these the other day and they came out AMAZING!
Instead of the streusel topping I put chopped pecans – best decision ever!! I will be making these again soon.
I am so glad you enjoyed them, Danica! 🙂
These are AMAZING!! The liners are not needed if you don’t have them. I made the first dozen with liners and the second without (greased the tin) and they came out just as good. This will definitely be my go-to banana muffin recipe!
I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed, Marissa!!
If I do mini muffins…how long should I bake them and at what temp?
Hi, Angela. You would bake them on the same temperature, but unfortunately I have not tried making them mini so I don’t know how long to bake them.
I did the same temperatures – 5 min at 425 and 5 min at 350. Turned out beautiful and delicious.
Gave them a try for brunch. Texture is very nice but they are very sweet. I will cut the sugar in half next time. Also will skip the streusel topping, really does not need it.
Yummy!
Muffins are tasty, fluffy, and moist! That streusel topping is so good!
Great directions!!
I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed them, Jo!! Thank you for commenting! 🙂
These ARE the best banana muffins ever. Just made them tonight, made “buttermilk” by mixing some lemon juice with almond milk. My bananas were huge and I was afraid the batter was too runny. Ended up making 17 muffins and they came out great!
I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed! Thanks for commenting, Diane! 🙂
Very moist… Best banana muffins made till date…thanks for the recipe
So glad you enjoyed, Raina!
These muffins are delicious!
Thank you so much, Linda! 🙂
Hey, can we substitute the buttermilk with regular milk?
they won’t be as moist but yes. If you happen to have vinegar or lemon juice on hand I recommend trying my buttermilk substitute.
Definitely the best banana muffins I have made!
Thank you so much Marie! 🙂