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 well-mashed ripe bananas (385g) This is typically 3 large bananas for me
- ¼ cup canola oil (may substitute vegetable oil) (60ml)
- ¼ cup unsalted butter melted and cooled at least 5 minutes (60g)
- ½ cup sugar (100g)
- ½ cup light brown sugar tightly packed (100g)
- 2 large eggs room temperature preferred
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour (250g)
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup buttermilk (60ml) room temperature preferred
Streusel (optional)
- ½ cup all-purpose flour (65g)
- ½ cup brown sugar (100g)
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, cold (60g)
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.
- Add canola oil and melted butter and stir well.
- Stir in sugars until well-combined.
- Add eggs and vanilla extract and butermilk and stir well. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients — flour, baking powder, baking soda, and 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.
- Using a pastry cutter, cut in your cold butter until the butter is well-worked in and your mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
- 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
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.
This recipe was originally published 01/05/2018. Updated with more information and better photos 10/17/2019.
Donna
Worked out perfectly. Got 23 beautiful muffins that taste great. Ran out of vanilla flavoring, only had 1 tap. Added 1 tap of almond flavoring along with the vanilla. Yummy! Highly recommend this one. I will use again and again 😃
Joann
These are by far the best banana 🍌 muffins I’ve ever tried making. Yes the strussel does make it for me anyway. The first thing out of my husbands mouth after taking a bite was WOW! So it’s a keeper in our household. Thanks 😊
Colleen Western
These are so yummy! I had to change some ingredients due to allergies. Instead of all purpose flour I used 11/2 Cups rice flour and 1/2 Cup oat flour. I used margarine instead of butter and egg replacer. I also added 1tsp xanthum gum. I used brown sugar substitute(stevia) so half as much as was called for. For topping I used rice flour margarine and brown sugar substitute. They turned out amazing even with all my changes!!
Bruce
Here’s some good news. I only had two medium bananas, but made these muffins anyway, and they’re still great. Maybe the banana flavor is a little weak, but it’s definitely there, and the texture is wonderful. I think I’d like your streusel with melted butter better, because it has bigger clumps, but the sandy/sugary texture of this streusel is nothing to complain about!
Sam
I’m so glad they still turned out, Bruce! 🙂
Jen
I added cinnamon and nutmeg to these and they turned out fantastic!
Kate
These were delicious, my husband ate two of them five minutes after I pulled them out of the the oven. I added a teaspoon of cinnamon and a 1/4 tsp of nutmeg to the batter as well. Great recipe!
Christina DePierro
OMG, these were the best banana muffins I’ve ever had! Seriously, I’ve baked a lot of them, bought a lot & from very good bakers & nothing compared to these. Don’t hesitate to make them. They are fairly easy. I used sour cream in place of the buttermilk & I think that’s one of the reasons this recipe is so good. I’ll be using this recipe from now on.
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We’re so happy they were such a hit for you, Christina! Thanks for leaving a review 😍
Mark
These were the best ever. What would change if I wanted to make mini muffins?
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Hi Mark! You will just need to bake your mini muffins at 375 for about 12 minutes 😊
Catalina
Make them! I live in Chile and we don’t have buttermilk so I made Sam’s substitute and it worked out great. I also added chocolate chips which in my opinion is a must.
Marcy
I have a muffin top pan, what temperature and how long would I Bake in that?
Sam
Hi Marcy! The temperature will remain the same, but I’m not sure how long to bake them.
Eva
I tried this recipe and it was amazing. So yummy. It tastes so good. It baked exactly 8 min @ 425F and 7 min @ 375F. I mixed in 1/2 cup chocolate chips since my son loves chocolate & sprinkled brown sugar on top. I had 2 tins with 12 cups. Next time I will try it with pecans or walnuts.
Sandra
Como seria la temperatura del horno si esta mezcla la viertes en un molde de panqué?
Sam
Hi Sandra! I have never tried this in a pancake mold but I would probably keep the temperature consistent at 350 for the entire cook time,. I hope that helps!
Gina
Where do you find a 15 muffin pan?
Sam
Hi Gina! I’ve never seen one, I typically just use two muffin tins.
Tracy
My favorite banana muffin/bread recipe!! I’ve made it about 4 times already this fall. I don’t typically keep buttermilk on hand but totally worth remembering at the grocery store to put this recipe together. Also want to try pumpkin in this recipe. One key thing I think with this recipe is watch your baking time. The recipe flavor is perfected when it gets to just-baked not a minute longer. ALSO, amazing with the topping OR without!
Krystal
How long would you bake banana bread for?
Wendy Hall
I just made these, doubled the recipe and got exactly 30 of probably the very best banana struesel muffins I have ever made! My husband buttered a warm one and said WOW!!, you gotta taste this! He gave up a bite of his muffin. He said that recipe is a keeper!. I made them for our Saturday morning men’s Bible study that is tomorrow. I’m so glad I tried your recipe today it is FANTASTIC!!!!!!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We’re so happy they turned out so nicely for you, Wendy! Hopefully everyone loves them tomorrow too 🥰