Healthy Strawberry Muffins (GF, Vegan)

For a little while now, I’ve had a craving for a good blueberry muffin. When it comes to breakfast pastries, I am a muffin gal. Blueberry muffins are my go to, but I’ll take a cranberry orange or lemon poppyseed in a pinch. And TBH, not a chocolate chip muffin type. But as much as I love them, I (like many others) don’t like how they make me feel and I definitely don’t like the idea of eating that much sugar in the morning. And due to a little bit of summer craziness, it has been waayyy too long since I’ve been in the kitchen for recipe testing fun, and I was dying to bake something. – Although I did have to wait for the sun to start to set because that is what you do when you live in the desert and utilizing the stove or oven heats up the WHOLE house.

And you’re probably like, “Dakota this recipe is for strawberry muffins, not blueberry.” And to that I’d say yes, you are correct. So funny story...

A few weeks ago strawberries were on mega sale. I’m talking $1.50 for one of those big two pound containers. So like any human excited for a sale, I bought 4 pounds. Which would’ve been fine. Except for the fact that it’s just me. I grocery shop for JUST ME. And there was no way that this single human could eat 4 pounds of strawberries before they went bad. So I cut them up and froze the majority thinking I’d throw them in a smoothie or something. But that was a little too boring for me. And now that I had a freezer full of strawberries, I needed to figure out what to do with them. So to Pinterest it was, and it was then that blueberry muffins became strawberry muffins.

So now that we’re back to the present. These are not your ordinary, full of sugar and flour, eat two and you’re hungry an hour later muffins. They are gluten free, vegan, and refined sugar free, but they definitely do not taste like cardboard, you know if you’re worried about that sort of thing. With a slight sweetness from applesauce, honey, and fresh strawberries, these muffins fill the pastry craving, but leave you guilt free. I took half of the batch to my mom’s and she literally ate 3 as her dinner. They filled my blueberry muffin void and made use of some of my 4 pounds of strawberries. I keep mine in the fridge and then pop them in the microwave with a tab of vegan butter. Will I continue to buy fruit on sale in copious amounts? Yes, more than likely. I just can’t pass up a good deal! But at least they didn’t go to waste. Who knows, maybe I’ll even make them again next weekend.

Strawberry Muffins

Ingredients:

1 1/3c gluten-free all purpose flour (w/ xanthan gum)
2/3c gluten-free rolled oats
1/4c oat milk
1/2c plain Forager Project Cashew Yogurt
1/4c unsweetened applesauce
1/3c honey
1c strawberries (mine were thawed from frozen)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 flax egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350. Line a 12 count muffin pan with cupcake liners.

Add flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon to a large bowl and mix until combined. Set aside.

In a separate bowl add flax egg, applesauce, honey, vanilla extract, yogurt, and oat milk. Mix until well combined.

Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix until combined.

Fold in chopped strawberries.

Fill each muffin tin with about a 1/4 cup muffin batter.

Bake for 15-17 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool for about 5 minutes before serving.