Healthy Pumpkin Muffins Recipe

Recipe developer and registered dietitian Kristen Carli has come up with this wonderful recipe for healthy pumpkin muffins, which not only bring all the warm, sweet pumpkin spice flavor that you've come to crave as a rite of seasonal passage but are also fully vegan. That's right. These well-structured, protein-rich muffins manage to get that way without the use of a single egg (in non-vegan recipes for baked goods, eggs will often offer structure, protein, and a bit of leavening to baked goods). So, what's the secret?

Ground flaxseeds. As Carli told Health Digest, "flaxseeds are rich in protein, omega-3 fatty acids, and fiber." When ground and mixed with water, they do many of the jobs that eggs usually do in recipes for baked goods (i.e., lending structure, protein, and depth). Further, using ground flaxseed makes those ingredients more readily available to the body than using whole flaxseeds, which are, as Carli put it, "often too tough for us to digest and slip right through our GI tracts."

There's only one catch when it comes to using ground flaxseeds to make "flax eggs," and that is that they have a more assertive flavor profile than eggs do. Therefore, it's best to use flax eggs only in recipes, such as this one for healthy pumpkin muffins, which boasts its own assertive flavors — like pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Read on for the full recipe, as well as Carli's primer on how to make and work with flax eggs.

For Carli's recipe for healthy pumpkin muffins, you're going to need just a few ingredients, three of which are spices you might already have sitting around in your spice cabinet, just waiting for their moment to shine in autumn recipes such as this one. We're talking about cinnamon (you'll need two teaspoons), nutmeg (you'll need a half teaspoon), and ground cloves (you'll need a quarter teaspoon). For the pumpkin flavor, you'll need a 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree, which, perhaps surprisingly, will deliver a better, more pumpkin-y flavor than you'd get from cubing and pureeing an actual pumpkin.

In addition, you will need one and three-quarters of a cup of all-purpose flour, one and a half cups of granulated sugar, one teaspoon of baking soda, two tablespoons of ground flaxseeds, five tablespoons of water, and half a cup of melted coconut oil. 

Start by preheating your oven to 375 F. Then spray a regular-sized muffin tin (neither jumbo nor mini) with nonstick cooking spray (you'll net 12 muffins from this recipe, so you can use a 12-muffin tin or two six-muffin tins). To make the flax eggs, combine your ground flaxseeds with the water and allow to sit for five minutes, at which point, the mixture should have become gelatinous in consistency. While you're waiting for those five minutes to pass, move immediately onto the next step.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg until thoroughly combined. Assuming that the flax egg mixture you made in the prior step has already become gelatinous (and if not, just wait another minute or so), transfer the flax eggs to a large bowl, and add the pumpkin and coconut oil. Stir the flax egg mixture, pumpkin, and coconut oil together to combine thoroughly.

At this point, all that is left to do to make your healthy pumpkin muffin batter is to transfer the wet ingredients into the bowl that already contains the dry ingredients. Using your whisk, combine these wet and dry ingredients until they form a thick batter, as shown above. Using a large spoon or an ice cream scoop, divide the muffin batter evenly into the 12 muffin tin cups. 

Bake for 25 minutes, and serve immediately. Leftovers should be stored in an airtight container and will keep for several days.