With fresh vegetables and whole grain flour, these muffins are healthy enough to serve for breakfast, but yummy enough to taste like dessert!
I invented these muffins last night, because my garden has produced quite the bumper crop of summer squash this year:
The resulting recipe turned out some very healthy, yet delicious muffins! In my pictures, you are seeing mini-muffins with mini chocolate chips (smaller muffins=less mess). But you could easily make them as regular-sized muffins with regular-sized chocolate chips, too!
Here’s the recipe:
Sugar Free Summer Squash Muffins
- 3 cups grated/shredded summer squash
- 1 cup honey
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1/2 cup canola oil
- 2 eggs
Slice the summer squash and remove their seeded centers. Shred the squash on the fine setting of your cheese grater or food processor. Place the zucchini on a finely woven cotton towel like this:
Next, close the towel around the squash and squeeze out excess liquid, like this:
You should end up with a play-doughy ball of summer squash pulp that looks like this:
Next, add honey, eggs, vanilla, and oil to the squash in a medium-sized bowl and stir to combine.
In a separate, larger bowl, combine the following:
- 2 cups whole wheat flour
- 1 cup white flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup chopped nuts (or mini semi-sweet chocolate chips–which I use because otherwise my kids won’t eat muffins this healthy). Can also add chopped dates, craisins, or raisins.
Combine dry ingredients, then stir in the squash mixture. Next add:
- 1 egg white, beaten until thick and foamy
(Note: this egg white is optional, but I like to add it because it makes the muffins lighter, fluffier, and they puff out more in the pan when I add it).
Drop muffins into tins sprayed with canola oil cooking spray, using an ice cream scoop to ensure uniform sizes (or use a large cookie scoop for regular-sized muffin tins, since in this picture, I was using mini muffin tins)
Bake them at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes (remember: this is for mini muffins. You want 15-20 minutes for regular-sized). These tasty muffins hide the vegetables so well, that all you see is a hint of gold on the inside (unlike zucchini, which leaves green tints in baked goods, thereby alerting my children to their healthy content!)
I made these muffins last night. Now that we have early church, I don’t have time to cook on Sunday mornings, so once the kids are up and dressed, I hand them each a baggie with 3 or 4 mini-muffins on our way out to the car. By the time we get to church, they eat them all gone! What a great way to have a quick–yet healthy!–breakfast.
