This past weekend was tough! I was in the midst of a juice cleanse and could not stop thinking about how much I wanted a salad the size of my face. Or grilled fish with a glass of wine followed by some Fro Yo with major amounts of sprinkles and pink-frosted animal crackers.
Then to make matters worse, I watched The Food Network again. They were playing Red Lobster commercials which nearly caused me to drool on myself. I guess you could say my cravings were pretty ridiculous; then again it was probably my own fault for watching Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.
There is good news though: I truly feel incredible and since I enjoy sharing my discoveries with you, I journaled my experience with the cleanse. I plan on posting it sometime this week. Perhaps it will inspire you, too!
Okay enough chatting, can we get to the muffins?
I baked these the day before I started juicing and they were completely delicious, moist, and filling. Plus they’re heart-healthy and I’ve kept calories in check by adding the following:
Applesauce: I replaced the usual oil in the muffins with applesauce, which helps keeps them moist and gives them a tiny bit of sweetness without a ton of added sugar. I absolutely love the texture of these!
Almond Milk: I love baking with almond milk because it adds a tiny bit of fat to your muffins without adding calories. It’s also generally thicker in consistency vs regular milk and keeps muffins moist!
Oatmeal: There’s oatmeal both in and on top of the muffin; it gives it an oaty flavor and also adds fiber and protein.
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour: I opted to use whole wheat pastry flour as it’s a lot lighter than regular whole wheat flour. It helps the muffins from turning dense. You can also use regular flour or all-purpose gluten-free!
Cinnamon: Applesauce and cinnamon compliment each other perfectly and add great flavor! Oh and did you know that studies have shown that cinnamon helps to regular blood sugar levels? Win!
Walnuts: They’re are high in Omega-3 and good fats, so they’ll help to keep you full all morning long. Remember not to be afraid of the good fats!
Blueberries: A super fruit full of antioxidants and absolutely gorgeous in muffins. These are packed with juicy blueberries that burst in your mouth!
My favorite part (besides the juicy blueberries) is the walnut-oat streusel; it’s a little bit crunchy and sweet. I LOVE that each muffin is only 172 healthy calories and packs 5g of protein; trust me, they’re filling! Oh and theses babies are also freezer-friendly so you can grab one, reheat, and go!
I ate mine warm and spread with almond butter and a drizzle of honey. Enjoy!
More healthy muffin recipes to try:
Skinny Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
The Best Healthy Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins (gluten free!)
Healthy Lemon Poppyseed Muffins with Lemon Blueberry Glaze
Chai-Spiced Healthy Apple Oatmeal Muffins
Raspberry, Almond Butter & Banana Oatmeal Muffins
Ambitious Kitchen
Cookbook
125 Ridiculously Good For You, Sometimes Indulgent, and Absolutely Never Boring Recipes for Every Meal of the Day
Oatmeal Blueberry Applesauce Muffins with Walnut Oat Streusel
Ingredients
- Cooking spray
- 1 1/3 cups whole wheat pastry flour
- 3/4 cups rolled oats
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 heaping cup unsweetened natural applesauce
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 egg, slightly beaten
- 1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
- 1 1/4 cup blueberries
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- For topping:
- 3 tablespoons oats
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 tablespoons whole wheat pastry flour
- 1 tablespoon butter, melted
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line 12-cup muffin tin with liners and coat the inside of them with cooking spray.
- In a large bowl combine flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; set aside.
- In a medium bowl combine applesauce, oil, brown sugar, egg, and almond milk. Add flour mixture and stir until just combined. Don't overmix! The batter will be slightly lumpy, and that's okay! Gently fold in the walnuts and blueberries.
- To make the topping: In a small bowl combine oats, walnuts, flour, butter, and cinnamon.
- Sprinkle 1 heaping teaspoon over each muffin. Bake muffins for 15-19 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean or with a few crumbs attached.
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Thank you for your thoughtful and inspiring posts. I was just looking for a great new muffin recipe to try!
Love that Walnut Oat Streusel topping.. these look scrumptious!!!
I always love a good muffin recipe, especially when it’s packed with flavor and healthy! I love baking with oatmeal and whole wheat flour, and anything with a streusel topping and blueberries is worth making!
I wish you could make these Paleo with almond meal flour and without the oatmeal? Everything else would work-any suggestions?
These sound amazing!
Oooh these look really great for the morning ! I love how you think of each ingredient and try to make things healthier for us. Thanx for that 🙂
these look amazing. I love all the healthy ingredients you subbed in!
These look so good! Going to bake them for breakfast tomorrow 🙂
Wow these look like they are full of flavor, moist and healthy! Trifecta of muffins if you ask me 🙂
Monique…I am hooked on your site….the Oatmeal, Applesauce, blueberry muffins are being baked as I write this. I love all your recipes, as well as my family!!!! You are one creative cook. Many thanks!
These look awesome! I have a similar recipe (except mine doesn’t have walnuts) and they are out of this world. I love the flavor and texture that the oatmeal gives these muffins. And for how few calories they have, it’s hard not to want to eat a few!!
These look like a great grab and go breakfast option, thanks!
They are just EXPLODING with berries! The only way I want a muffin to be! And with streusel!! Pinned!
These are some seriously gorgeous muffins! I seriously want to take a bite out of my screen right now.
That looks delicious! Will try it for sure!
Omg I made a verryy similar muffin (joythebaker) last week and made some applesause a few days ago to make them again!
I can imagine what that streusel would bring it, especially seeing how good walnuts go with bluebs! I can’t wait to try your version!
Oh yum, your muffins look so good!
Your are incredibly incredible!
Omgahh. this sounds nothing short of deliciousness!! 😀 i love the blueberries.
OK, all my favorite breakfast things together!
These were ridiculously good – and filling. Due to lack of ingredients I substituted almond milk for rice milk with a little almond extract, and also used regular whole wheat flour instead of ww pastry flour….
Can I sub flax egg to make it vegan?
I just put the muffins in my oven and I can’t wait to see how they turn out. The ingredients are perfect for my liking and I can tell already that this recipe is a keeper! FYI, I found your recipe on Ziplist.com. Thanks so much!
These were amazing muffins! I love how your muffin recipes don’t include alot of oil – as a lot of other recipes seem to. I am going to try these today with apples added.
These are wonderful!! I’ve already made them twice and am making them again tonight for tomorrow’s breakfast!! They are so good!! Love the oatmeal-walnut streusel topping and the fresh blueberries…
These came out great, I made a few substitutions to lower the calories still more. I used honey and agave instead of brown sugar, toasted slivered almonds instead of walnuts and apple, butter, cinnamon and oats as the topping. Delish!!!
How much honey did you use in place of the brown sugar?
These look great! Has anyone tried these with frozen blueberries?
I used 1/2 cup frozen blueberries and 3/4 cup frozen wild blueberries and they turned out amazing! I also made another batch subbing diced apples for walnuts (my mom can’t eat nuts) and it was incredible! I used the same amount called for the walnuts but with apples for the muffins and for the streusel topping. I think you can augment the recipe with other fruits–it’s the foundation that makes this recipe incredible i.e. WWPF, applesauce, almond milk, etc. Thank you so much for sharing this incredible recipe!
Thanks for a fantastic recipe, these were just delicious; they were light and moist and had the perfect level of sweetness. It’s rare that I don’t have to doctor up a recipe for muffins, most have WAY too much sugar. But the only change I made was to use regular milk, white whole wheat flour, and added a little vanilla extract and more blueberries. This is my new go-to muffin recipe, thank you!
I just discovered your blog today, it is lovely 🙂 I had to pause my reading to bake a batch of these blueberry muffins for this week’s breakfasts, but I will definitely go back to reading your more recent stuff now! Thank you for sharing!! Gabrielle
Any suggestions on the topping without nuts….besides the chopped apple? thanks
You are probably quite busy to answer questions, but could I use regular milk. I love making healthy muffins for my son but we haven’t introduced nuts yet. Thanks so much! Love your site!
I luv this, can you use other flours, like , Oatmeal flour, regular whole wheat flour? Im just starting to use these othr flours and they are very good. Thank you so much, D
I used one cup organic regular flour and 1/3 almond flour. Turned out great.
I made them yesterday and they very delicious! Very moist. However I would like them just a little bit sweeter. I noticed your struesel topping does not include sugar ( most recipes do). So I will try adding some sugar next time.
I wanted to keep these pretty low in sugar (to have them for breakfasts, etc.) but feel free to add a bit to the streusel!
I made these for my military guys without the topping and they looooved them! I made 3x batches (36) with fresh blueberries that were just bursting like gushers candy. They were a perfect healthy breakfast snack on the go!
Yum! So glad they loved them 🙂 These are awesome for breakfast.
I didn’t have applesauce so I subbed in the same quantity of mashed bananas and that worked fine. These muffins rise well and hold together well and the streusel topping is excellent. I also baked some with muffin cups and some just by buttering the inside of the muffin tin itself and they turned out great both ways, so I don’t think the muffin cups are necessary.
Perfect! And I’m glad the muffin tin itself worked out well.
These have nice texture and moisture. As intended, they are not very sweet so I added a glaze to mine. Cream cheese would be divine!
A glaze sounds delicious!
I cannot wait to try these! My son loves muffins for breakfast, but we are trying really hard to instill better eating habits than we were given as kids. This will be the perfect solution! Would there be a difference between using regular rolled oats vs. quick cook rolled oats? We have the quick cook kind, but I want to make sure I do it right! Thanks!! xoxo
I hope he loves these ones! Perfect breakfast. I think quick oats would work too!
Can you cut the blueberries in half
Sure!
We loved this recipe though we had several modifications due towhat we had on hand. Instead of applesauce used the meat from a small round gourd like squash we grow. No Walnuts so a mixture of hemp and ground flax seeds. Also forgot the oats in first batch with kids helping but turned out awesome. Second batch baking now with the oats and some chia added. We will see how that turns out! Thank you Monica.
Glad those swaps worked out for you guys! Such a great snack 🙂
incredible!
Using a silicone muffin tray requires about 4 extra minutes.
Great recipe (once you have all ingredients on hand!)
Great tip with the silicone tray – glad you enjoyed!
Yummy muffins! I halved the recipe, subbed in AP flour and pecans, and added a little brown sugar to the topping. So good and easy to make!
I’m glad that worked out well! Such a great snack or breakfast 🙂
Loved the explosion of blueberries in this! The amount of sweetness was perfect for me. Will make again.
Absolutely! Glad you enjoyed!
Just made these this morning and YUM. Blueberry muffins always feel very hit or miss for me, but this one was a hit! I used regular white flour as that’s what I had on hand, and I left out the walnuts in the batter, but included them in the topping, which is definitely a must (such an easy extra step that pushes this muffin into the fantastic category). I’m glad I made a double batch!
Oh amazing!! So glad to hear you loved these, Zoe 🙂
This is the most amazing recipe, it’s so satisfying, filling and full of flavor. So incredibly moist! I made these in a square baking pan and cut them into bars. I also wanted to try a slightly different variation, I replaced the blueberries with chopped up dried apple pieces, I added raisins and replaced the walnuts with pecans. I did add more cinnamon to both the batter and topping. Very yummy, I loved the blueberry ones along with my second variation so much, my mom is on a heart healthy diet and she has these muffins/bars in the morning for breakfast! Thank you for such a wonderful recipe!
I’m so glad!! Thanks for sharing, that sounds amazing 🙂
These are the best blueberry muffins I think I”ve ever made (and I have made many!) I didn’t have pastry flour on hand, so just used regular whole wheat flour. I added an additional 1/2 c blueberries because my 2 year old loooves them, and used pecans instead of walnuts. They turned out perfectly. Bookmarking this one for sure.
I’m so happy to hear that!! Glad you and your little one both love them 🙂
I haven’t made these yet — not sure if I will. How are these considered healthy with a quarter cup of added sugar? If I can figure out a way to replace sugar in this recipe, I look forward to trying it…..
“Healthy” is a totally subjective word, and in my opinion, 1/4 cup isn’t a lot for a whole batch of muffins, but totally up to you if you want to make them!
These are the healthiest muffins on the planet!! I love to bake healthy and I’ve made these at least three times.
So many recipes I see have a cup of butter and lots of sugar. No wonder people are overweight.
Thanks for the best blueberry muffin recipe ever!
These are wonderful! I had to eat two right away. I’ll definitely be making them again.
YUM! Glad you are loving these muffins, such a staple!
If I didn’t want to use apple sauce would I use1 full cup of oil?
Not sure how this would turn out. I have only tested this recipe with applesauce and would recommend sticking to the recipe for best results!
Okay these are AMAZING! Such good flavor and I love the flour/oat combo in the base. I had a lot of macadamia nuts on hand, so I used those instead of walnuts and it was such a great substitution! I also used homemade apple butter instead of applesauce. I will be making again, thanks for a great recipe!
So glad you love them!
Very dry! I think the oats take over the flavor & texture.
I’m so sorry they weren’t a hit for you due to the oats!