Easy Banana Walnut Muffins

Do you have overripe bananas on your kitchen counter and no idea what to make with them? Try my recipe for Easy Banana Walnut Muffins. These moist muffins are the perfect breakfast for busy mornings when you need a quick meal on the go. I make these Easy Banana Walnut Muffins in two sizes, regular and mini, so everyone in the family is happy!

We love bananas in our house! All three of us would probably rank bananas as one of our favorite fruits.

I personally love bananas because they are what I call, “The Lazy Girl” option when it comes to fruit.

Hear me out on this!

When you want to eat a banana, you simply peel it and eat. There’s no cutting to do. Washing isn’t involved in the process, either. It’s just easy peasy.

Besides being an easy healthy option to have around the house, I also like buying bananas because I can always find a use for them.

I enjoy eating bananas whole, but equally love them in banana bread, this insanely good Banana Pudding Trifle, or in my Mango Banana White Wine Slushies.

If I’m not in the mood to bake, I’ll simply peel my ripe bananas, place them in a freezer Ziploc, and store them in the freezer for delicious smoothies.

The possibilities are truly endless when it comes to what you can make with bananas.

When I noticed a couple of my bananas starting to get a little too ripe, I decided to use them for these yummy banana muffins. I thought they would be the perfect treat to have on hand for an easy breakfast option.

Zach went back to school on Monday and we are all still getting used to being up at 6 am. It’s so early that Zach doesn’t even want to eat breakfast. He has been grabbing a Nutri Grain bar to hold him over until lunchtime but that’s only because I’ve been forcing him to eat something.

To hopefully persuade him to eat something in the morning before school, I whipped together these muffins in two different sizes. I figured if he complained it was too early to eat, I could at least try to get him to take a few of the mini muffins in the car with us. I’ll let you know how it works once I try it out!

Interesting fact. Zach does not like chocolate chips in his banana bread. Because of that, I knew he wouldn’t care for them in muffin-form either. That’s the reason I opted for walnuts in this recipe.

Patrick and I do like chocolate chips. I personally like chocolate chips over the nuts but I guess I felt like being a nice mom today…I owe myself and Patrick a batch of chocolate chip banana muffins, SOON! 

If you’re a chocolate lover too, just swap the 1 cup of chopped walnuts for 1 cup of chocolate chips. Or you can just omit the nuts and chocolate chips altogether. I’ll leave that decision up to you.

So what do I need to make these Easy Banana Walnut Muffins?  

3 large ripe bananas, ¾ cup sugar, 1 egg, ⅓ cup vegetable oil, 1 ½ cups flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, ½ tsp salt, 1 cup chopped walnuts (can substitute 1 cup chocolate chips)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Place your three ripe bananas in a mixing bowl and mash the bananas with a fork.

Add the sugar, oil, and egg to the bananas and mix it all together. Set the bowl aside for later.

In another mixing bowl, add your flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Gently mix the dry ingredients together.

Next, combine the wet ingredients with the dry. Simply use a spoon to fold the ingredients together. DO NOT OVER MIX! The more you mix, the denser your muffins will come out and you don’t want that.

Fold in your cup of walnuts. Remember you can substitute the walnuts for chocolate chips or choose not to use either option.

Place cupcake liners in your trays. I had enough batter to make 12 regular-sized muffins and 16 mini muffins.

To make sure I was being as precise as possible with the amount of batter I put in each liner, I opted to use an ice cream scoop for portioning. I used a large scoop for the regular muffins.

I used a small scoop for the mini muffins.

Place the muffins in the oven to bake. The mini muffins were done in 12 – 14 minutes and the regular-sized muffins were done in 18-20 minutes. You know the muffins are done when a toothpick inserted into the muffin comes out clean and the tops are a nice golden brown.

My favorite way to enjoy these muffins is warm out of the oven with butter. You can store any leftover muffins in an airtight container for up to 5 days if they actually last that long!

Next time you have some overripe bananas, I hope you think about making these Easy Banana Walnut Muffins. The recipe couldn’t be any easier to throw together and the payoff is worth its weight in bananas. Enjoy!

Want to remember this? Post these Easy Banana Walnut Muffins to your favorite Pinterest board!