These one-bowl healthy chunky monkey muffins are packed with oats and omega-3 rich ingredients such as flaxseeds, walnuts, and hemp seeds – making for a nutritious, chocolatey snack or dessert.
I promise you friends, today’s recipe is big on flavor and nutrition! I’ve been making healthy chunky monkey muffins for awhile now, and I realized that I hadn’t shared it with you before.. so here we are! I make it a habit to have nutritious, yummy homemade snacks on hand for the week, and these muffins definitely fall into that category.
Omega-3 Rich, Healthy Chunky Monkey Muffins
These healthy chunky monkey muffins are vegan and gluten free, and they feature an oat base and are packed with omega-3 fatty acids – an important fat that many people do not eat enough of. In fact, a recent study found that 68% of adults and 95% of children in the United States do not consume enough omega-3’s.
What’s one easy way to get your omega-3’s in? Eating these healthy chunky monkey muffins! I like to whip a batch up, then have some of hand all week long for a quick snack. Plus my 2-year old loves them, which feels like a mom win since omega-3s are awesome for little ones’ development.
The Low-Down On Omega-3 Fats
Omega-3 fatty acids are essential fats, meaning the body can’t make them from scratch and must get them from food. There are a variety of reasons that omega-3 fats are important, including that they help prevent a variety of health conditions – such as heart disease, stroke, and macular degeneration.
Omega-3 fat consumption is linked with a reduction in anxiety, depression and ADHD symptoms. They’re also crucial to brain development during pregnancy and infancy, and they help to fight inflammation, autoimmune diseases, and age-related mental decline, to name a few perks. Sounds like pretty good stuff, right?
I attended a seminar on the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids years ago, and ever since, I’ve been deliberate with eating a lot of foods that contain omega-3’s. While fish (such as salmon and tuna) is usually associated with omega-3 rich foods, plant-based sources such as nuts, seeds, and plant oils are also be high in omega-3’s (in some cases, higher than fish!).
Healthy Chunky Monkey Muffins: The Ingredients
The star ingredients of these healthy chunky monkey muffins include oats, overripe mashed banana and coconut sugar.
Omega-3 rich foods that are featured in the recipe include:
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Flaxseed.
Flax offers more ALA omega-3s than any other food on the planet! They’re also extremely high in lignans, which are phytoestrogens and antioxidants. In fact, flaxseed contains 750-800x more lignans than other plant foods! Flax also is also high in fiber, protein and potassium. These banana muffins call for two flax eggs.
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Walnuts.
I mean, what’s a chunky monkey recipe without walnuts? Just one ounce of walnuts provides more than double the daily recommendation for women. 1/3 cup of walnuts are included in this vegan muffin recipe.
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Hemp Seeds.
Hemp hearts are one of my favorite easy add-ins to things like smoothies and pancakes because they’re incredibly nutritious and have a mild, nutty flavor. They’re full of protein, healthy fats, vitamins, minerals and healthy fatty acids.
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Canola Oil.
This oil has a light, mild flavor, and just one tablespoon of it contains 1.28g of omega-3’s – more than a day’s of the recommended amount for women.
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Chia Seeds.
These seeds may be tiny, but they pack a nutritious punch: Chia seeds are packed with omega-3 fatty acids, iron, calcium and antioxidants.
Healthy Chunky Monkey Muffins
Ingredients
- 2 flax eggs: 2 TBSP ground flaxseed + 6 TBSP water
- 1/3 cup walnuts
- 3 large overripe bananas
- 1/3 cup smooth preferably runny peanut butter
- 3 TBSP canola oil
- 2 TBSP almond milk or other plant milk
- 2 TSP vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup coconut sugar
- 1 1/2 cups oat flour
- 2 TBSP chia seeds
- 3 TBSP hemp hearts
- 1 TSP baking powder
- 1/2 TSP baking soda
- 1/2 TSP cinnamon
- 1/4 TSP fine sea salt
- 1/3 cup chocolate chips I like using mini chips
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together the ground flaxseed and water. Set aside momentarily.
- Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with muffin cups.
- Chop the walnuts and set them aside.
- Next, mash the bananas. Add the bananas to the large bowl.
- Add in the peanut butter, coconut sugar, canola oil, almond milk and vanilla extract. Whisk the mixture together well.
- Add in the walnuts, oat flour, chia seeds, hemp hearts, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and fine sea salt. Stir together well, then mix in the chocolate chips.
- Evenly spoon the muffin batter into the muffin cups.
- Bake for 20-24 minutes, until they're lightly browned and pass the toothpick test.
- Allow the muffins to slightly cool before transferring them to a cooling rack. Enjoy!
Nutrition
Looking for more awesome, healthy banana recipes? Check out these ideas:
Tell me… Do you think you get the recommended amount of omega-3 fats in your diet on a daily basis?
Oh, these muffins sound fantastic, Nicole! I haven’t baked with hemp seeds very much, so I’m intrigued by that one. I do love a good muffin…and if I can make it a healthy muffin? Perfect! (Even more perfect for this time of the year when we’re in holiday detox mode!)
Hemp seeds are great for you! Yep, healthy but delicious is where it’s at – this time of year especially!
You sure packed a ton of super foods into these muffins! Looking forward to trying them out
For sure! Let me know what you think 🙂
I love the idea of a healthy muffin with all those omega-3’s. however, I don’t use banana’s so is there something i can replace them with? Perhaps applesauce or pumpkin? how much would i need?
thanks.
jacquie
I haven’t tried this yet, but I think that pumpkin puree would work well – 1 cup would replace the 3 bananas. Let me know what you think if you try it 🙂