Easy Apple Oatmeal Muffins
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Apple Oatmeal Muffins make a great breakfast or quick afternoon snack. Filled with apples, cinnamon, and oatmeal, then topped with an easy oat streusel, these apple muffins are an easy grab and go breakfast.
Apple Oatmeal Muffins
I’m having a hard time deciding what my favorite thing is about these muffins. I’m torn between the chunks of sweet apple, the perfectly moist and gently spiced muffin batter which gets a texture boost thanks to the addition of oatmeal, or the crumbly oat streusel topping.
It’s all so delicious and comes together to make one of my favorite muffins I’ve ever had.
I have another muffin recipe on the site that calls for apples that I adore (my morning glory muffins, which are loaded with grated apples, carrots, zucchini, pecans, and coconut), but in the fall when apples are abundant I want to focus on their flavor even more. Enter these apple oatmeal muffins.
I used to make a similar applesauce based muffin, but it was always lacking something and I haven’t made them in years. So when I revisited the idea of an apple muffin to share, I thought maybe adding oatmeal to the batter would give it a more interesting texture that would complement the apple flavor well.
I also noticed that most apple oatmeal muffin recipes call for milk as the liquid, but I decided that as long as I had plenty of apple cider in the fridge for apple cider donuts, pumpkin juice, and a creamy apple cider chicken skillet, I might as well use it in the muffins to see if I could get even more sweet apple flavor. It was one of those duh moments and I’m so glad I made the switch. Obviously you could use apple juice or even just milk instead if you don’t have any apple cider on hand. But it really does make a difference in the flavor that is totally worth it.
I’m sure you could even concentrate the apple cider by reducing a larger amount in a small saucepan for a bit, just like I do when making apple cider donuts. But unlike apple cider donuts which are a sweet, once-a-year treat that we enjoy on weekends, apple oatmeal muffins are something that I will whip up in 10 minutes in the morning on a school day while my girls are still waking up and have them ready for breakfast, so I like keeping things easy here.
I still used applesauce in these easy apple muffins, even though the recipe doesn’t rely on the applesauce for most of the apple flavor. Apple muffins with applesauce are a little healthier than other muffin options because the applesauce takes the place of some of the fat that would otherwise be required for moist, tender muffins.
My family devoured these and while I normally have leftover muffins that I stick in the freezer to have on hand for busy mornings, these didn’t last longer than a day in our house.
How to Make Apple Oatmeal Muffins
- Whisk together the flour, oatmeal, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, apple cider (or apple juice or milk), applesauce, oil, and vanilla.
- Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. Stir just until combined and no streaks of flour remain.
- Then gently stir or fold in the diced apples. The chunks should be small so there are some in every bite of muffin and the muffins don’t fall apart when torn open.
- Spray a muffin pan with cooking spray, then fill all 12 muffin cups full of batter – it should pretty much go almost right to the top and divide perfectly into 12 muffins.
- In a separate bowl, make the oatmeal streusel topping by stirring together the oatmeal, flour, brown sugar, melted butter, and cinnamon. Then sprinkle a spoonful over each muffin and bake the muffins in a 400 degree F. oven for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of one of the muffins comes out clean with just a few crumbs sticking to it.
Apple Oatmeal Muffins
Apple Oatmeal Muffins make a great breakfast or quick afternoon snack. Filled with apples, cinnamon, and oatmeal, then topped with an easy oat streusel, these apple muffins are an easy grab and go breakfast.
Ingredients
Muffins
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup quick cooking oatmeal
- 3/4 cup light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup milk or apple cider
- 1/2 cup applesauce
- 1/4 cup oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup finely chopped apple
Streusel Topping
- 1/4 cup quick cooking oatmeal
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons melted butter
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray a 12 count muffin tin with cooking spray or line with paper liners and set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine the flour, oats, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, applesauce, oil, and vanilla.
- Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients, stirring just until combined. Fold in the chopped apple, then divide evenly between the 12 muffin cups.
- Combine all of the streusel ingredients together in a small bowl, then sprinkle over each muffin. Bake the muffins for 15 to 20 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean.
Notes
You could swap 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour for 1/2 cup of the all-purpose flour. Adapted from All Recipes.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
12Amount Per Serving: Calories: 238Saturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 33mgSodium: 179mgCarbohydrates: 37gFiber: 1gSugar: 18gProtein: 4g
I’ll go with the topping. Not that the other components don’t sound awesome. It’s just……streusel!!!
I love muffins and these so easy and amazing! Can’t wait to try them…they’ll make the perfect breakfast for us to grab on busy mornings!
i don’t eat enough muffins! these look so delicious and i love your step by step process photos! they’re so helpful!
These are so beautiful!! The perfect way to start a nice cool fall morning… especially alongside a cup of hot coffee 🙂
I can’t wait to make these in the morning! Scrolling Pinterest and these caught my eye! Can I just say though, thank you so much for having a nutrition label with carb count? I have a type 1 diabetic 6 y/o and that makes it frustrating when I want to make new baking recipes. The wonderful sounding recipe along with that just won me to be a follower of your blog!
I’m so glad you found my site and find the nutrition labels helpful!
hey Amy: I adapted this recipe to suit our dietary requirements and found this to be a great recipe. Thanks much for a wonderful recipe, and here’s a linkback to your post from my blog ! Keep them coming 🙂
Glad you enjoyed the recipe and adapted it to your dietary needs!
Amy,
I love muffins, anytime of the day!
I have made your one bowl Banana muffins. They are super delicious! My family and I eat them up.
I have a question for you about theses apple oatmeal muffins. Do you think it would be ok to use old fashioned oats? I am not a fan of quick oats.
Yes, you can use old fashioned oats. They will just give a bit more of a chewy texture than the quick oats.
Could I use applesauce to completely replace oil? Thanks!
Yes, technically. I’ve tried it before and they were fine, but not great. It affects the texture of the muffins, making them a little rubbery and not as soft and moist if using all applesauce instead of oil.
I love this recipe. The muffins came out deliciously yummy. I did however, add two small boxes of raisins in the mix for my husband. I absolutely love that they are not too sweet; just sweet enough. This is my favorite muffins recipe so far.
Those look delicious! Thank you for sharing!
We just made this gluten free. It was stunning! Looked fabulous and tasted even better. The texture was delightful – and that’s a big deal cooking gluten free. At this point I just want to add at least 15 more exclamation marks!
I’m glad to know this recipe worked well with gluten free substitutes! Can I ask what you used?
I made these. Replaced butter with date syrup and added walnuts& pecans. They turned out delicious!
Can I use all oil instead of applesauce??
Yes, absolutely!
This looks so good! Apple and oatmeal go hand in hand. What a great breakfast meal prep for the whole family!
Thanks for sharing! Does it keep long?
They will keep for a few days in an airtight container, but you can freeze them too and that works great! I just pull out however many I want and warm them in the microwave!
These muffins look insane! My children love them, thank you for the recipe.
Can you substitute sugar with maple syrup or honey? How much? Thanks!
I haven’t tried it, but typically you can substitute 3/4 cup of honey for every 1 cup of sugar when baking.
These were good and flavourful. I used 1.5 tsp of cinnamon and 1/4 tsp nutmeg. Next time I would use 1/8 tsp of nutmeg. I lowered the brown sugar to 2/3 cup and they were still sweet enough.