These soft, moist, easy banana nut muffins are loaded with banana flavor and studded with walnuts for a little crunch. No need for a mixer – just use one bowl and stir everything together with a wooden spoon!
Easy banana nut muffins are perfect for breakfast or as an after-school snack! And they freeze well, which is perfect for busy mornings when you need something on-the-go!
Everybody needs a good way to use up bananas that end up getting overly ripe sitting on the counter. My girls go through phases where they are obsessed with bananas and can’t get enough of them and then suddenly they decide they don’t want anymore and I’m left with a bunch of bananas turning spotty before I know it.
When that happens and the bananas are past their prime, nobody in our house will go anywhere near them. That’s when I either peel, slice, and freeze the bananas or bake up a batch of coconut lime glazed banana bread or these easy banana nut muffins. The frozen bananas can be used in recipes in the future and are perfect for smoothies, too.
This is my favorite basic banana bread recipe that I have been making for years. It uses lots of bananas for major banana flavor, which is great because when we have overly ripe bananas, it’s usually a bunch of them, not just one or two.
And since I’m a big fan of nuts in basically everything, I add some chopped walnuts and bake it in muffin pans instead of loaf pans for easy, single servings that I can throw in the freezer and reheat one or two for quick weekday breakfasts or after school snacks for my girls. They freeze really well for 2-3 months and are delicious with a glass of cold milk or some fresh fruit.
I love, love, love breaking warm banana nut muffins open and spreading a little strawberry jam on the inside before eating it for that delicious strawberry-banana combination.
How to Make Banana Nut Muffins
- Mash 3-4 ripe bananas in a large mixing bowl with a fork. Add the melted butter and stir them together with a wooden spoon.
- Stir in the sugar, egg, and vanilla, then sprinkle the baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt over the wet ingredients and stir to combine.
- Add the flour and nuts at the same time, and stir just until no streaks of flour remain.
- Divide the batter between 12 greased muffin cups and bake at 350 degrees F for 20 to 24 minutes until golden brown.
Tips for the Best Banana Nut Muffins
- There is just a hint of cinnamon in these moist banana muffins, which really makes a difference and they have beautiful, golden brown muffin tops. You can sprinkle a few extra chopped walnuts on top of the muffins, if you want, and they get nicely toasted in the oven while the muffins are baking.
- Don’t get too hung up on the number of bananas. If you only have 2 bananas, that will work too, there will just be slightly less banana flavor in these muffins.
- Like almost any muffin recipe, overmixing the batter can cause them to be dense, rather than light and tender.
- Fill the muffin cups mostly full before baking. I prefer to spray my muffin cups with cooking spray rather than use muffin liners for these banana nut muffins.
- You could easily make this recipe into a loaf of banana nut bread by pouring the batter into a loaf pan and baking for 50 to 55 minutes in a 350 degree oven, until a tester inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.
More Muffin Recipes You Are Sure to Love
- Morning Glory Muffins (these babies are loaded with shredded carrots, zucchini, apple, coconut, and pecans
- Raspberry Streusel Muffins
- Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Muffins
- Easy Apple Oatmeal Muffins
- Homemade Blueberry Muffins with Crumb Topping
- 3-4 ripe bananas, mashed
- 1/3 cup butter, melted
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup chopped walnuts, plus extra for topping if desired
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Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a muffin tin by lightly greasing the cups or lining them with paper liners.
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In a large bowl, combine the melted butter and mashed bananas and stir with a large wooden spoon.
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Stir in the sugar, egg, and vanilla, then sprinkle the baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt over the banana batter and give it another stir to combine.
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Add the flour and nuts last and stir just until no streaks of flour remain.
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Evenly divide the batter among the cups of a lightly greased muffin tin. If you want, sprinkle the top of each muffin with a few additional chopped walnuts before baking.
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Bake for 20-24 minutes, until golden brown on top and a toothpick inserted in the middle of one of the muffins comes out clean.
If you want to make a loaf of banana bread instead of muffins, just pour all of the batter into a lightly greased loaf pan and bake for 50-55 minutes, or until a sharp knife inserted near the center of the loaf comes out clean.
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I'm Amy: former lawyer, now SAHM in the CA Bay Area. I love food, photography, books, travel, exercise, adoption and pie. Definitely pie. 
I really enjoy banana nut muffins. I think they are the perfect combination for a muffin. I love the fact that these are so easy and I appreciate the size of them. Not too big like you see in some coffee shops. Nice job.
My husband would probably continually kiss me if I made these for him – ha!
About how many muffins does your recipe make?? Thanks
Angel
I get about 12 muffins each time.
These muffins sound SO good. My whole family is going to be so excited when I make these for them.
Oh, these look delicious. I love easy recipes, and muffins are one of my faves to make. I will give this a try, I’m sure they’ll be a huge hit with my kiddos too!
Banana bread and muffins are amongst my mom’s favorites. This recipe would be perfect for her, she’d love that it didn’t need the big heavy mixer.
I just love banana flavored things! I’ll be making this soon! I could use a delicious muffin!
Banana bread is one of our favorites as far as sweetbreads go. They are so easy to make and they are so delicious. I love the idea of being able to do it all in one bowl! You totally want me out on this one. Signed me up.
MY kids go ape for banana anything. I’m sure I’ll have to at least double batch the recipe
Yay! So happy to see this recipe! Another good and easy recipe that I can make over the weekend or probably this easter I can add this too.
These banana nut muffins sound amazing but I am really going to check out your morning glory muffins! Those really sound awesome and so healthy!
These look so good! I like to make muffins for my kids, they are great and quick breakfast option when made ahead of time. Thanks for the recipe!
I love banana bread. Not sure why I never tried making banana nut muffins. This recipe looks so yummy.
These look awesome! Banana bread is a favorite in our house.
These look delicious and easy enough for me to make in the midst of a crazy morning with the kids at my feet! Plus we love banana bread/muffins, so I can’t wait to try. Thanks for sharing, adding it to my recipe box!
Oh those sound so good! I often pick some banana nut muffins up at the coffee shop but I really should make my own. I need to give your recipe a try.
Oh my gosh how delicious do these sound! I love that they are so easy to make I need to try them for myself.
Great recipe! I like that it’s one bowl, tastes like banana, cinnamon and nuts. This recipe was easy!
My husband is a wonderful cook & baker and he liked how these turned out when I made them. I didn’t have white sugar so I used 1/8 c of stevia and the rest of the 3/4 white sugar I replaced with part honey part maple syrup. I added extra cinnamon and extra vanilla because we like a lot of both. I also added ground flax seed. I will use this recipe again and again.
I’m so glad you enjoyed this recipe! The modifications you made would be really helpful for a lot of other readers – thank you for sharing! I think I will have to try adding ground flax seed next time myself!
Great recipe! I made these tonight except i used pecans instead of walnuts. They were very delicious. Thank you for sharing this recipe.
You are welcome! Pecans are a yummy change!
Just made these, delicious!! I was low on sugar so I did 1/2 cup sugar 1/4 cup honey, still delicious. I also added chocolate chips. Love this recipe!
just mixed these up and put those ba dboys i the oven ! xo thanks for sharing !