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Almond Butter Quinoa Oat Mini Muffins

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So yesterday: I’m in my car, sweating slightly as I loop around my old college campus, at a loss for parking ideas and in a rush to get to an on-campus dinner for which I’m late. Phone is at my side, two rejected calls to Erik flash on the screen (he’s busy studying, but I need his parking pass). Radio up; mini muffins are sweating beside me in a shallow Tupperware that I forgot to crack open.

Almond Butter Quinoa Oat Mini Muffins

I run into a friend coming from the gym and we chat through my open window for a good three minutes—causing cars to squeeze around us—and I force muffins on her, thinking that if I don’t see Erik, I will be stuck with yet another full batch of irresistible carbs (she only takes two, politely). Ten minutes later, parking crisis has been averted (slightly less-than-full Tupperware of muffins have been swapped for the parking pass) and I am happily sucking down pasta and salad and lemon bars with some of the people I love best from college.

Almond Butter Quinoa Oat Mini Muffins

I’d contemplated bringing several things to the dinner, but the muffins, thrown together just before I left the house, were not present because I just wasn’t sure whether they were objectively delicious (i.e. blog-worthy and shareable) or just me-delicious. But when I get a smiley text from Erik saying “Muffins are already gone J” and a request from the muffin-foisted friend for the recipe within a few hours of each other, I figure this is one worth sharing, even though it’s kind of already been done.

Almond Butter Quinoa Oat Mini Muffins

These muffins are glorified piles of oats garnished with quinoa and chocolate chips. The quinoa adds barely distinguishable specks of chewy texture that I adore and the combination of oats and oat flour keep these textured but light. Moistened with almond butter, sweeteners and oil, they have a slightly higher fat profile than my typical muffins, but they are SO incredibly tender and fluffy—it’s worth it. They’re downright crowd-pleasing and I hereby regret not bringing these to share (because wahh, now my roommate and I are faced with the rest of the batch). Next time!

Almond Butter Quinoa Oat Mini Muffins

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Almond Butter Quinoa Oat Mini Muffins

These fluffy, textured, protein-packed muffins can be made gluten-free by using GF oats. Packed with wholesome oats, quinoa and almond butter, these make a great breakfast on the go!
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 35 minutes
Servings 30 mini muffins
Calories 68kcal

Ingredients

  • 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • 3 tablespoons maple syrup
  • 3 tablespoons almond butter
  • 1 egg
  • 1.5 cups oat flour
  • 1/2 cup oats instant or rolled
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • scant ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup almond milk
  • 1/3 cup quinoa cooked and cooled
  • 1/4 cup chocolate chips more to taste

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C) and grease a mini muffin tin or line with wrappers.
  • If you don’t have cooked quinoa already on hand, put 1/4-1/2 cup (depending on the amount of leftover you want) dry quinoa in a small pot with double the amount of water. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer, covered, until all water is absorbed, about 15 minutes. Refrigerate any leftover quinoa.
  • Stir together oil, sugar, maple syrup and almond butter.
  • Beat in the egg. Combine the oat flour, oats, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl.
  • Add the oat mixture and almond milk in three additions, starting and ending with oat flour.
  • Fold in the cooked quinoa and chocolate chips.
  • Bake at 425 degrees for four minutes, and then reduce the temperature to 350 (180 C) for 10 minutes. (Alternatively, you can bake these at 350 degrees for 15-17 minutes if you're baking something else at the same time that calls for 350.)
  • For regular-size muffins, bake for 5 minutes at 425 degrees, then 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Notes

Use gluten-free oats if you are strictly gluten-free.
These can be made vegan by substituting 1 tablespoon of flaxseed or chia seeds + 3 tablespoons almond milk in place of the egg; I just preferred the egg version.
I always make my own oat flour by grinding whole oats in a food processor. You can also grind down the added whole oats if you want a less pronounced texture from the oats.

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Comments

  1. Tori

    I made these! I wasn’t sure if the 1/3 c quinoa was the measurement before or after cooking. I used 1/3 c before cooking. The batter was the right amount for 30 mini muffins. They taste good, but they’re really crumbly. Is that how yours are? I used sunflower oil which is usually a good substitute for vegetable.

    • erika

      Hi Tori, thanks for the comment! I noted in the ingredients that the 1/3 cup quinoa is “cooked and cooled”–so that’s probably why your muffins are really crumbly. If you try them again with 1/3 cup quinoa cooked, let me know how you like them! Glad they tasted good, and great idea using the sunflower oil!

    • erika

      Hi Mary–thank you so much for your observant comment! If you’ll notice, I did reference the fact that this recipe is only a slight variation on my previous recipe (yes, that other quinoa muffin recipe is mine) when I said “…even though it’s kind of already been done.” above. I fixed the typo in the recipe for any people who are trying to make these and may have been confused by the faulty direction–thanks so much for your help!

  3. Lianna

    I would love to be your roommate if you promised to feed me muffins like these?! Now that I’m slowly easing back into a baking kick I need to experiment with quinoa in muffins asap!

  4. IRENASdots

    Where do you get all these ideas – love how nicely you combine different flavors and ingredients together! Would love to have you as a roommate, than would always had something nice for a breakfast! Enjoy!

  5. Paula @ Vintage Kitchen

    Worth making a second and more times. The word quinoa makes them almost virtuous! I wonder why it´s so hard to shove food into people´s faces sometimes, who wouldn´t take muffins or cake? lol. There´s always men to rely on, in the sweet dept they will usually eat everything.

    • erika

      Haha I agree–I feel like putting quinoa in the title automatically makes the recipe 987987x healthier 🙂 And so true–good thing I have my bf and his classmates to keep me from eating everything I make!

  6. The Wimpy Vegetarian

    Oh wow, Ericka!! These look sooo good. I’ve definitely got to make them. I love the idea of putting cooked quinoa in them. And I really related to your parking challenge. Been there. I used to do a lot of work with colleges and universities, and finding a parking space was like finding a pot of gold.

    • erika

      Aww thanks so much Susan. I wish I could pack even more quinoa into these, but it kind of threw off the ratios of everything else when I tried. I’ll probably try again soon! And yes! Good parking spots are total pots o’ gold!!

  9. Jordan (from The Fitchen)

    Well… don’t these just look deliciously, healthfully tasty? I’m so in the mood to give these a trial run.

  13. Heather (Sweet Precision)

    Ha- I totally know about what you mean by food being “me- delicious” versus ” “share-able delicious”!! I feel like I’m definitely not my own worst food critic 😉 I figure anything that I bake is tasty enough to eat lol.

    • erika

      Ah! Kiersten, thank you for your comment 🙂 I am so in love with your blog! I actively try to restrain myself from visiting it because I always spend WAY too much time browsing everything. I love your posts on what you ate during the week!

      Anyway, I hope you get a chance to make these and I hope you love them as much as I did!! 🙂

  15. Nancy @ gottagetbaked

    I was sweating for you just reading about your experience. I hate driving to universities – parking always sucks, it’s super expensive, it’s hard to even find the damn parking lots, and there are always a bazillion students absentmindedly walking into the street in front of my car. No thanks! I took public transit for 9 years of post secondary. These amazing muffins would make me feel a lot better. You’re killing it with the delicious yet healthy recipes, Erika. They look crazy moist and fluffy, and those pockets of melted chocolate are calling my name.

    • erika

      Oh Nancy, I knew you’d understand 🙂 I know, sometimes driving on college campuses are worse than driving in my home town’s downtown, and that’s saying a lot! I’m always so nervous I’m going to accidentally run over a stray jay walker.

      Thanks so much lady!!

  16. Brandi

    Ha! I just made quinoa muffins today too, but I used quinoa flour and they are a savory dinner muffin. I even posted them on Facebook with a side by side comparison with my gluten-free version and a whole wheat version and everybody picked the gluten free one! They even tasted better 🙂
    These look delicious …of course anything with chocolate chips is a winner in my book! I’d eat half of them.

  19. Alex @ Brain, Body, Because

    These look so good! You are definitely invited to my next dinner.

    Also, I totally hear you on parking. The university where I work has an “urban campus,” which is a nice way of saying that parking is expensive and hard to find. You know what $0.25 gets you? EIGHT minutes. What am I going to do with eight minutes?

    • erika

      OMG YAY! I’m excited 🙂 I’ll fly up 🙂

      Also, our universities are like parking rip off twins! There was this one lot that I came thisclose to parking in before I saw the sign that said $1 per TWENTY MINUTES. Um what? Who has that kind of money??