These soft healthy bran muffins are extra moist and perfect for breakfast!
Homemade bran muffins
This recipe is so delicious and easy to make from scratch, you will never need to spend money buying a box mix again.
The healthy muffins are packed with nutrition, at just 100 calories each!
And you can freeze leftovers for later, making them a great family friendly option for breakfast meal prep.
Whip up a batch on Sunday to eat throughout the week. Or make a double batch and freeze some right away for an almost instant morning meal whenever you wish.
Also try these Black Bean Brownies
The best bran muffin recipe
Imagine enjoying a dozen fluffy, bakery style bran muffins hot from the oven, with no buttermilk and no eggs required.
The easy classic muffin recipe can be low fat, vegan, gluten free, soy free, cholesterol free, nut free, high in fiber, and dairy free.
They are also low calorie with an oil free option for those who prefer to avoid oils.
Plus, the recipe uses up pantry staple ingredients that you can always keep on hand. Serve them for breakfast, pack one into a lunch box, or prepare the muffins as a kid friendly healthy after school snack.
Try them plain or topped with almond butter or peanut butter and strawberry jam, mashed banana, vegan cream cheese, apple butter, or your favorite butter spread.
Ingredients for healthy bran muffins
Flour: This recipe works with spelt flour, white flour, or oat flour. If you prefer flourless muffins made with almond meal, try these Keto Muffins.
While you may also use whole wheat flour or pastry flour, they yield results with a somewhat dense and tough texture. If you do want whole wheat muffins, I recommend using half whole wheat and half white or spelt flour.
Bran flakes: Pretty much any bran flake cereal will work here. I buy Whole Foods brand, because it is free of high fructose corn syrup.
All-Bran flakes or Trader Joe’s Organic Bran Flakes are also fine to use.
For gluten free muffins, choose corn flakes instead of bran cereals. I have not tried buckwheat flakes yet. Oat bran flakes can be used for wheat free muffins.
Sweetener: You can go with your favorite granulated sweetener here, including regular sugar, coconut sugar or date sugar, or granulated erythritol for sugar free muffins.
To add nutrition and flavor, I use blackstrap molasses as the liquid sweetener, which is high in iron and calcium. However, you can sub pure maple syrup, agave, honey, or keto syrup if desired.
Yogurt: Plain yogurt, Greek yogurt, or dairy free yogurt all work equally well.
For muffins without yogurt, I’ve made them with applesauce, roasted mashed sweet potato, vegan yogurt, or mashed banana. The banana bran muffin variation might be my personal favorite.
Turn them into carrot bran muffins by substituting an equal amount of cooked and then mashed carrot. Or make pumpkin bran muffins with canned pumpkin.
Milk – Go with any milk you have on hand. Many readers use skim milk or low fat milk. As a vegan, I like to bake the muffins with almond milk, coconut milk, or oat milk.
The add-ins: The most popular choice is to add half a cup of raisins for raisin bran muffins. Or throw in a handful of shredded coconut, one or two tablespoons of flax or chia seeds, or press a few blueberries into the top of each muffin before baking.
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How to make bran muffins
Start by gathering all of the ingredients and placing them on the counter.
In a large mixing bowl, cover the bran flakes with the milk of choice, and let it sit for half an hour. This softens the flakes so your finished muffins will be nice and soft.
Line a muffin tin with liners, and preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Add all remaining ingredients to the large bowl with the bran flakes and milk, and stir to form a muffin batter.
Portion the batter evenly into the lined muffin tin. Then bake on the oven’s center rack for 20 minutes or until the muffins have risen and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out mostly clean.
Let cool. If you cover them loosely overnight, the muffins are sweeter and have a better texture the next day.
Thanks to some of the moisture evaporating while they sit, the liners peel off easily the next day too (even in the low fat and oil free version).
Many people believe bran muffins are a good choice to help with weight loss or promoting good digestion and preventing constipation, thanks to the insoluble and soluble fiber.
I just like them because they are delicious and their neutral flavor goes well with sweet or savory breakfast options.
Try them alongside a Tofu Scramble or a Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie.
Muffin storage tips
The muffins can be left out for a day, loosely covered so extra moisture has a way to escape, ensuring the baked goods will not get soggy.
For optimum freshness after a day, I like to store the muffins in the refrigerator. Arrange them in a single layer in an airtight container lined with paper towels. They usually last for up to three to four days this way.
For longer storage, leftovers can also be stored in an airtight container in the freezer for a month or two. Store in a single layer, or put a layer of parchment paper in between layers so the bran muffins do not stick together.
Thaw frozen muffins before eating, either by defrosting overnight or by warming them up in the microwave or oven or in a pan on the stove top.
This yummy eggless muffin recipe will remind you of the old fashioned bran muffin recipe your grandmother used to make!
Step by step recipe video
Above, watch the bran muffin recipe video
The recipe was adapted from my Banana Muffins and Oatmeal Muffins.
Bran Muffins
Ingredients
- 2 cups bran flakes or gluten free corn flakes
- 3/4 cup milk of choice
- 1/2 cup yogurt or applesauce, pumpkin, or mashed banana
- 2 tbsp oil or additional milk of choice
- 2 tbsp blackstrap molasses or pure maple syrup, honey, or agave
- 1 1/4 cup flour (spelt, white, or oat)
- 1/2 cup sugar (see note above for sugar free)
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- optional 1/2 cup raisins
- optional 1 tbsp ground flax for added nutrition
Instructions
- To make homemade bran muffins, soak bran flakes in the milk in a large bowl for half an hour. Then preheat the oven to 400 F. Whisk all remaining ingredients into the mixing bowl to form a muffin batter. Portion the batter into lined muffin tins, and bake on the center rack of the oven for 20 minutes. The muffins taste even better the next day, and liners peel off easily after a day as well. View Nutrition Facts
Video
Notes
More High Fiber Breakfast Recipes
Or these Healthy Blueberry Muffins
My muffins turned out very good although a little dense and too moist. Do you have any ideas to fix this? I used the applesauce and added flax seed but otherwise followed your recipe. I also baked them 5 minutes longer. I made them twice this way and they turned out the same way both times.
Hi Laura, so glad you liked them! We very much prefer soft and moist muffins, but you can definitely play around with using less applesauce if your personal preference is for drier muffins. Also in general, using applesauce instead of oil in baked goods will always yield more dense results, so you could try that version and see if you like it better as well.
Love these!! Omg I didn’t think a bran muffin could be so good! Instead of bran flakes I used 1 1/4 cups of course wheat bran, and only used 1/4 of sugar bec we have to cut back on sugar here. I diced apple really small & finely chopped pecans & added those instead of raisins. I used buttermilk as the milk. These are just the best…my second time making them…thanks for the fabulous recipe! I wonder if these cld be made gluten free?
I made these in place of oatmeal bars and took one to work for my after breakfast snack before lunch. I was a little concerned because I’m a hungry person and didn’t want to dislike them. I say at my desk smiling while I ate this muffin. It was so good. I used coconut oil, banana, maple syrup, an egg, oat flour, and poked blueberries into a few of them at the last minute. The berries literally popped in my mouth. I love this recipe so much. I’m making my 2nd batch now. Thanks so much for posting it.
The recipe says one tablespoon of baking powder. Is that correct? The muffins are in the oven now. Thank you
Hi, it is! Ensure it is baking powder, not baking soda 🙂
Delicious, and I love that I could make them cholesterol free and vegan by choosing those ingredients. I used apple sauce, maple syrup, oat milk, Coconut oil, Brown sugar, and regular flour. I wouldn’t mind them being less sweet so I may try decreasing the sugar next time.
Made these and love them! Wish I could post a picture. Used molasses, apple sauce and made oat flour. Also made strawberry “cream cheese.”
Thank you so much for making them! We had a photo sharing option in the past but it was making the blog slow to load so we had to get rid of it. Hopefully we can find a better option in the future, because we love seeing reader pictures of the recipes!
These are LEGIT. I’m talking super duper good. I used mesquite and oat flour, applesauce, and added cinnamon and ground flaxseed. These will be made weekly around here!
Can I use wheat bran flakes instead of the cereal??
Hi, sorry if we are confused, but isn’t that just a brand of bran flakes? If it is a flake cereal made out of bran, it should work just fine.
Hi, I am getting ready to make these muffins. Super excited because I am eating as healthy as possible so this is going to be my sweet satisfaction instead of the gluten-free cookies I was going to make.
I also wanted a recipe that I had most of the ingredients on hand, which I do. Love that you use blackstrap.
If it works for me as a substitute I’m going to post on Cooking Lessons For My Daughter, my YouTube channel, attributing the recipe to this blog of course.
FYI-Trader Joe’s has discontinued the cereal you mentioned so I bought Organic Heritage Flakes. They also had an All-Bran option but I hadn’t yet read the comments from another reader.
I post a rating later. Thanks.
Hello,
I’d like to eliminate the granulated sweetener altogether. Given that I’m not an experienced baker, can you please tell me if I should reduce one or more of the wet ingredients to account for the 1/2 cup reduction of the sugar?
Thanks, in advance!
I made these twice now because they disappeared so fast the first time! This is such a great recipe with so many different options to kind of tailor the recipe to your own diet. I don’t like raisins so I sprinkled some pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds on top before baking added nuts to the mix. They are delicious and really get better the next day (like the recipe says). I will definintely make these again and again.
I have been craving bran muffins and these are perfect! I love this blog so much. Thank you!
Instead of using Bran Flakes can I sub with Fiber One cereal (less sugar)?, if so do you know if it would equate to 2 cups of flakes?
Hi there, sorry we have never tried with fiber one so really can’t say. If you experiment, be sure to report back!
We made this bran muffin recipe with our grandson as a fun healthy breakfast activity this morning. He ate two so I guess that means they were a success! We liked them too 🙂
I’m hoping to make these but wondering if I could add protein powder somehow to make them higher in protein?
Hi! We haven’t tried so can’t say for sure, but you can definitely experiment with replacing a little of the flour with protein powder. Or you might like these instead: https://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/protein-muffins-recipe/
My whole family kids included love these bran muffins.