Get ready to sink your teeth into soft, fluffy, and moist banana nut muffins. You’ll love the crackly-crunchy brown sugar topping that makes these muffins extra delicious! Check out the hundreds of 5-start reviews – this recipe is a winner!
We took our all-time favorite easy banana bread and turned it into the best banana nut muffins. We love this recipe so much that we even used it for our blueberry banana muffins and banana chocolate chip muffins!
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These muffins are
Fluffy and moist: These muffins get the perfect soft texture from a combination of melted butter and lots of mashed bananas.
Quick and easy: The muffin batter comes together in minutes. No special equipment needed.
Flavorful: The perfect combination of bananas, sweet brown sugar, and fragrant vanilla.
Packed with bananas: Two whole cups of mashed bananas!
Always met with rave reviews: This recipe is a reader favorite and family favorite.
Key ingredients
The following ingredients are essential to making these muffins the best:
Bananas: Use 3-4 overripe bananas to make this bread sweet, moist, and undeniably banana-flavored.
Brown sugar: The only sugar used in these muffins is brown sugar. It is in the batter and it gets sprinkled on top before baking. The brown sugar gives the bread a deeper flavor and almost caramel-like sweetness. Plus, brown sugar and bananas are a fantastic flavor combo.
Topping: Each muffin is topped with a sprinkling of brown sugar and chopped walnuts. This adds a delicate sweet and crunchy layer right on top of each muffin.
Recipe overview
*Full recipe below in recipe card*
Whisk melted butter and brown sugar.
Add eggs, vanilla, and mashed banana.
Stir in flour, baking soda, and salt.
Stir in the chopped nuts.
Scoop the batter into a muffin pan and sprinkle the top of each muffin with brown sugar and chopped nuts.
Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the top is golden brown.
Tips: Baking with bananas
It’s important that you use overripe bananas. The skin of the bananas should have brown speckles or even be turning dark brownish-black. This ensures that the bananas mash smoothly and are extra sweet.
You will need 3-4 large bananas for this recipe.
Mash the bananas using a fork or potato masher.
I mash the bananas on a paper plate then fold the plate to slide the mashed banana into the measuring cup.
Recipe tips
- The more ripe your bananas are, the sweeter they’ll be.
- Your brown sugar should be fresh and soft. Since this is a key ingredient (used in both the topping and the batter), make sure it is fresh and moist.
- Use your favorite nuts. Walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, or macadamia nuts are all delicious. Feel free to use a combination of nuts.
- Top these muffins with salted butter, honey butter or maple butter to make them extra tasty.
How to make this recipe healthier
Prefer your muffins a bit more wholesome? I have successfully made the following changes:
- Reduce the brown sugar to ½ cup (in the batter). I still recommend sprinkling brown sugar on top.
- Swap the melted butter for melted coconut oil or mild olive oil.
- Reduce the melted butter/oil to 6 tablespoons.
- Swap ¾ cup of the all purpose flour for white whole wheat flour.
Serving and storage
These muffins are best the day they are made; however, leftovers can be stored tightly-covered at room temperature for up to 2 days, or refrigerated for several days longer.
These are best served warm. I reheat them in the microwave or toaster oven and serve with a smear of salted butter.
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Recipe
Banana Nut Muffins
Ingredients
Muffins:
- ½ cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
- ⅔ cup light brown sugar, lightly packed, make sure it is fresh and soft
- 2 large eggs
- 2 cups mashed very ripe bananas , about 3-4 bananas
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 ¾ cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon, optional
- ½ cup chopped walnuts, or swap for macadamia nuts, pecans, or hazelnuts
Topping:
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 2-3 tablespoons chopped walnuts
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- In a large bowl, whisk melted butter and ⅔ cup brown sugar until well combined, about 1 full minute. Add eggs, mashed banana, and vanilla, whisking until combined.
- In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and use a rubber spatula to lightly stir the batter until almost combined. Add ½ cup chopped nuts and stir until no streaks of flour remain. Be careful not to over-mix.
- Grease 15 standard-sized muffin cups and divide the batter evenly among the cups. Sprinkle the top of the each cup with brown sugar and chopped walnuts (topping). Bake for 14-17 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Place the pan on a wire rack to cool.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional Information is an estimate based on third-party calculations and may vary based on products used and serving sizes.
Tried this recipe?Leave a comment and rating below!
Carla
Excellent 5 stars
Allison
Thank you!
Damien
I have made this recipe a few times, and it was absolutely excellent.
I decided to make again tonight since I had bananas ready to go.
The only problem was I didn’t have vanilla or walnuts.
So, I substituted burbon for the vanilla and chocolate chips for the nuts because we all know chocolate and banana is amazing.
Not saying you should change the recipe, but this was a pretty good alternative.
Allison
That great to hear! Thanks for stopping by. 🙂
Kelly Gilmartin
I always bake the same banana muffin recipe, which is good, but needed a change. This recipe was also super easy but the results were a thousand times better and everyone agreed!
Allison
That’s great to hear! Thanks for taking the time to comment. 🙂
Andi
Took a few creative liberties by substituting the butter with shortening for my lactose intolerant boyfriend, adding a tablespoon of banana extract for fun, and having to use pumpkin pie spice since I was out of cinnamon, but other than that, I stayed pretty true to the recipe and they came out PERFECT. moist and fluffy 10/10 would recommend, but I kind of want to keep this recipe a secret haha
Allison
Haha! I’m glad you enjoyed them. Thanks for stopping by! 🙂
Jerre Conner
Awesome
Pam
I made these this morning and they are the best banana nut muffins I ever had! They are perfect! Thanks for sharing your recipe.
Allison
You’re welcome! Thanks for the kind review. 🙂
Carol
Really good muffins. Had to quickly put them in the freezer so we wouldn’t eat them all. Is now my only banana walnut muffin recipe. Thank you!!!
Linda
These are so delicious! The best banana muffins I ever made!! Followed your recipe exactly. So quick and easy. Thank you! 😋
Allison
I’m so glad! Thanks for the kind review. 🙂
Jaymee Ramos
Tried it out and they turned out perfect!
Allison
I’m so glad! Thanks for taking the time to comment. 🙂
Sonia Castellani
Absolutely Delicious!!!! I only had two ripe bananas but I did have two ripe pears so I added those to make the two cups and they turned out wonderful. I also used a full cup of walnuts in the recipe – because I like nuts. Thank you for sharing your creation!!
Allison
You’re welcome! I’m glad you enjoyed them. 🙂