These paleo apple muffins are so quick and easy to put together and so good! Bake them on the weekend and freeze for grab-and-go breakfasts during the week. They're gluten-free and grain-free with a dairy-free option.
Paleo apple muffins are a great treat for breakfast or as an afternoon snack. And because they're not too sweet and have a hint of cinnamon, they make a perfect base for your favorite toppings. I love them warm out of the oven with a little ghee, a drizzle of honey, and a hot mug of cappuccino.
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The secret to easy apple muffins
The secret to this paleo apple muffin recipe is getting the apple pieces small enough to cook through by the time the muffins are done. You can use a food processor or mini chopper, but I find using a grater is the fastest way to do this. Just peel the apple and grate it until you get to the core—super easy!
These paleo apple muffins are made with almond flour. The almond flour makes a nice thick muffin batter so the apple pieces stay suspended in the muffins and don't fall to the bottom. So you get little pieces of apple goodness in every bite.
I use very finely ground almond flour in this apple cinnamon muffin recipe. I find this type of almond flour gives the muffins a better texture and works better than almond meal in this recipe.
These apple muffins are quick and easy to put together on a weekend morning. You can bake them for breakfast and put any leftover muffins in the freezer for grab-and-go breakfasts during the week.
How to make paleo apple muffins
These apple muffins are so quick and easy to put together. You can bake them on the weekend and freeze for grab-and-go breakfasts during the week.
- 200 grams almond flour about 2 cups
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/8 teaspoon sea salt
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 large apple grated and drained
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 3 eggs
- 1/4 cup honey
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil or ghee
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees and grease or line muffin tin.
- Combine dry ingredients in large bowl. Toss grated apple with lemon juice in medium bowl. Add remaining wet ingredients and combine. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients.
- Using a large ice cream or cookie scoop, fill muffin cups 3/4 full.
- Bake for 20 - 25 minutes, until golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack.
For dairy free: use coconut oil in place of ghee
More easy paleo muffins
- Paleo Blueberry Muffin Recipe (with Video)
- Lemon Poppy Paleo Muffin Recipe
- Carrot Pineapple Paleo Muffin Recipe
- 10 Easy Paleo Muffins You Can Make This Weekend
What's your all-time favorite muffin flavor? Let me know in the comment below!
Just made these and they are amazing! My kids went back for seconds! 🙂
Thank you! So glad you enjoyed them!
about how many calories are in a muffin?
I don’t track calories, but you can use websites like MyFitnessPal (http://www.myfitnesspal.com/) or SparkRecipes (http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-calculator.asp) to calculate the nutritional values.
BasyaG, if you want to know how many calories have recipe which you’re going to prepare, check out happyforks.com/analyzer. This apple paleo muffin has 208 calories. You will find there also information about many nutrients. Just try it by yourself!
Looking forward to trying these!! And thank you so much for the tip about Happy Forks recipe analyzer!! I am motivated to try more Paleo recipes with my family but I need to calculate the nutritional information because our son has diabetes. This makes it so much easier! 🙂
Terrific recipe! Sounds wonderful.
I just made these using maple syrup in place of the honey (only because I didn’t have enough honey on hand). I also added about a teaspoonful of vanilla extract and sprinkled cinnamon on top of each muffin before baking. They are wonderful! Thank you so much for sharing!
You’re welcome April! The maple syrup and cinnamon sounds good – I’ll have to try it!
I had to do the same with maple syrup since I didn’t have enough honey as well. 🙂 Cannot wait for these to cool off!
Can you use oil in place of the ghee?
Coconut oil should work, you can substitute it for ghee in most recipes.
So good! I added cloves and ended up using a mixture of honey and molasses since I was out of everything else. REALLY good! Thank you!
You’re welcome – I’m so glad you enjoyed them!
Do you think it would be ok to substitute coconut flour for the almond flour?
This recipe will not work with coconut flour. Coconut flour and almond flour have very different properties, so they can’t be substituted for each other.
If you prefer coconut flour muffins, try these banana blackberry or lemon poppy muffins.
How do you know when to use Almond or Coconut flour, in general?
I have some apple pulp that I’ve saved frozen from my daily juicing. (sweet red apples) I’m thinking to try this and see if it works without making it mushy. What’s your thoughts? I love to save pulp and reuse! Thanks for the recipe! I’m going to make some either way and freeze them for those sleepy mornings I can’t seem to put a nice breakfast together for my hunny. 🙂
Jen, I have not tried this recipe with apple pulp, but it sounds like it should work. Make sure you drain or squeeze the pulp so it’s not too wet when you add it to the batter. If you try it, let me know how it turns out!
These are awesome! Hubby loved them so much he asked me to make more, daughter was skeptical but loved it from the first bite and baby can’t get enough!!
Thanks, Sierra! I’m glad your family loved them!
These sound fabulous, though I’m allergic to almonds. Have you ever tried them with coconut flour?
Thanks! I haven’t tried these with coconut flour – since almond flour and coconut flour behave differently in recipes, the ratio of dry to wet ingredients would probably need to change quite a bit. Here are a couple coconut flour muffin recipes – Banana Blackberry Muffins and Lemon Poppy Muffins.
I have just baked these and couldnt wait for them to cool before trying , they are lovely I didnt have ghee so I used grass fed butter and they taste great thank you
Yay! I’m so glad you enjoyed them, Kate!.
I’m going out to help my dad do a lot of winter food prepping since he just moved up to the mountains where its possible they can get snowed in quite frequently for days. We want to keep it as close to paleo as possible (which is hard since they won’t have things fresh a lot of times) so we are doing a lot of freezer items. How long do you think these would freeze well? He has a vacuum sealer so they would be air tight. I’ve just never frozen baked type goods before!
I freeze all of my muffins and we usually eat them within a few weeks. I don’t have a vacuum sealer so I don’t know if that will make a difference.
I’ve made these a few times so far and really enjoy them- however I do think they could be a little sweeter for me. I’ve tried using honey & maple syrup instead of just honey, but no better. Can you suggest anything?
Hi Marni, I haven’t tested a sweeter version, but you could try adding some coconut sugar. I wouldn’t add any more honey or maple syrup since it might make the batter too wet. Hope this helps!
Awesome! I’ll give that a try. Thank you!
these are my new all time favorite. Good Falls Apples plus fresh ground almond flour
…Absolutely the best!
Yay! I’m so glad – they’re one of my favorites too. Thanks for letting me know, Deborah!
I did 1/2 coconut and 1/2 almond flour and they turned out just fine. I also added chopped walnuts, delish! 🙂 THANK YOU!
Can the ghee be omitted? Is it strictly for drizzle on top after baking or does it need to go in the batter before baking? Thank you!
Hi Tiffany, the ghee goes in the batter with the wet ingredients. It should not be omitted, but you can substitute coconut oil.
Just made these . I added walnuts, cloves and nutmeg. I took out a scoop of almond flour and added a scoop od whey protein. Also added two Tbls. Of coconut sugar. To mix. When they came out of the oven I put a swipe of butter on each one with a sprinkle of cinnamon. Can’t wait to try one! Thanks for thr wonderful recipe.
If Maple syrup was used instead of the honey, would it be a 1:1 ratio. In cooking or baking I prefer to use Maple Syrup. Thank you
Is it possible to make those with coconut flour instead of almond flour?
Sorry i just saw that there were some other people asking quite the same as I was (could’ve looked in advance, sorry :-)) Thanks anyway for the recipe, looks great and I am gonna try them soon 🙂
loved this , you should add it to our link party
Hi, these look great but I have a question. The first ingredient says 200 grams (2 cups) of Almond Flour. I’m in Australia and we mainly use metric, but a cup is generally 250g. So is it 2 cups or 200grams? I’m thinking 2 cups but want to be sure before I go ahead. Thanks in advance…..
Hi Marita, it’s 200 grams by weight or about 2 cups by volume. Here’s a post on how I measure almond flour.
Could I substitute oat flour instead of almond flour?
Stephanie, grain flours and nut flours have very different characteristics, so they cannot be substituted for each other in recipes.
Grating the apple is a cool idea, I’ve never tried that! Thanks for sharing at #HomeMattersParty!
I love paleo, especially yummy paleo recipes like this one!
Very Yummy and quick and easy to whip up!
I’m allergic to almonds (nuts). I know you can’t substitute coconut flour but can I use regular flour?
These were delicious. They were moist and nit gritty like many gluten free recipes I have tried. I switched to Paleo in January and been finding many delicious recipes.
Could I make this in 8”cake pans? I would double the recipe of course.
Really delicious! I doubled the recipe and it made 12 large muffins.
I used avocado oil instead of coconut oil/ghee and it was just fine.
I also used apple pie spice in place of just cinnamon.
Yum!!
I just made these for my baby using unsweetened apple sauce in place of the honey …. yes !! apple sauce! (sugar free) Really good! Thank you!