These almond flour 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 paleo, gluten-free and grain-free with a dairy-free option.
Homemade 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.
These delicious gluten-free apple muffins are moist with a tender crumb and loaded with apple chunks. They're so easy to make with just a handful of simple healthy ingredients. No one will believe they're gluten-free and paleo!
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The secret to easy apple muffins
The secret to this quick and easy 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 using a grater is the fastest way to shred fresh apples. Just peel the apple and grate it until you get to the core - super easy!
Use your favorite apple for baking or experiment with a different type of apples. Try Pink Lady or Granny Smith for a sweet-tart apple or Honeycrisp for a more sweet apple.
These easy apple muffins are made with almond flour. This gluten-free flour makes a nice thick muffin batter so the shredded apples stay suspended in the muffins and don't fall to the bottom. So you get little pieces of apple goodness in every bite.
Be sure to use very finely ground almond flour for these gluten-free apple cinnamon muffins. This type of almond flour gives the muffins a better texture and works better than almond meal in this recipe.
Pro tip: since gluten-free muffins tend to stick, be sure to line your muffin tin with parchment paper liners to make them easier to remove.
These healthy apple muffins are quick and easy to put together on a weekend morning and stock your freezer. It's a great recipe for meal prep. You can bake them for a perfect fall breakfast and freeze any leftover muffins for grab-and-go breakfasts during the week.
Paleo Apple Muffins
Ingredients
- 200 grams almond flour about 2 cups
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ⅛ teaspoon sea salt
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 large apple grated and drained
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 3 eggs
- ¼ cup honey
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil or ghee
Instructions
- 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 ¾ full.
- Bake for 20 - 25 minutes, until golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack.
Notes
Nutrition
More gluten free recipes with almond flour
- Banana Bread
- Lemon Blueberry Scones
- Carrot Pineapple Muffins
- Blueberry Muffin Recipe
- Cranberry Orange Muffins
- Paleo Cornbread Recipe
- Strawberry Muffins
What's your all-time favorite muffin flavor? Let me know in the comment below!
Jen Evans
Just made these and they are amazing! My kids went back for seconds! 🙂
Lisa
Thank you! So glad you enjoyed them!
BasyaG
about how many calories are in a muffin?
HappyForks.com
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!
Natalie
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! 🙂
Carla Bruns (@CarlaABruns)
Terrific recipe! Sounds wonderful.
April
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!
Lisa
You're welcome April! The maple syrup and cinnamon sounds good - I'll have to try it!
Felicia
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!
Emily Isenberg
Can you use oil in place of the ghee?
Lisa
Coconut oil should work, you can substitute it for ghee in most recipes.
Maggie
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!
Lisa
You're welcome - I'm so glad you enjoyed them!
Flora
Can I substitute 100gram of almond flour with high protein flour?
Lisa
Hi Flora, almond flour has very different properties from other flours so I do not recommend substituting another type of flour in this recipe.
Cristina
Do you think it would be ok to substitute coconut flour for the almond flour?
Lisa
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.
Christina
How do you know when to use Almond or Coconut flour, in general?
Jen @ DesertFarmgirl
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. 🙂
Lisa
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!
Sierra
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!!
Lisa
Thanks, Sierra! I'm glad your family loved them!
Charlotte
I am not on paleo but am celiac so do find a lot of paleo recipes work for me. Would I be able to use butter in place of the ghee? Also could I exchange dried apples for the fresh, obviously needing to add some extra moisture to make up for it?
TIA
Lisa
Yes, you can absolutely substitute butter for the ghee. I haven't tried using dried apples, but I would probably try soaking and draining the apples first to soften them. I don't think you'll need any extra moisture. Hope this helps!
mamamamahoney
These sound fabulous, though I'm allergic to almonds. Have you ever tried them with coconut flour?
Lisa
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.
kate
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
Lisa
Yay! I'm so glad you enjoyed them, Kate!.
Tami Adams
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!
Lisa
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.
Marni
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?
Lisa
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!
Marni
Awesome! I'll give that a try. Thank you!
deborah
these are my new all time favorite. Good Falls Apples plus fresh ground almond flour
...Absolutely the best!
Lisa
Yay! I'm so glad - they're one of my favorites too. Thanks for letting me know, Deborah!
Julie
I did 1/2 coconut and 1/2 almond flour and they turned out just fine. I also added chopped walnuts, delish! 🙂 THANK YOU!
Tiffany
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!
Lisa
Hi Tiffany, the ghee goes in the batter with the wet ingredients. It should not be omitted, but you can substitute coconut oil.
Lynn Clement
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.
Phyllis
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
Livia
Is it possible to make those with coconut flour instead of almond flour?
Livia
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 🙂
Marita
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.....
Lisa
Hi Marita, it's 200 grams by weight or about 2 cups by volume. Here's a post on how I measure almond flour.
Stephanie
Could I substitute oat flour instead of almond flour?
Lisa
Stephanie, grain flours and nut flours have very different characteristics, so they cannot be substituted for each other in recipes.
Shannon
I love paleo, especially yummy paleo recipes like this one!
Sheryl
Very Yummy and quick and easy to whip up!
Vanessa
I'm allergic to almonds (nuts). I know you can't substitute coconut flour but can I use regular flour?
Traci
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.
Emily
Could I make this in 8”cake pans? I would double the recipe of course.
Nicole
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!!
Elisa
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!
Elizabeth
What is a good substitute for 3 eggs? I have a severe allergy and flax isn’t always the best when a recipe calls for more than one egg
Corrie
I have been making these muffins every week for a few weeks now and my family loves them! The only thing is I noticed the consistency was a *tiny* bit off - I don't know how to describe it, like they were a little wet and not quite as cakey as a muffin usually is. I figured that it was just because I was using almond flour instead of regular flour which seems to be less dry to start with.
Anyway, yesterday I made a batch and the consistency turned out to be PERFECT. I couldn't figure out why until I realized I'd forgotten to put in the coconut oil. So I think I'm going to make these without the coconut oil from now on.
Anyway thanks for this wonderful recipe, I am obsessed with it!
Susan L. Rice
Thank you for sharing this recipe. I was a bit reluctant to make these muffins (despite all the positive reviews!) because I haven't tried using almond flour to bake with. But, I just took the muffins out of the oven and tried one, and they are to die for -- probably the best apple muffins I've ever had. They are light, fluffy and flavorful. One thing I did want to mention, however, was that the 2 cups of flour that I weighed were actually 437 grams (but the receipe said to use 200 grams only). I decided to use the 2 cups anyway, and they were perfect. I also substituted 3/8 of a cup of monkfruit/erythritol blend sugar for the 1/4 cup of honey and was happy with the level of sweetness. I also added about 1 tsp. of vanilla extract.
Kristin
Anyway I could make these with coconut sugar, for someone who needs lower carbs? If so, how much. I was thinking I could add some applesauce too to make up for lost moisture.