Healthy Carrot Cake Muffins

These Healthy Carrot Cake Muffins are glorious! They are wholesome and delicious, making this healthy muffin recipe one of my favorites!

If you thought whole grain means dense and chewy, then I’m about to change your world. These muffins are pillowy soft, and bursting with flavor. The sweetness comes from pineapple, shredded carrots, and coconut palm sugar, so no refined sugar! 

You will love these healthy muffins for breakfast or an anytime snack!

I make a lot of muffins! What’s for breakfast? Grab a muffin. Mom, I need a snack? How about a muffin? I want something sweet? Here’s a muffin, child!

Muffins are easy to make, and I can easily swap in healthy ingredients without anyone revolting. 

The healthy muffin recipes that find themselves on repeat in our house are Banana nut muffins, Blueberry Greek Yogurt Muffins, Chocolate Banana Muffins, and these healthy carrot cake muffins.

My healthy carrot cake recipe inspired these muffins. If you haven’t tried that recipe, you need to. 

Each muffin has shredded carrots, shredded coconut, and pineapple. So essentially, it’s a healthier way to enjoy all the flavors of carrot cake for breakfast or snacks without any guilt. 

Don’t be afraid of this recipe’s wholesome ingredients because the result is a delicious, tender, and moist muffin.

Reasons you’ll love this recipe

The Ingredients

• White whole-wheat flour – Instead of whole wheat flour, I prefer using white whole wheat flour. It still provides the same amount of nutrition without the strong wheat flavor or dense texture. 
• Oat flour – Swapping out some of the flour for gluten-free oat flour packs in extra protein, fiber, and nutrition. 
• Baking powder
• Eggs
• Pure vanilla extract – for extract flavor.
• Cinnamon – Using a warm spice compliments the carrots and other ingredients perfectly. I keep it simple with cinnamon, but small amounts of spices like nutmeg and all-spice also work in this recipe.
• Coconut oil – If you haven’t used coconut oil in a muffin recipe yet, I encourage you to start; it creates the most tender and moist muffin.
• Crushed pineapple – make sure to choose pineapple in juice and not in syrup.
• Coconut palm sugar – Another favorite muffin ingredient is coconut palm sugar. It’s unrefined and healthier than processed white or brown sugar yet still provides a delicious sweetness. 
• Grated carrots – You can grab a bag of pre-shredded carrots from the grocery store, but for best results, I strongly recommend breaking out the box grater and using it to grate the carrots instead. Smaller pieces of grated carrots give tiny specs of carrots in each bite.
• Chopped pecans – I love pecans, but any nut will work.
• Shredded coconut – purchase the unsweetened shredded coconut to keep extra sugar out of the muffins.

Cooking Tips & Substitutions

You can use all-purpose flour. Substitute some or all of the flours with all-purpose. 

You can use all gluten-free flour. I’ve successfully prepared this recipe using all oat flour. It will be a little more dense but still delicious. I haven’t tried almond flour or other gluten-free flour.

Swap out any oil of your choice. As I said, I’m a huge coconut oil fan, but vegetable oil, olive oil, or other oils will work too.

Use a different milk. I suggest using coconut milk, almond milk, or other dairy-free milk to keep this recipe dairy-free. However, any milk will work. 

Use a different sweetener. If you don’t want to use coconut sugar, you can substitute pure maple syrup or honey. Please note, this might change the texture slightly.

Stir in extra mix-ins. You can stir in golden raisins, regular raisins, shredded apples, a variety of nuts and dried fruits, or other mix-ins you think would taste great in this healthy carrot cake muffin recipe.

Prepare a cream cheese frosting. Since I want to keep this recipe low in sugar, I don’t make a glaze or frosting to slather on top. However, if you’re going to get fancy for brunch, use the cream cheese frosting recipe I use on carrot cake.

Supplies

• Large Mixing Bowls
• Whisk
• Medium Cookie Scoop
• Muffin Pan
• Wire Cooling Rack

How to Make Healthy Carrot Cake Muffins

• Start by preheating the oven to 350 degrees.
• While the oven is warming up, get the dry ingredients together. In a large bowl, whisk together the white whole-wheat flour, oat flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Set the dry ingredients aside.
• In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together until blended. Then whisk in the pineapple and vanilla extract. 
• Slowly whisk in the melted coconut oil and milk. To melt the coconut oil, place the desired amount into a glass measuring cup and microwave until melted. If you end up with too much coconut oil, pour the extra back into the coconut oil jar.
• Form a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, then pour the wet ingredients.
• Using a spatula, large spoon, slowly stir all of the ingredients together until the flour mixture is moist. The batter will be very wet during this step.
• Fold in the carrots, coconut, and pecans. The batter at this time will be a little thicker and resemble more of a muffin batter.
• Divide the batter among the muffin cups. I use a cookie scoop and fill each muffin cup with two scoops. The muffins turn out even doing it this way.
• Divide the two tablespoons of coconut evenly over the 12 muffins.
• Bake the muffins for 20 – 25  minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean after being inserted. Let the muffins sit n the pan for 5 minutes, then take them out and place them on a wire rack to finish cooling.

How to Store, Reheat, and Freeze

Muffins are a meal prep superstar! I think most muffin recipes, especially this healthy carrot cake muffin recipe, get better the next day or after it’s frozen. Yup! The flavors get a chance to marry together and are more delicious than the day you made them.

The most important thing is to let the muffins cool completely before storing or freezing them. Doing it this way prevents the muffins from getting soggy or ice crystals forming when freezing.

Then store muffins at room temperature in a plastic or glass container. Put a paper towel underneath the muffins to absorb any excess moisture. Muffins will keep up to 4 days this way. If you want muffins to last longer, then freeze them.

To freeze muffins, place them together into a freezer bag and lay flat in the freezer. This will keep the muffins from sticking together. After the muffins are frozen, place the bag wherever you want in the freezer.

You can also wrap the muffin individually in plastic wrap before adding it to a freezer bag. If you plan to take the muffins on the go for lunch or snacks, having them wrapped will be helpful. 

I recommend letting them thaw on the counter; this takes about 20 minutes. You can also reheat the muffins in the microwave. Heat in 10-second increments until the muffin thaws.

Other Healthy Carrot Recipes

• Carrot Cake Overnight Oats
• Carrot Cake Baked Oatmeal
• Carrot Cake Breakfast Cookies

Have you tried this healthy carrot cake muffin recipe? If so, I’d love for you to rate this recipe and leave a comment below. We all learn from each other’s experiences. Also, it would be awesome if you could share a picture on Instagram and tag it #organizeyourselfskinny. I can’t wait to see it!