This post may include affiliate links; see our disclosure policy.
These cozy gluten free muffins are spiced and lightly sweet, featuring apples, oatmeal, cinnamon and nutmeg. (They’re dairy free, too!)
Here’s a gluten free muffins recipe for all eaters! Because they’re irresistibly delicious. This gluten free oatmeal muffin recipe came about because, confession: Alex and I are not muffin people. To us, muffins are an excuse to eat cake for breakfast. Right?! And it’s not that we’re so un-fun we don’t want to eat cake for breakfast. Maybe if we were 12 again?
But in adulthood, we’ve found that cake for breakfast really messes up how we feel the rest of the day: sugar crash, hungry 30 minutes later, shaky, upset stomach. So we wanted to create a muffin that was nutrient dense and satisfying, but at the same time tastes good. Meet our gluten free oatmeal muffins! Keep reading for the recipe.
Related: 18 Delicious Healthy Snack Recipes | 28-Day Healthy Meal Plan
Gluten free by way of oats!
In very few of Alex and my recipes do we use gluten free flour. Instead, we try to make gluten free items with natural, whole food ingredients like oat flour and almond flour. Using this philosophy does make it difficult in baked goods to come up with a suitable texture. Gluten does go a long way in bringing in a fluffy, beautiful muffin texture. However, the texture of these muffins is a nice compromise. We’ve used oat flour and rolled oats as the base for the muffin. As you can see, they’re a little denser and not as tall as a typical muffin. But these gluten free muffins are moist and beautifully fluffy.
Related: Gluten Free Banana Muffins
How to make gluten free muffins
This gluten free muffins recipe is an update to an older recipe of ours, but totally revamped with the help of our star recipe tester Rochelle. Rochelle loves baking and muffins, which made her the perfect collaborator for making gluten free oatmeal muffins. She kept the concept of our previous muffins, but added a few twists. Here are the secrets to these NEW gluten free oatmeal muffins:
- Oat flour: Instead of all purpose flour, these gluten free muffins feature oat flour that you can make in a food processor! All you do is process normal rolled oats until they are ground into a fine flour. If you don’t have a food processor, you can purchase oat flour at a grocery store or online.
- Coconut oil: Coconut oil keeps the muffins moist and also dairy free. Make sure to follow the instructions about using coconut oil as it can sometimes solidify when mixing with cold ingredients. If you’re not into coconut oil and eat dairy, you could use butter as well.
- Maple syrup: We love using natural sweeteners in our baked goods, and maple syrup brings the right gentle sweetness here.
- Cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice: This blend of spices helps to evoke the feeling of apple cinnamon oatmeal.
- Apples: To bring more moisture and a hint of sweet, mixing in diced apples makes the perfect texture.
Want another apple muffin? Our apple muffins have a crunchy streusel topping that’s to die for (and there’s a vegan variation, too).
This gluten free muffins recipe is…
Vegetarian, gluten free, dairy free and naturally sweet.
Related: Gluten Free Breakfast Ideas for Everyone | Vegan Breakfast Ideas
Apple Gluten Free Muffins
These cozy gluten free muffins are spiced and lightly sweet, featuring apples, oatmeal, cinnamon and nutmeg. (They’re dairy free, too!)
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 12 muffins 1x
- Category: Muffins
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups oat flour OR rolled oats processed in a food processor into a flour consistency (see below)
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1 ½ teaspoons nutmeg
- 1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon allspice
- 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ cup refined coconut oil, melted and cooled (substitute butter if desired)
- 1 cup milk (non dairy milk, for dairy-free), room temperature
- 1 egg, room temperature
- ½ cup maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup diced apple (1 medium apple)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease a 12 cup muffin tin.
- To make the oat flour, place 1 ½ cups rolled oats in a food processor and process until it is very fine. (Note: Do NOT try this with steel cut oats, as they are a very different texture from rolled oats!)
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the oat flour, oats, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, baking powder, and kosher salt.
- Melt and cool the coconut oil. Bring the milk and egg to room temperature (so that the coconut oil does not turn solid when mixing). In another bowl, mix together the milk, egg, maple syrup, and vanilla, then gradually whisk in the coconut oil.
- Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until smooth. Allow to sit for 10 minutes while the oats rehydrate.
- Meanwhile, dice the apple. After 10 minutes, gently fold in the apples to the batter. Then use a ¼ cup measure to spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin.
- Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until puffed and golden. Store refrigerated for up to 1 week or frozen up to 3 months.
Looking for more gluten free recipes?
Many of our gluten free recipes are made with nutrient dense whole foods like oat flour and almond flour. Here are a few of our favorite gluten free recipes:
- Healthy Banana Bread Muffins
- Acai Bowl Recipe
- Chocolate Chip Almond Flour Skillet Cookie
- Amazing Gluten Free Chocolate Cake
- Pistachio Honey Gluten Free Donuts
- Healthy Banana Bread
- The Best Cup of Coffee or Cold Brew Coffee
- Chocolate Tahini Vegan No Bake Cookies
- The Best Toasted Oatmeal
- Lemon Poppy Seed Oatmeal Pancakes
- Vegetarian Spinach Quiche
- Healthy Granola Recipe
- Sweet Potato Hash Browns
- Banana Oatmeal Pancakes
- All gluten free recipes on A Couple Cooks
More muffins recipes
We’ve got lots more where these come from! Here are our favorite muffin recipes:
Use a similar recipe but never as a breakfast muffin.
Mine is a variation of a US raisin bran muffin.
Soak Alban is milk until fully absorbed and use raisins instead of apple. Keeps moist for up to 7 days. Very filling and great for people who don’t get enough bran in their diet.
These have become my go-to recipe, the mix of flavors is just right. Sometimes I have had them turn out a little crumbly, not sure what I did wrong. Last time I substituted 1/2 c Gluten free flour mix for 1/2c of the oatmeal flour ( I didn’t have enough oatmeal) and they came out just as good and maybe a little less crumbly. I also made this recipe with chopped frozen cherries. I halved the spices, doubled the vanilla, so they were Vanilla Cherry muffins and they were delicious!
How do we store these?
You can store refrigerated for up to 1 week or frozen up to 3 months!
This is the recipe I’ve been searching for! I wanted a heavy gluten-free muffin, not too sweet, and oat flour is my favorite. The 1-to-1 gf flours don’t taste good to me. I left out the Allspice, put in the cinnamon & nutmeg, a little more Vanilla and cherries that I’d quartered. Oh so good! This will be my go-to from now on, thank you!
I’ve made these probably five times now. Although I seldom follow the recipe exactly, they turn out deliciously every time. I usually add pecan pieces, put less baking powder, and more apple. I love the spice mix, the lightness of them and the chewiness of the oats. Thank you for sharing this recipe!
I’m so glad you’re enjoying them!! :)
These taste great but even after a few hours in my gas oven they are still a bit mushy inside and don’t really have a crumb aside from the top and bottom of them. Do you have any idea what might be causing this? Would be very helpful. Also, please could you share what the texture of the muffins should be if you cut them in half immediately they come out of the oven?
Thanks!
Hi Ren, thanks for the note! Are you saying you’re storing the muffins in your oven for a few hours? Or that you baked them that long? Because of the chunks of apples inside, the muffins are a little gooier than other muffins you might be used to. Also we don’t recommend cutting them in half immediately out of the oven: they will collapse and be too soft. We’d recommend letting them cool at least 20 minutes before trying to eat. Thanks!
I bake them for about 2.5 to 3 hours and they still look underdone in the middle layer. Thanks, I mixed the batter for longer and let them cool for about 40 mins before cutting today and they were more set, but still had a ‘wet’ layer. In terms of substitutions, I followed the recipe but used all oat flour (instead of part oat flour, part rolled oats), almond milk, flax egg, choc chips (instead of diced apple).
Hi there! The bake time is 25 minutes. We’re not sure how you can bake muffins for 3 hours without burning? Perhaps your oven has an issue?
Just made these for the first time today. They are fantastic!!! Also, my house smells wonderful.
These work for both my Low-FODMAP eater, and my dairy and gluten free eater. The rest of our family loves them as well.
Thank you. :)
So glad you love them!
Do you know of an egg substitute that would work with the somewhat heavier texture of oat? My little one can tolerate baking soda and vinegar as a rise, but have no idea the amoun to use for this recipe? He has a tremendous number of allergies and oat is the only grain he can have. It would be wonderful for him to have these as I’ve found no other recipe for muffins.
You can use a flax egg! Here’s our recipe: https://www.acouplecooks.com/flax-egg/ Good luck!