Healthy Zucchini Carrot Muffins

Name: Healthy Zucchini Carrot Muffins
Cook time: 20 min
Ingredients: 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour; 1 cup all purpose flour; 1 tsp baking powder; 1/4 tsp baking soda; 1/4 tsp fine sea or kosher salt; 3/4 tsp cinnamon; 1/2 cup coconut, date, maple or cane sugar; 1 tbsp orange or lemon zest; 1/2 tsp vanilla extract; 1 large egg, lightly beaten; 1 - 1 /4 cups unsweetened vanilla almond, skim or soy milk — start with 1 cup and then you will see if you need to add more to get the right consistency for your muffin batter; 1 cup shredded or spiralized zucchini, then, chop up a little; 3/3 cup shredded carrots, chopped up a little; 1/4 cup applesauce – I use baby apple sauce because it is much smoother; 2 tbsp melted and cooled coconut oil or any oil of choice

Here’s a great way to get some vegetables into your diet that tastes so delicious. These muffins are moist and great for breakfast up until dessert. Enjoy!

We are a big muffin family around here. I bake a batch almost every weekend or during the week for a quick breakfast. If I don’t and my daughter Tori is home, she will.

Usually muffins generally are not sweet like a cupcake. So, when we have them in the house and someone grabs one for a snack or breakfast, that makes me happy rather than one of the them grabbing a cookie. Since we love muffins so much, I posted a few more recipes below and you can search muffin and a bunch more will pop up. There are a lot to choose from.

A quick story behind these muffins, my husband loves carrot cake. For his birthday or Father’s Day I either make a carrot cake or his other favorite dark chocolate cake with white marshmallow frosting.

Well, getting back to these muffins. Sorry. I get off track very easily. He asked me if I would make some carrot muffins to take to his office for everyone to snack on throughout the day.

He’s a CPA and it was during tax season. He knew i was going to be another very long day and this would be a nice, healthy treat for the other staff members to snack on before lunch since they all start so start so early.

As long as I was going to bake a batch for him and his staff, I might as well bake a batch for the kids. It’s a is great way to get veggies into their diet.

I happened to have two small zucchinis in the fridge at the time and decided to grate that into each of the two bowls of batter in addition to the carrots. In fact, I used more zucchini than carrot.

Remember, he asked me if I would make carrot muffins. He would never even try zucchini when I make them as a side dish and when I’ve made a zucchini bread, even a chocolate one, forget it. Not even a small taste.

Well, I was really happy with the way these muffins had turned out, but now the challenge was to convince my husband to try them and not look at me like I was nuts because he asked so nicely if I would make him carrot muffins and I made these strange looking muffins with green things in them.

We gave him one and he looked at it and gave me a look like, really??? My daughter Tori helped me win my case and said they were “the best muffins Mom has ever made, just try them day!” So he tried them and really, really loved them. He ate two muffins within a couple of minutes and now he asks me to make these once a week. I told him they had zucchini in them and he said he didn’t want to know and not to remind him. He still won’t even try any zucchini side dish even if I breaded little coins and baked them. (That recipe is on the blog too, my son Josh’s recipe) Nope! He won’t try it. Oh well. I’m glad at least he eats zucchini in the muffins.

My son Josh brings them to school for his snack and my daughter now bakes these for her boyfriend and he loves them. She used to make them for her roommates in law school and they would eat them up as soon as she took them out of the oven. Study, put the books down, grab a muffin. Eat, back to studding.

They are moist, have fiber and are just really yummy. Try this easy recipe you will love them too, I hope so!

Healthy Zucchini Carrot Muffins

Yields: 12 muffins

Nutrition: calories 128, fat 3.1 g, sat fat 2.1 g, fiber 1.4 g, protein 2.9 g, carbs 22.6 g, sugars 9.3 g

WW Smart Points: 5 – WW Points Plus: 3

Ingredients:

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup coconut, date, maple, or granulated cane sugar
1 tbsp orange or lemon zest
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg lightly beaten
1- 1/4 cups unsweetened vanilla almond, skim or soy milk — start with 1 cup and then you will see if you need to add more to get the right consistency for your muffin batter
1 cup shredded or spiralized zucchini, then, chop up a little
3/4 cup shredded carrots, chopped up a little
1/4 cup applesauce – I use baby apple sauce because it is much smoother
2 tbsp melted and cooled coconut oil, or choice of oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, line a muffin pan with foil or paper liners
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, add carrots and zucchini along with the beaten egg, zest, almond milk, vanilla extract, oil, and apple sauce. Stir gently.
Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture mix gently and with a rubber spatula. Make sure you scoop all the way to the bottom of the bowl the get all the dry ingredients mixed in.
Let batter sit for 5 minutes but no longer. Stir once and very gently.
With an ice-cream scoop, fill 12 muffin cups.
Bake for about 17 to 20 minutes. Turn pan around after about 10 minutes for even baking. When lightly browned on top, take out and test with a wooden skewer; there should be dry crumbs on the skewer when ready. Keep in pan for about 10 minutes, remove muffins and let cool on a wire rack.

**Recipe Note: Sprinkle a little powdered sugar on top of the muffins for a yummy dessert.

Enjoy the healthy deliciousness!