Get Ready for Back to School with this Easy and Healthy Yogurt Muffin

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Breakfast can be tough for a lot of people. It’s early, you have to shower, you have to get yourself and your kids out the door. You don’t have time so it’s tempting to skip breakfast. No need. Try this easy, low sugar, low cal muffin recipe. They’re just sweet enough and come together quickly with flavor combinations limited only by your imagination. You can change them up by varying the fruit, adding lemon or orange zest, nuts, chocolate chips…whatever excites you. Plus they’re yogurt based so they’re moist and delicious with the added benefit of a little nutrition.

This recipe yields approximately 9 jumbo muffins or 18 standard-size muffins. So freeze a bunch! They’re nice to have on hand for snacks too. I like to sprinkle a little turbinado (raw) sugar over the top before baking to give them just a sweet-crunchy boost. Make it a meal by paring 1 muffin with a hard boiled egg and /or some lean turkey sausage.

Yogurt Muffins

Mix dry ingredients together:
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 cup sugar

Mix wet ingredients in another large bowl:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
2 cups plain, nonfat Greek yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups fruit, chopped if pieces are large. Note: If using frozen fruit do not thaw!

Prepare muffin pans by lightly spraying with non-stick cooking spray or line with cupcake papers. Gently stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients. The mixture will have a little more of a dough-like consistency than a batter consistency. If it seems to dry you can add a bit more yogurt without doing any damage. Divide evenly into muffin cups filling no more than 2/3 high. Sprinkle with turbinado sugar (optional) and bake in preheated 350 degree oven 20-25 minutes for jumbo, about 15 minutes for standard-size.

Here are a few of our favorite combinations:

Blueberry Bliss: Blueberries + zest of 1 lemon

Chocolate Covered Strawberry: Strawberries + 1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

Chocolate-Orange: Swap out half of the flour for unsweetened cocoa powder + zest of 1 small orange + chopped almonds

Berry - Chocolate: Swap out half of the flour for unsweetened cocoa powder + mixed berries

Recipe based on The Awesom-est Blueberry Muffins at the Pioneer Woman Cooks. Variations all original.