Banana oat protein muffins: 12 with 10 g protein each

You want something sweet after training, but not a shop-bought muffin carrying 400 calories and almost no protein. This batch solves that: twelve muffins at roughly 155 calories and 10 g of protein each, mixed in about fifteen minutes. Ripe bananas do most of the sweetening, so barely any sugar gets added.

Prep time and servings

Prep: 15 minutes. Baking: 22 minutes. Servings: 12 — one muffin is one serving. Add five minutes of cooling in the tin, because they tear easily while hot.

Ingredients

For a 12-hole muffin tin:

• 330 g peeled ripe bananas (about 3 medium)
• 200 g porridge oats
• 4 eggs (about 220 g, shelled)
• 200 g Greek-style yoghurt, 2% fat
• 60 g whey protein powder, vanilla or chocolate (about 2 scoops)
• 40 g honey or maple syrup
• 5 g baking powder (1 tsp)
• 3 g bicarbonate of soda (½ tsp)
• 3 g ground cinnamon (1 tsp)
• 2 g salt (a pinch)
• optional: 50 g dark chocolate chunks or 40 g walnuts

Use bananas with brown speckles on the skin. Firm, greenish ones have less free sugar and the batter ends up bland, which means you start adding honey to compensate.

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180 °C (160 °C fan) and line the tin with paper cases or brush it with a thin film of oil.
2. Blitz the oats in a blender for 30–60 seconds until you have a coarse flour. For a chewier crumb, blitz only half of them.
3. Mash the bananas with a fork in a large bowl. A few small lumps are fine.
4. Add the eggs, yoghurt and honey, then whisk until the mixture is even.
5. In a second bowl, combine the oat flour, protein powder, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and salt.
6. Tip the dry mix into the wet and fold with a spatula just until no dry patches remain, about 15 seconds. Over-mixing gives you rubbery muffins.
7. Let the batter rest for 5 minutes so the oats absorb the liquid and it thickens noticeably.
8. Divide between the 12 holes, roughly 85 g each, filling them three-quarters full. Fold in the chocolate or walnuts now if you are using them.
9. Bake for 20–24 minutes, until a skewer pushed into the centre comes out almost clean. Cool for 5 minutes in the tin, then move to a wire rack.

Nutrition per serving

These figures are an estimate per serving (one of 12 muffins), calculated from the quantities above and excluding the optional chocolate and walnuts.

• Calories: around 155 kcal
• Protein: 10 g
• Carbohydrate: 19 g
• Fat: 3.5 g

Two muffins come to roughly 310 kcal and 21 g of protein, which counts as a proper snack rather than a nibble. The 50 g of dark chocolate adds about 23 kcal per muffin; 40 g of walnuts works out similar, with more of it coming from fat.

Swaps and variations

No protein powder: leave it out and add 30 g more oats plus 100 g more yoghurt. Protein drops to about 6 g per muffin and the crumb turns softer and wetter.

Plant-based: replace the eggs with two flax eggs (20 g ground flaxseed plus 90 ml water, left for 10 minutes) and use a plant yoghurt. They rise less and bake denser, so give them an extra 3–4 minutes.

You can swap the banana for 300 g of apple purée, but add another 15 g of honey since apple is less sweet. For a fruit version, fold 100 g of raspberries straight into the batter — frozen ones go in without thawing, just don't stir much or they will streak the mix.

The muffins keep for 4 days in a sealed container in the fridge and up to two months in the freezer. One defrosted muffin with 150 g of Greek yoghurt makes a meal with over 20 g of protein; we covered that pairing in more detail in the piece on Greek yoghurt as a meal.

When to see a doctor

Oats are naturally gluten-free but are usually processed alongside wheat, so coeliac disease calls for certified gluten-free oats. If dairy or protein powder regularly leaves you bloated, cramping or running to the loo, that is not the recipe's fault — speak to your GP before you start cutting out whole food groups on your own.

In short

This is a bake that genuinely fits a nutrition plan: 155 kcal and 10 g of protein per muffin, no white flour and very little added sugar. Make the full batch on a Sunday, freeze half, and the week is covered. For more sweet options with real protein in them, have a look at the chia seed protein pudding and the no-bake protein desserts.