Gluten Free Sweet Potato Muffins
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The Best Sweet Potato Muffins Recipe! Made with simple ingredients, these gluten free sweet potato muffins are healthy and delicious!
These lightly spiced sweet potato muffins are packed with good-for-you ingredients! Roasted sweet potatoes, oat flour, toasted pecans, cinnamon, and maple syrup give these muffins all the warm flavors of sweet potato pie, without the guilt.
Perfect with a cup of coffee in the morning or as a healthy and filling snack in the afternoon. I know you are going to love them!
I’m SUPER excited to be adding these sweet potato muffins on my site alongside some of my favorite other healthy muffin recipes like Protein Banana Muffins, Apple Muffins, Blueberry Muffins, and Pumpkin Muffins. If you want to see all my favorites, check out these 30+ Healthy Muffins!
Why We Love Gluten Free Sweet Potato Muffins
There’s a lot to love about these healthy fluffy muffins. They’re delicious and easy to make.. but they are also:
- Made with Gluten-Free Oat Flour – I swapped white flour for Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Oat Flour. This is one of my favorite gluten-free flours to bake with. I find that it easily swaps into pretty much any recipe, and amps up the fiber/protein content.
- Flavored with spices– Most of the flavor in these healthy muffins come from natural ingredients and spices, rather than fat or sugar.
- Sweetened with applesauce and maple syrup – There is no classic white sugar in this recipe. Just the sweetness from the potatoes & maple syrup.
Sweet Potato Muffins Gluten Free Ingredients
To make these muffins you’ll need:
- mashed cooked sweet potatoes
- applesauce, milk
- maple syrup, vanilla extract
- oat flour
- cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder
- salt, ground cinnamon, ground ginger
- chopped pecans, chocolate chips
You can find substitutions for all of these ingredients below in the green shaded box.
We also love these silicone muffin liners for baking!
How to Make Sweet Potato Muffins
- In a medium bowl, beat sweet potatoes, eggs, applesauce, milk, maple syrup, and vanilla extract together.
- In a separate large bowl combine oat flour, cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and ginger with a fork or whisk. Add to wet ingredients.
- Mix until just combined.
- Fold in chocolate chips if using.
- Spoon batter in muffin liners until ¾ full. Sprinkle chopped pecans and more chocolate chips over the tops of the muffins.
- Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes, or until muffins are set. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
Sweet Potato Muffin Substitutions
Sweet potatoes: These muffins can be made using pumpkin puree or canned butternut squash in place of the sweet potatoes. Leftover sweet potatoes also would work great!
Can I use yams instead of sweet potatoes? Yes, yams will work in place of sweet potatoes.
Egg: I haven’t tried making this with an egg substitute so I’m not sure if it would work.
Applesauce: You can substitute applesauce for mashed banana in this recipe, but it will add a slight banana flavor. Yogurt may also work as a substitute but I haven’t tried it so I can’t be sure.
Maple Syrup: You can substitute maple syrup for honey.
Oat Flour: You can make your own flour by following this Homemade Oat Flour Recipe. You can’t use coconut flour or almond flour in this recipe. I haven’t tried this recipe with whole wheat flour but I think it would work!
Can I replace flour with sweet potato? No, you can’t replace flour with sweet potatoes. It will turn into a mushy mess!
Cornstarch: This recipe uses cornstarch to help give the muffins a light and airy feel. Most cornstarch is gluten-free, but make sure to read the label to ensure it is made in a gluten-free facility.
Spices: You could also try adding pumpkin pie spice instead of the cinnamon and ginger.
Pecans & Chocolate Chips: Nuts and chocolate chips are optional. Feel free to add more, or omit as you like!
Tips for Best Sweet Potato Muffins:
- For perfectly sweet and extra caramelized roasted sweet potatoes, scrub whole sweet potatoes and roast in a 400 ℉ oven for 2 hours. Place potatoes directly on the top rack, with a pan on the lower rack to catch juices. (I like to make these for dinner one night and roast an extra one to make these muffins)
- Make your own oat flour: Oat flour can be expensive, but it is so easy to make your own at home. To make a batch of oat flour: Add 4 (or more) cups of traditional rolled oats to the work bowl of a food processor. Pulse and process until the oats are finely ground into a powder. This takes about 3 minutes. Sift through a fine mesh strainer. Anything left in the strainer can be re-processed in the next batch of oat flour that you make. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.
- Use leftover sweet potatoes for an easy muffin recipe!
How to Serve Muffins
These muffins are great topped with peanut butter, on their own as a snack, or alongside a breakfast dish like our amazing Sheet Pan Breakfast or, for an on-the-go breakfast, with our Egg Muffin Cups!
Sweet Potato Muffins Recipe FAQ
We recommend fresh, but you should be able to substitute canned for fresh in this recipe, but be sure to look out for extra sugar or potatoes canned in syrup as that will change the flavor and nutrition facts.
There are 32g of carbs per serving of these muffins.
Sweet potato muffins can turn a green hue due to oxidation. They’ll be perfectly safe to eat!
Sweet Potato Muffin Recipe Storage
How to store sweet potato muffins?: They will last up to a week in the refrigerator. I don’t recommend storing them on the counter, because they can get moldy very quickly.
Freezing: Yes, you can freeze these muffins. I recommend laying them flat in a reusable Ziploc bag and freezing them so that they don’t stick together.
Reheating: To defrost or warm, microwave, or put them in a toaster oven.
Other healthy muffin recipes:
Are you looking for other easy muffins? Here are some of our other favorite muffins:
Gluten Free Sweet Potato Muffins Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup cooked sweet potato pureed or mashed
- 2 eggs room temperature
- ½ cup applesauce unsweetened
- ⅓ cup milk regular or dairy free
- ⅔ cup maple syrup
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups oat flour
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ cup chopped pecans
- ½ cup chocolate chips optional, plus more for topping
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350℉ and line a muffin pan with paper liners.
- In a medium bowl, beat together sweet potato, eggs, applesauce, milk, maple syrup, and vanilla extract.
- In a separate large bowl combine oat flour, cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and ginger with a fork or whisk.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips if using.
- Fill each liner ¾ full of batter. Sprinkle chopped pecans and more chocolate chips over the tops of the muffins. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until muffins are set. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
Hi there, love the recipe (I usually sub 1/3 of the oat flour w whey protein powder but I’ve made it both ways and they’re both excellent)
But I have to tell you, this recipe makes 18 muffins not 12. I have yet to make it and only have 12.
So glad you like the recipe! Maybe you’re not filling your muffins as much? I’m going to have to try the protein powder sub – that sounds great!
I think I figured it out. It’s consistently making 18 muffins rather than 12 because I’m not grinding my own oats.., instead, I am just using already ground oat flour (my natural grocers store sells in bulk) and that gives it time to settle so I bet my cup of oat flour weighs more than oats that are freshly ground. For those using pre-ground oat flour, I would recommend using like 1.5 cups oat flour if you only want 12 muffins. Otherwise use 2 and it makes 18 and they still come out really perfectly!
What would the problem be with almond flour instead of oat flour?
It won’t work! Almond flour and oat flour aren’t the same at all. Almond flour is higher fat, and lower in carbs. It interacts completely different in recipes. I would look for an almond flour specific sweet potato muffin recipe rather than trying to swap it in this recipe because I would hate for you to waste it and windy up with mushy, gross muffins! It’s too expensive to waste!
Does anyone have a GF sweet potato muffin without added sugars like honey, maple syrup, molasses etc and other such sweeteners? Even applesauce is too much for someone trying to control blood sugar. A high fiber GF muffin without weird flours and no sugars or high carb elements would be really helpful to GF people who need to control blood sugar.
I’m sure someone out there has this recipe. I’m not a gluten free blog and I don’t specialize in blood sugar friendly recipes, although many of our recipes fall in this category. I just focus on making easy healthy recipes with real food. Sorry these ingredients aren’t a fit for you!
Can you sub some of the oat flour for protein powder like you do in your protein muffins?
I haven’t tried that so I’m not sure how it work. Baking with protein powder is really finicky. Rather than adding proteine powder to this recipe, I think it would be better to sub mashed sweet potato for the bananas in this Banana Protein Muffin Recipe but I dont know how it would work so I can’t be sure!
They taste great but stuck in the paper liners. Next time I will Use cooking spray instead of liners. I’m losing half a muffin trying to get the liners off. Did I do Something wrong? Is this typical?
Most muffins do stick to paper liners. I usually use silicone muffin liners – I find they work much better than paper!
Absolutely delicious! I used honey instead of syrup and I had to use half cornstarch and half xantham gum because I didn’t realize I was almost out of cornstarch. I ate one as a snack with a little bit of peanut butter. They are very filling. Roasting the sweet potatoes in the oven made them so tasty! I used the leftover mashed sweet potatoes to sweeten my oatmeal every morning instead of a banana. These will definitely be in my rotation of healthy snacks!
These look wonderful! Could you substitute whole wheat flour for the oat flour, or would that change the consistency too much?
Thanks! All of our blog posts have a green substitutions box in them. Pasting this section! You can make your own flour by following this Homemade Oat Flour Recipe. You can’t use coconut flour or almond flour in this recipe. I haven’t tried this recipe with whole wheat flour but I think it would work!
Hello, you said 2 muffin tins. Does that mean this recipe makes 24 muffins and can you half this recipe? Thank you, love your site.
This recipe makes 12 muffins. Either use 2 6 muffin pans or 1 12 muffin pan.
Would love to see WW points included alongside nutrition info Making it easier to decide on recipe…calculating info takes an inordinate amount of time…really like some of the recipes and have shared website with WW group…
Unfortunately Marie WW constantly changes their points value and everyone is on a different plan. You can add the ingredient to the WW app if you want to calculate the points.
Liz – I appreciate the fact that you do not have the WW points listed. It’s too diet-culture for someone who is trying to focus on more intuitive eating vice “dieting” all the time. Thank you for creating easy, clean, yummy meals that can easily be altered for dietary preferences/needs. You are appreciated!