Spinach Muffins – Kid Approved

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School’s back, which means lunchboxes need packing. One of my go to lunchbox items is a good old muffin. 

Kids love them, you can make them in advance and freeze them, and… drum roll please… you can make them pretty filling and fairly healthy and the kids will still enjoy them.

Say hello to my Spinach Muffins, a blender muffin that is like a green smoothie in muffin form.

Healthy Muffins For Kids

For me, a healthy muffin for kids is one that: 

1. They will eat (no point having a very healthy muffin but no one actually eats it)
2. Isn’t overly high in sugar, has fibre, vegetable content is a bonus!
3. Has basic everyday ingredients
4. Is easy to make (if the recipe stresses me out, has too many steps or needs 1500 obscure ingredients then it makes me grumpy, and that’s no good for anyone

These spinach muffins tick all these boxes. Baking for your kids’ school lunchbox shouldn’t add stress to your life. I picked up all my ingredients from Countdown, they’ve got a range of baking basics at great prices!

Spinach Muffins Tricks

Ditch the sieve, pop the dry ingredients in a bowl and use a whisk to make sure they are well mixed. I find this little time-saving hack works for pretty much every muffin recipe

Use your food processor, or blender to whip up a green spinach smoothie, this is what you are going to add to the muffins to give them a good boost of vegetables and fruit.

Freeze them; Pop the spinach muffins in an airtight container and freeze them. This makes lunch box packing so fast, pop them in frozen and they will be defrosted ready for the kids at school

Spinach Muffins - Kid Approved

Yield: 12 Muffins

Prep Time: 7 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 27 minutes

Healthy spinach muffins are perfect for the lunchbox, These blender muffins are like a green smoothie in muffin form. Loaded with vegetables and fruit

Print

Ingredients

Dry Ingredients

• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 cup wholemeal flour
• ⅓ cup sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 cup raisins

Wet

• 1 medium banana
• 1 orange
• 1 apple
• ¼ cup mild flavoured oil
• 3 good handfuls of baby spinach leaves (almost 3 cups, approx 60g)
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla

Instructions

1. Pop the dry ingredients  (excluding the raisins) in a large bowl and give them a good whisk to combine, you can use a fork if you don’t have a whisk
2. Add the raisins to the dry ingredients
3. Peel the banana and the orange, core the apple but you can leave the skin on the apple
4. Pop the fruit, spinach, and the rest of the wet ingredients in a blender or food processor, blitz until you get a nice smooth green smoothie
5. Pour the smoothie into dry ingredients and mix together, mix until just combined
6. Portion into a greased muffin tin, I find the mix makes 12 standard-sized muffins
7. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius until cooked, you should be able to press the top of the muffin and it will spring back
8. Cool in the muffin tray for 5-10 minutes, remove from the muffin tray and leave on a cooling rack
9. Store in an airtight container for 48 hours
10. Or Freeze for up to 3 months 

Notes

I find a 50:50 mix of plain flour and wholemeal flour gives the best texture, you can make the recipe with all plain flour. If you want to up the wholemeal flour you may need to add a little extra oil, as 100% wholemeal flour makes a drier muffin

I do use sugar in this recipe, my kids found the recipe yum with ⅓ of a cup, with ¼ of a cup they found them fine straight from the oven, but weren’t keen to eat them out of the freezer

I use white sugar, but you can use coconut sugar if you prefer

You can substitute the oil for melted butter. I find a mild olive oil or coconut oil work well as the oil. Extra Virgin Olive Oil is too strong

Nutrition Information

Yield 12 Serving Size 1
Amount Per Serving Calories 219Total Fat 6gSaturated Fat 1gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 5gCholesterol 47mgSodium 176mgCarbohydrates 38gFiber 3gSugar 17gProtein 5g

Please know this nutrition analysis is based on the ingredients only, this recipe has not been sent to a laboratory for independent testing

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