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These are truly the best Whole-Wheat Blueberry Muffins I have ever had. Tender and moist, these blueberry muffins are bursting with fresh blueberry flavor and are made with Greek yogurt, olive oil, and honey for a delicious breakfast or snack.
Perfected Whole-Wheat Blueberry Lemon Muffins
And after testing this recipe more than 10 times, I can guarantee these are perfect! With about 10 ingredients and two bowls you can have this blueberry lemon muffin recipe done in around 40 minutes.
These muffins have everything going for them, they’re sweetened with honey, made with olive oil instead of butter, and are tender and moist. Plus, they bake up as tall bakery-style muffins with a tender, moist crumb.
There are a few ingredients that play a pivotal role in making these truly delicious:
- Whole-wheat pastry flour is one of my favorite ingredients to bake with. It’s a great way to create 100% whole-wheat baked goods that aren’t too dense. I even use it to make Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies!
- Another great hack is to add a bit of cornstarch whenever you’re baking with whole-wheat flour. Cornstarch is a key ingredient in cake flour and/or cake recipes because it helps to create a tender crumb (even more important when baking with denser whole-wheat flour).
- Greek yogurt adds a great tangy flavor, activates the leaveners, and keeps the muffins moist.
Reader Review
These muffins have the best texture and great flavor to back them up! I love that they aren’t too sweet! The turbinado lemon zest topping adds the perfect crunch! Thank you for this delicious muffin recipe!!
– Abby K.
Ingredients in Whole-Wheat Lemon Blueberry Muffins
The full ingredient list, with amounts, can be found in the recipe card below.
- Whole-wheat pastry flour: whole-wheat pastry flour is finer and lighter in texture than regular whole-wheat flour. It’s perfect for tender baked goods like whole-wheat tart crust, tender quick breads like sweet potato cake and Carrot Bread.
- Cornstarch: a common ingredient in cake flour, this is key for making tender whole-wheat muffins.
- Baking powder and soda: the combination of leaveners creates a tall, stable lift.
- Plain Greek yogurt: The acid in the dairy activates with the baking soda and helps to create a baked good that’s tender and airy.
- Honey: this recipe is sweetened with honey with does two things: adds sweetness and moisture. I have not tested this recipe with maple syrup so I do no recommend making the swap.
- Olive oil: I prefer oil to butter in muffins because it creates a moist muffin that stays moist for days.
- Eggs: it’s important to use eggs labeled as “large” not medium, not Jumbo, you need large eggs. A large egg, out of shell, should weight about 50 grams.
- Lemons: this recipe uses the zest of 2 lemons.
- Almond or vanilla extract: you can use either here. Vanilla is more traditional while I find the almond extract adds a delicious aroma and surprising flavor.
- Fresh blueberries: fresh is best! I like to seek out blueberries that are on the smaller side—they’re more flavorful and won’t create big pockets of wet fruit. You can also use frozen blueberries, if you do, add them frozen to the batter.
- Raw sugar (turbinado): a little sprinkle over the batter creates crunchy sweet muffin top.
How to Make Whole-Wheat Blueberry Muffins
First things first, read over the recipe and make sure you have everything you’ll need. Get out a few mixing bowls, a microplane, whisk, rubber spatula, muffin pan, and cupcake liners.
- Preheat your oven to 425ºF (218ºC) before you even get started measuring out ingredients or mixing up the batter.
- In a large bowl whisk together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- In a medium bowl whisk together the yogurt, honey, oil, eggs, lemon zest, and extract until smooth.
- Add the yogurt mixture to the flour mixture and mix until nearly combined but a few pockets of flour remain (this is key, don’t over mix!).
- Toss the blueberries with a teaspoon of flour (this helps them from dropping to the bottom of the batter).
- Add the blueberries to the batter and fold in just until combined.
- Divide the batter between lined muffin cups (about 5 tablespoons per cup).
- Combine turbinado sugar with lemon zest and sprinkle evenly over the cups of batter.
- Transfer the muffin tin to the oven and bake muffins at 425ºF (218ºC) for 5 minutes. Keeping the muffins in the oven, decrease the oven temperature to 350ºF (177ºC) and continue to bake until a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean, about 18 minutes more.
Starting the muffins at a high temperature activates the leavener and quickly lifts the batter. This creates tall muffins! Then dropping the heat down after the first five minute ensures the muffins bake through without burning.
Tips For Making Blueberry Muffins
- Don’t be afraid to fill your muffin cups to the top! The same can’t be said for cupcakes as they often have a thinner batter. But with a thick batter like this one, it’s important to fill the cups full.
- Undermix the batter, sounds crazy, but it’s good to have lumps in your muffin batter. This ensures the muffins come out light and tender in texture.
- Toss the blueberries in flour to prevent from sinking. By doing this right before you stir them into the batter, it keeps them floating within the muffin rather than collecting at the bottom.
- If it’s not blueberry season, frozen blueberries also work well. Use frozen wild blueberries if you can (they have a lot more flavor).
How to Store Blueberry Lemon Muffins
Stored at room temperature, lemon blueberry muffins will keep for two days.
Stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator, these muffins will last for up to 1 week. Let them come to room temperature or briefly zap them in the microwave to soften them up.
To freeze these muffins, place them in a zipper-lock bag and freeze for up to two months. Thaw on the counter overnight then reheat on partial power in the microwave. You can also reheat in a 300ºF oven until warmed through, 5–8 minutes.
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Whole-Wheat Lemon Blueberry Muffins
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Ingredients
- 2 ¼ cups (245g) whole-wheat pastry flour + 1 teaspoon for blueberries
- ¼ cup (35g) cornstarch
- 1 ½ teaspoons (6g) baking powder
- ½ teaspoon (2g) baking soda
- ½ teaspoon (4g) table salt
- 1 cup (227g) plain Greek yogurt
- ½ cup (172g) honey
- ⅓ cup (67g) olive oil
- 2 large eggs (100g)
- 2 lemons, zested
- 1 teaspoon pure almond extract or vanilla extract (5g)
- 1 ½ cups (214g) fresh blueberries
- 2 tablespoons turbinado sugar, optional
Instructions
- Heat oven to 425°F (218°C). Line a 12-cup muffin tin with cupcake liners (or grease the cups with nonstick spray).
- Whisk together 2¼ cups flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl, set aside.
- Whisk together yogurt, honey, oil, eggs, 1 tablespoon lemon zest, and almond extract until smooth.
- Add yogurt mixture to flour mixture and stir until mostly incorporated but some pockets of flour remain.
- Toss blueberries with remaining 1 teaspoon flour to coat; fold blueberries into the batter just until combined.
- Divide batter (it will be thick) between muffin cups, about 5 tablespoons per cup. Combine turbinado sugar with 1 teaspoon lemon zest and sprinkle evenly over cups of batter.
- Bake muffins 5 minutes at 425°F then, keeping muffins in oven, reduce oven temperature to 350°F (177°C) and bake until a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean, 16–18 minutes more. Total bake time is about 23 minutes.
- Transfer muffin tin to a wire rack and cool 5 minutes, then transfer muffins from pan to wire rack to cool completely.
I want to make mini muffins with this recipe. Can you tell me the correct baking time?
Thanks
Hi Michele!
Great question, I haven’t tested this but I would bake them at 350°F for 12-14 minutes. If you have them, paper liners are great. If not, make sure you grease the muffin tin. You should get 36-40 mini muffins. Let me know if you have any questions, and I’d love to hear how they turn out!
Just an FYI, the calorie count listed is off by quite a bit. I followed recipe exactly, minus the topping, and calculated 222 per muffin.
Can you freeze this recipe?
Hi Chelsea, great question. I haven’t tested this—but I think you should be able to freeze them with success. Once the muffins are baked and cooled completely, I would wrap them in plastic wrap, then in foil then place them in a resealable zipper-lock bag. To thaw, I recommend unwrapping them and thawing at room temperature. Let me know how it goes!
These muffins are so delicious! I swapped out the cornstarch and replaced it with dry milk powder because I like the flavor. Thank you so much for sharing this amazing recipe!!
Hi Mary, I’m happy to hear the milk powder worked well! So glad you enjoyed these!!
Made these this morning. Very tasty. I’d like to make them into. Protein muffing. What would you recommend to accomplish that?
Thanks, Laura
Hello! I am trying to make this recipe using nothing but a digital scale since I can get more exact measurements and that’s all I have at my disposal; how can I convert everything into grams? Please advise!
Hi Katerina! I just added gram measurements to the ingredient list. Let me know how it goes!
Thanks so much Lauren. I made these and loved them so much, they were the most perfect muffins. If I wanted to change up the flavor and make them pumpkin chocolate chip, how could I do so?
I made as directed, except I also added 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract. These were perfectly fluffy, tender, moist, and delicious. My ultra-picky kids gobbled them up, which is a small miracle in itself. Thanks for another amazing recipe!
Woo! So glad you and your kids enjoyed these! Great idea to add lemon extract for an added boost of flavor!
Substituted King Arthur GF 1:1 flour and sour cream for yogurt/brown sugar on top because I had them already in my kitchen. Delicious! Will make this recipe again.
They are still in the oven cooking! 6 minutes to go. My husband walked in the house and said how great it smells.
Can’t wait to try one!
I hope you loved them!!
Hello everyone! These lemon blueberry muffins came out absolutely amazing with fabulous texture. I have literally eaten two already. I will admit. They are not sweet due to the blueberries. Then again, I don’t think blueberries are in season right now. But hey, that’s all right. There isn’t anything a little honey can’t fix. I did not follow the grams in the recipe. The following adjustments were made. I used 120 g equivalency to 1 cup of pastry flour. So 270 g (2 1/4) of whole wheat pastry flour and 30 g of cornstarch which would be equivalent to a 1/4 cup. I sifted my dry ingredients and incorporated the Himalayan pink salt after(pink salt will not sift through). I used granulated sugar. I forgot to get the turbinado yesterday, when I picked up the whole wheat pastry flour at Whole Foods. This was really a very easy recipe. Just make sure you have all of the ingredients and your muffins should turn out amazingly without any issues. I will definitely try this recipe again when blueberries are in season for me. Thanks so much for the fantastic recipe!
Hi Laura, thanks for sharing your insights and what you did with this recipe. So helpful for other readers. I’m so glad you enjoyed this recipe and thanks for leaving a review!
Just made a version of these with tweaks based on what I have access to and they are delightful!
I’m at high altitude (5300ft) so I reduced the baking powder to 1tsp instead of the 1.5 but kept the baking soda the same. that tends to help keep them from essentially over rising too quickly (though you obvs still want a quick rise for a dome top) that they pop and collapse.
The other big change is that I skipped the lemon zest since I didn’t have any with rinds that weren’t suspect, so I just used lemon extract + vanilla instead. And I used roughly chopped blackberries instead of blue (same amount of grams) because I like them way better. I didn’t use the sugar on top and these were still decently sweet for me, someone who eats regular pastries/cookies/donuts enough to have not had my palate converted to a lower sugar/sweetness diet.
Oh and I added pecans. Because I rarely want any kind of baked good without pecans.
But the base of this is so solid that I’m excited to play around with it! I’d keep everything the same for the next time from, as they appear in the ingredient list, the ww pastry flour to the 2 eggs. The rest can be played with quite easily I think. Going with just vanilla but chocolate “chips”, or raspberries and orange extract, or throw some cinnamon chips in, etc.
Thanks for doing so much work on all your baked goods. I know it’s probably annoying when people just run roughshod over your recipes like so many of us do, but you’re written enough in your descriptions that once we’ve made several of your recipes we can get a feel for how different ingredients influence each other and that’s such a lovely skill you’ve given us.
Hey Erin! Dang, these sound good! Blackberries + some lemon extract, I need to try this. I even have some frozen blackberries in my freezer I could use. Thanks for sharing the changes you made for baking in high altitude. For us sea level people, it can be hard to wrap our mind around!
I’m so glad you have found success with my ww baking recipes! I love baking with whole-wheat flour, and am so glad these recipes have found you!
If you haven’t tried my regular whole wheat muffins, I think you might like them. They use regular whole wheat flour and uses an interesting “soaker” technique that make them truly some of the best whole wheat muffins you can make. It’s wild how tender they turn out! I’ll link them if you’re interested. https://zestfulkitchen.com/healthy-whole-wheat-muffin-recipe/
Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment!
These muffins are perfect! WOW! I am so impressed. I have baked with whole wheat flour so many times and you can tell, with this recipe you can not tell at all. Delicious! Thank you!