While at the Connecticut airport in September, I headed straight for the nearest coffee shop in the terminal once I passed through security. I had woken up at 3 am that morning when I heard people walking past my door at the hotel, and I never fully fell back asleep… So caffeine was a big necessity!
With limited options, I ended up at the Dunkin’ Donuts stand right next to my plane’s gate, and I scanned the menu boards to check out my options. I settled on a plain cup of hot coffee, but then…
I made a huge mistake. I glanced down at their glass display case full of fresh hot donuts. Rows and rows of dozens of perfectly shaped, beautiful round donuts… Everything from plain and glazed to cinnamon sugar and double chocolate… Plus seasonal flavors like apple crisp and pumpkin!
Although extremely tempted to snag a few pumpkin donut holes to go with my coffee, I realized that the sugar crash probably wouldn’t be worth it… So I walked away with just a single mug in hand.
Yet just last week, I spotted more pumpkin donuts at my local grocery store, which meant I started craving pumpkin breakfast treats all over again! But instead of caving and buying those oh-so-tempting extra sugary donuts…
I baked these Healthy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Muffins, and they totally satisfied my cravings! Soft and tender, just like the insides of my favorite cake-style donuts, with lots of cozy pumpkin and warm spice flavors… But no refined flour or sugar and just 128 calories!
And seeing as just one of Dunkin’ Donut’s pumpkin donut holes is 70 calories and about ¼ of the size… I definitely felt like I won the pumpkin breakfast lottery!
Well. If such a thing existed. 😉
HOW TO MAKE HEALTHY PUMPKIN OATMEAL MUFFINS
So let’s go over how to make these healthy pumpkin chocolate chip oatmeal muffins!
You’ll actually start with instant oats (like these—or these for gluten-free!). Instant oats are also called “quick cooking” or “one minute” oats. They’re smaller and thinner than traditional old-fashioned rolled oats, so they soften faster—and that makes your healthy pumpkin chocolate chip oatmeal muffins really moist and tender!
Tip: Instant oats are not the same thing as those individual serving brown paper packets! You can find them at the grocery store in regular containers right next to the old-fashioned oats.
To jumpstart softening your oats, you’ll mix them with pumpkin purée (like this—not pumpkin pie mix!), Greek yogurt, and a touch of vanilla. When you mix the instant oats with these other ingredients first, before measuring out and stirring together the rest of the ingredients, the oats can start soaking up the moisture in the pumpkin and Greek yogurt ahead of time. That makes for extremely soft and tender healthy oatmeal muffins!
Just remember… It’s extremely important to measure the oats (and flour!) correctly, using this method or a kitchen scale. (← That’s the one I own and love!) Too much of either ingredient will make your muffins taste dry or crumbly. This is especially true of the oats. They act like little sponges and soak up lots of moisture from your muffin batter!
And speaking of flour, you’ll need white whole wheat flour (like this!) to make these healthy pumpkin chocolate chip oatmeal muffins! White whole wheat flour is made by finely grinding a special type of soft white wheat, whereas regular whole wheat flour comes from a heartier variety of red wheat. They both have the same health benefits (like extra fiber!), but white whole wheat flour has a lighter taste and texture. This lets the pumpkin flavor and moist texture of these muffins truly shine!
You’ll also whisk a slew of spices into the flour: cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves. These are the most common spices that you’ll find in pumpkin spice! However, I prefer making my own homemade pumpkin spice, rather than purchasing store-bought, for a couple reasons: (a) I can control the ratios of the spices and (b) I keep jars of the individual spices in my pantry already!
These healthy pumpkin chocolate chip oatmeal muffins only require 1 teaspoon of butter or oil, unlike traditional recipes that use ¼ to ½ cup or more… And that definitely helps keep them low calorie! They get the rest of their moisture from the pumpkin and Greek yogurt, which you mixed into your oats already.
You’ll sweeten your healthy pumpkin chocolate chip oatmeal muffins with liquid stevia instead of refined granulated sugar. Stevia is a plant-based, no-calorie sweetener that contains nothing refined or artificial (aka it’s clean eating friendly!). It’s also highly concentrated, so you just need 2 teaspoons to sweeten a dozen muffins! This is the kind I buy, and although you can find it at many health-oriented grocery stores, I buy mine online here because that’s the best price I’ve found. (And you’ll use it in all of these recipes of mine, too!)
Time for the chocolate chips! I use mini chocolate chips to ensure every bite contains a morsel of chocolate. These are my current favorite because they taste so rich and turn perfectly melty in the oven!
One last tip! These low-fat pumpkin chocolate chip oatmeal muffins stick to muffin liners like superglue, so you must coat your liners with cooking spray first before adding in the muffin batter. This trick makes the liners peel away from your muffins much more easily!
There’s a reason these are my favorite pumpkin muffins! ♡ And when you make your own, remember to snap a picture and share it on Instagram using #amyshealthybaking and tagging @amyshealthybaking IN the photo itself! (That guarantees I’ll see your picture! 🙂 ) I’d love to see your healthy pumpkin chocolate chip oatmeal muffins!
Healthy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Muffins
Ingredients
- ¾ cup (75g) instant oats (gluten-free if necessary and measured like this)
- 1 cup (244g) pumpkin purée (not pumpkin pie mix!)
- ½ cup (120g) plain nonfat Greek yogurt
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups (240g) white whole wheat flour or gluten-free* flour (measured like this)
- 1 tbsp (8g) ground cinnamon
- ¾ tsp ground allspice
- ¼ tsp ground ginger
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- ¾ tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 tsp unsalted butter or coconut oil, melted and cooled slightly
- 2 large egg whites, room temperature
- 2 tsp liquid stevia
- 6 tbsp (90mL) water, room temperature
- ½ cup (120mL) nonfat milk, room temperature
- 3 tbsp (42g) miniature chocolate chips (divided)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F, and coat 12 muffin cups with nonstick cooking spray. (If using liners, then line 12 muffin cups with liners and coat them with cooking spray.)
- In a medium bowl, stir together the oats, pumpkin, Greek yogurt, and vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a third bowl, whisk together the butter, egg whites, and liquid stevia. Stir in the water. Stir in the oat mixture, mixing until no large lumps remain. Alternate between adding the flour mixture and milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture, and stirring just until incorporated. (For best results, add the flour mixture in 3 equal parts.) Gently fold in 2 ½ tablespoons of miniature chocolate chips.
- Divide the batter between the prepared muffin cups. Gently press the remaining chocolate chips into the tops. Bake at 350°F for 26-29 minutes or until the top feels firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
View Nutrition Information + Weight Watchers Points
You may also like Amy’s other recipes…
♡ Healthy Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins (Starbucks copycat!)
♡ Healthy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins
♡ Healthy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bran Muffins
♡ Healthy Cinnamon Apple Oatmeal Muffins
♡ The Ultimate Healthy Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins
♡ …and the rest of Amy’s healthy pumpkin recipes!
What do you recommend for substituting the eggs? Thanks!
These taste wonderful but did not turn out like the pictures at all. I followed the recipe exactly, including all of the Notes. I did use Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 Gluten Free Flour. All of my ingredients were fresh. First, I was surprised that to only make 12 muffins, I needed to fill the muffin cups to the very top. Second, when they were done, they had risen to about 1/2″ above the muffin liners but the insides were not light and fluffy looking like the picture. Mine were very dense inside. They were moist and taste good but did not look anything like the pictures. I’m not sure if that is because of the GF flour or not. I usually have really good luck with this GF flour blend and am able to get baked goods that are very close if not identical to non-GF ones. In my opinion these turned out how a lot of baking recipes that are not made specifically for GF flour do; and I was disappointed to see it! They were good but not great and nothing like a non-GF baking product – which is always the goal when baking with GF flour! Because they were so time intensive to make, I will not be making them again.
It means a lot that you tried our recipe, Carol! That sounds disappointing and not like how these muffins are supposed to turn out, so we’d love to work with you to figure out what happened. We really appreciate you sharing all of these details; it certainly makes solving the mystery much easier!
Based on what you described — where each muffin cup was overfilled with batter in order to yield only 12 muffins, the muffins didn’t rise much, and the insides were very dense instead of light and fluffy — it sounds like the ratio of wet and dry ingredients was off in your batter. That’s the #1 culprit of these three issues!
Did you use a kitchen scale or measuring cups to measure the flour and oats?
If the latter, did you use our method that we linked to in the Ingredients list and Notes section? If not, did you happen to dip your measuring cup directly into the container of flour and/or oats?
Also, did you make any modifications or substitutions to the recipe, including those listed in the Notes section?
I used my kitchen scale for most items. After I used the scale, I poured each item into a measuring cup to see how it compared. Each time I seemed to get slightly more than I would have just using a measuring cup. This included the yogurt. I did just use teaspoons and Tablespoons where those were indicated. The only other item I used a regular measuring cup for was the milk. My substitutes were the GF flour mix, GF quick oats, and almond milk. I used a fork to stir except where a whisk was indicated. I really was trying to follow the directions very specifically, hoping these would turn out.
Thanks so much for this information, Carol! It’s very helpful. We really want these muffins to turn out for you too!
When you used your kitchen scale to measure the GF quick oats and Bob’s Red Mill GF flour, did you use our gram measurements provided in the Ingredients list (75g and 240g, respectively)?
If not, what are the exact measurements (grams, ounces, etc) that you used instead?
Just to double check, did you use the same liquid stevia that we did?
What brands of pumpkin purée and Greek yogurt did you use?
Approximately how long did the bowl of oats, pumpkin, Greek yogurt, and vanilla sit (from the very beginning of Step 1) before you stirred it into the egg mixture?
Thank you for your answers to these questions, as well as your patience; we’re getting closer to solving this muffin mystery! 🙂
I did use the measurements listed in the recipe for oats and flour. I also used Truvia Organic Sweetener from the Stevia Leaf. My pumpkin was Libby’s 100% Pure Pumpkin, Organic. My yogurt was FAGE Total 0% milkfat all Natural Nonfat Greek Strained Yogurt.
I don’t know exactly how long the oats, etc. sat; but I had all the ingredients ready so it took just as long as it would take to follow the instructions. Thanks for your help with this.
Thank you for all of this information too, Carol! It’s so helpful with narrowing down the culprit. I just have a few more follow-up questions!
We’re excited to hear those were the brands of Greek yogurt and pumpkin that you used. They’re two of our favorites! Is it safe to assume that you used our gram measurements for them as well? (It sounds like you did, based on one of your previous comments!)
How much of the Truvia Organic Sweetener did you use? It has a different sweetness level than the one that we do (ours is 3x as concentrated of a sweetness level), so I wanted to confirm. It sounds like you enjoyed your muffins’ sweetness level, but I just wanted to double check!
I understand you don’t know the exact timeframe, but do you have a ballpark estimate for long long the oat mixture sat? Was it less than 5 minutes? Closer to 10? Maybe 15+ minutes? (I know it may seem like a silly question… But this can greatly impact the muffins’ texture, so that’s why we ask! 😉 )
Yes, I measured the pumpkin and the yogurt by the grams listed in the recipe.
I used 2 teaspoons of Truvia.
I would estimate the oat mixture sat for 5 minutes.
Thank you so much, Carol! We’ve figured out one of the main culprits. It’s the oat mixture! It needs to sit for more time than that. In Amy’s blog post above the recipe, she recommends mixing the oats with the pumpkin purée, Greek yogurt, and vanilla before measuring out and stirring together the other ingredients. (I know it can be easy to miss that though! 😉 ) By doing this, it generally gives the oats around 15-20+ minutes to soak up moisture.
As you found out, if the oats don’t have enough time to soak up moisture, then that results in too much liquid volume in the batter. That throws off the ratio of wet-to-dry ingredients, which causes the muffins to turn out denser and not rise properly.
We still find it interesting that your muffin cups were full to the brim with batter though! Would you mind doing a quick experiment? It’s really easy — I promise! How many tablespoons of water can you fit inside of each muffin cup?
That will at least determine if your muffin cups are the same size as the ones we use! If they’re not, then that could be why your muffin cups were so full. If they are, then we’ll keep thinking! 🙂
I should have remembered to let the oat mixture sit before combining it with other ingredients. I find this to be especially true when using gluten-free dry ingredients in baking.
My muffin cups hold six tablespoons of water.
Thank you for all your help.
We checked three different brands of muffin cups in our test kitchen, and when filled all the way to the brim with water, each of them held 7 tablespoons of water. It sounds like your muffin cups may be a tad smaller, so that may have factored into why they were so full of batter!
We are always happy to help, Carol! I hope your next batch turns out better! 🙂