These paleo banana chia bites are naturally sweet and perfectly moist mini-muffins. They’re the ultimate grain-free snack.
*Post updated 10/11/2017 to include a video on how to make these paleo banana chia bites – one of the most popular paleo recipes on this site since they were published in 2013. I love grabbing one of these on my way out the door to a workout or crumbling over some yogurt for an easy snack. Enjoy!
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Ok, so admittedly, these muffins aren’t going to win any awards for most original recipe.
A banana muffin…wow. Never seen it before.
But, these are probably one of my biggest grain free, gluten free, sugar free baking successes ever.
Something that seriously bothers me about paleo/grain free baked goods is the amount of eggs used in most recipes.
I go through an alarming amount of eggs as is, I don’t need to be sacrificing 5 of them at a time for bread unless someone would like to gift me a chicken (and someone to take care of it in my backyard).
So, I decided to try and beat the system with chia seeds and lots of mashed banana.
And it worked.
Like really worked.
These banana chia muffins are super moist (eeek gross word alert), not too dense like most grain free “breads” and naturally sweet. They’re very similar to these whole wheat sweet potato banana muffins and these avocado muffins in texture and their subtle sweet flavor.
More paleo snack ideas: chia cherry crunch bites | coconut apricot scones
I haven’t done the nutritional stats on them, but I’m betting they’re pretty stellar. Especially as pre-workout fuel.
I popped two with some almond butter before my first Fran since on-ramp back in July yesterday and was pretty happy with the results.
Now I can’t get the idea of trying them with chocolate out of my head.
That’s gotta shave at least 30 seconds off my time.
Paleo Banana Chia Bites
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup almond meal
- 2 tablespoons coconut flour
- 2 tablespoons chia seeds
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 large ripe banana, mashed
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil, melted
- 2 tablespoons unsweetened almond milk, or other milk
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup chopped pecans, optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a mini-muffin pan.
- Combine almond meal, coconut flour, chia seeds, cinnamon, salt & baking soda in a large bowl.
- Whisk together remaining ingredients (besides nuts if using) in a small bowl.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to combine.
- If using the nuts, fold into the batter until evenly distributed.
- Spoon batter into mini-muffin pan and bake for about 15 minutes until tops start to turn golden brown.
- Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Gina Matsoukas is an AP syndicated writer. She is the founder, photographer and recipe developer of Running to the Kitchen — a food website focused on providing healthy, wholesome recipes using fresh and seasonal ingredients. Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets both digital and print, including MSN, Huffington post, Buzzfeed, Women’s Health and Food Network.
Hey! These look great! 2 quick questions….I don’t have any chia seeds on hand, but I have flax seeds and flax meal. Would either of these work? Also have you tried freezing these? Seems like they would do well, but thought I would ask of your experience.
Thanks so much! :-)
I haven’t froze them, but I’m pretty confident they’d be great for that like you said. As for the flax…flax is a great sub for chia seeds when you’re using chia seeds with water as an egg substitution but in this recipe the chia isn’t a “gel” to replace eggs, it acts more like a seed/nut. If you wanted to use flax seeds (whole) to replace the chia seeds I think you could but I wouldn’t use ground flax as a sub. Hope that makes sense!
These look awesome. Just ordered my first batch of chia seeds so I’m searching Pinterest for recipes. This is now top of my list. Thanks for sharing yr recipe. From one Gina to another!! x
I made a double batch of these last night! Very impressed. I didn’t grease the pan enough and had a wee bit of difficulty getting them out. I also didn’t have any coconut flour on hand (well I swear I have it SOMEwhere but I’ll be darned if I can find it…) so I subbed white rice flour. It worked just fine. I added veeeeeeery slightly less almond milk, knowing how much liquid coconut flour can suck up, so just added milk last and slowly until the consistency seemed about right. Also added chocolate chips because I wanted to get my kids to eat them…you’re right, they are delish with chocolate!
Oh these look great and I love the ingredients list :)
I’m following something similar to paleo, and these muffins are just waht I needed to mix up my breakfast or mid morning snack. Baked a batch today (I added sultanas) and they are yummo! Thanks Gina, your blog is the best!
Gina, I just have to say… I love visiting your blog. You’re always posting something Faaaaaaaaaaaabulous! These look amazing and I’m passing your site on to my sisters who are GF, DF and big fans of paleo! ps. I’m in-boxing you my address so you can ship me samples of everything you make :)
Aww, thank you, Laurie :)
I don’t follow paleo or grain free or anything like that, but these sound so good I think I need to go find myself some coconut flour stat!
I love love love the ingredients in these! Pinning this right now!
I just made these & they are delicious! My kids absolutely loved them & it was so quick & easy to make. Thanks for the recipe.
I just made these after running 6 1/2 miles! So good– I threw some sprinkles in a few of them for my three year old and we enjoyed breakfast together! I mixed my muffin bites with some plain greek yogurt!! Awesome recipe!