Morning Glory Muffins

4.80 from 110 votes

By Katie

February 3, 2024

206 comments

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This Morning Glory Muffin recipe makes the perfect healthy and easy breakfast. Filled with zucchini, carrots, coconut, nuts, and spices, you can feel good feeding these to your family every morning. Great for making ahead and freezing for busy days or snacks. You’ll love having these on hand! While you’re mixing up your breakfast routine you have to try my Cinnamon Muffins and Banana Bread Muffins.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

This is a healthy and nutritious recipe worth making and not just because this is a perfect way to get your kids to eat veggies willingly! Score! These healthy morning glory muffins are based on my mom’s carrot cake muffin recipe, but I added in a bunch of fun goodies like grated zucchini, chopped walnuts, shredded unsweetened coconut, unsweetened applesauce and replaced a lot of the processed sugar with real maple syrup. Lots of goodies shoved into a soft and sweet breakfast muffin. YUM.

Ingredients For Morning Glory Muffins

I know this is a long list of ingredients, but they are healthy ingredients that are so good for you!

unsweetened coconut– adds a bit of chewiness and texture to the muffins.
unsweetened applesauce– adds moisture to the muffins making them soft.
granulated sugar– adds just a bit of sweetness.
all purpose flour– fills out the muffin. See my note below about making these gluten free.
zucchini + carrot– use a box grater to shred. Be sure to remove as much moisture as possible from the shredded zucchini. I use a tea towel to do this.
maple syrup– use a pure maple syrup for best flavor.
walnuts– chopped, and optional.
pantry staples– eggs, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, vanilla extract, oil (coconut oil, avocado oil or vegetable oil).

Pro Tip: Yes, you can make these muffins gluten free! Simply substitute the all purpose flour for Pamela’s Gluten Free Flour Blend at a 1:1 ratio. It’s the only flour blend I consistently get great results with. Bob’s Red Mill also has a decent flour blend, but I much prefer Pamela’s.

How To Make Morning Glory Muffins

Believe it or not, the hardest part of this recipe is grating all the veggies, which is not hard at all, just mostly time consuming. Besides that, it’s a very straight forward recipe. For full recipe details, including ingredient measurements, see the printable recipe card down below. Here is step-by-step directions for how to make these muffins:

Preheat + Prep

Preheat oven to 350° F. Line a standard 12 cup-muffin pan with paper liners and set aside.

Make Muffin Batter

In a large bowl, whisk the dry ingredients (sugar, flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, coconut and walnuts together until combined. Add in the grated zucchini and carrot.

A plate with four piles of ingredients: chopped nuts, shredded coconut, flour, and ground cinnamon on a light gray background—perfect for baking delicious Morning Glory Muffins.

A whisk rests in a bowl of flour on a light-colored surface, ready to whip up a batch of delicious Morning Glory Muffins.

Pour in the wet ingredients (applesauce, maple syrup, eggs, oil and vanilla). Stir until just combined.

A plate contains shredded vegetables, primarily carrots, mixed with flour, reminiscent of the ingredients for Morning Glory Muffins. A mixing spatula rests on the right side of the plate.

A large bowl containing shredded vegetables and flour, ready to become Morning Glory Muffins, surrounded by three raw eggs and other liquid ingredients in the center.

Fill Muffin Cups + Bake

Scoop into prepared muffin tin. Bake for 25-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean with just a few moist crumbs. Allow to cool on a wire rack and serve warm or wait until cooled completely.

A bowl of zucchini bread batter mixed with a spatula, with visible shredded zucchini and carrots, reminiscent of the wholesome ingredients found in Morning Glory Muffins.

A beige rectangular tray holds six Morning Glory Muffins batter-filled paper liners, ready for baking. Additional empty paper liners are placed to the right on a light gray surface.

Recipe Variations

There are several different versions of Morning Glory Muffins, all with different variations of the following ingredients. If you’d like to experiment and make this recipe your own, feel free to switch up the ingredients I used with any of these:

finely chopped pineapple (drain thoroughly)
grated apple (Granny Smith apple would be great here)
raisins, golden raisins or Craisins
other chopped nuts like almonds, pecans, or pistachios
pepitas or sunflower seeds
additional spices like nutmeg, allspice or pumpkin pie spice
ground flax seed or hemp seed

Not only do you get a lovely spiced muffin, but you get extra boost of vitamins from the grated veggies, nuts and seeds!

Storing Muffins

Muffins can be wrapped individually in plastic wrap or stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days.

Make Ahead + Freeze

These also freeze really well! Allow to cool completely before placing in a freezer safe container or ziploc bag. Remove as much air as possible. Muffins will stay fresh for up to 2-3 months.

Love Muffins? Try These Other Delicious Muffin Recipes:

I hope you rotate these delicious breakfast muffins into your mornings! Enjoy with a glass of orange juice and have the best start to your morning! So tasty. The printable recipe card is below. Have a great day, friends. 🙂

If you make this recipe, I would really appreciate it if you would give it a star rating and leave your review in the comments! If you have a picture of your finished dish, post it on Instagram using the hashtag #laurenslatest and tagging me @laurens_latest.