Banana Muffins with a Fresh Rhubarb Twist

Every year when rhubarb season starts, my mom reminisces about the rhubarb and banana jam her best friend made when they were children. It’s a surprising mix because we usually see recipes that utilise berries to sweeten up naturally tart rhubarb, and it’s not as though you can harvest rhubarb and then go around the corner to the closest banana tree.

But it works! Overripe bananas are sweet enough to balance everything out without using a truckload of sugar, and the rhubarb shines through it. These aren’t cupcakes – don’t expect tooth-achingly sweet, and eat them for breakfast or as an afternoon snack.

Banana rhubarb muffins are tender, easy to throw together, and vegan to boot. The addition of bananas in the batter helps reduce the need for oil and sweetener, so they’re pretty low in both. I know it seems like a strange combination but trust – these are really good!

For some more rhubarb inspiration, take a peek at these spring rhubarb recipes.

I first shared this recipe in 2015. It’s been updated with improvements to the recipe instructions and slight improvements to the recipe, new photos, including step-by-step photos, and more helpful information.

I don’t use affiliate links. Any links you see here are to other recipes or related information, not paid links.

Ingredients You’ll Need and Why

The necessary ingredients are minimal for this recipe and you don’t need anything special, like an egg replacer. The bananas do a good job holding the muffins together. These are my notes from recipe testing and you can find the full recipe card below with complete measurements and instructions.

• Spelt flour: as usual, all-purpose white or whole wheat flour can be used in place of spelt. I haven’t tried making them gluten-free, but this gluten-free banana bread makes great muffins and you could sub rhubarb for the chocolate, and some readers have commented that they’ve had success with gluten-free blends.
• Rhubarb: this should be fresh, and no need to peel. I haven’t tried with frozen rhubarb but if that’s all you have then I would recommend keeping it frozen rather than thawing.
• Bananas: the bananas should be ripe at they very least, and ideally overripe. The bananas pictured weren’t really ripe enough and the muffins won’t be as sweet if using less ripe bananas in the base. As long as they’re ripe – not green – your muffins will be good, but spotty and brown is better.
• Oil: any liquid oil that’s mild in taste can be used. I really only ever use olive oil but whatever you have will be fine. Melted coconut oil will make for very dense muffins after cooling so I don’t recommend it.
• Milk: any lighter non-dairy milk (like oat, soya, or nut milk, or coconut milk in a carton) will work. Canned full-fat coconut milk is not good here. If dairy isn’t a problem for you, of course dairy milk will work too.
• Coconut sugar: cane sugar can be used to replace the coconut, but will add a less caramel-like flavour. These are less sweet with coconut sugar than they are with cane or white sugar.

How to Make Banana Rhubarb Muffins

If you’ve made banana muffins or banana bread before, you know the drill. The only difference here might be blending the banana mixture rather than mashing with a fork, and using rhubarb as the add-in.

Step 1: use an immersion blender, standing blender, or mash well with a fork. This is a faster way to mix the liquid ingredients and these muffins are better without large chunks of banana (they’re more evenly sweet and bake more evenly).

Step 2: stir in the dry ingredients, then gently fold the rhubarb through the batter. If you’re worried about over-mixing here and don’t really know what folding means, then mix the batter halfway before adding the rhubarb and finishing mixing. A few small streaks of flour are fine.

Step 3: scoop the batter into prepared muffin cups and top with extra rhubarb. The topping is optional and you can skip it if preferred. If you want a sweeter muffin you could also top with raw sugar.

Step 4: bake the muffins for about 20 minutes, or until they pass a skewer test. I prefer to line the muffin cups for this recipe – and most fruit muffin recipes – because the rhubarb pieces often stick to the metal muffin tin otherwise.

Expert Tips for the Best Muffins

• Use any spelt flour: you can use either whole grain spelt, light spelt (white or sifted spelt), or a mix of the two here. I usually go for all whole grain because I’ll eat them for breakfast, but both work well.
• Use a blender: as you can see in the above step-by-step photos, I used my immersion blender to mix the bananas. It’s fast and makes for a very smooth muffin batter without banana chunks. In my banana bread I love some banana pieces, but I find these muffins are better with the banana very well mixed – you can mash it with a fork if you like, though.
• Don’t over mix: as always with a quick bread, especially with lower-gluten flours like spelt, don’t over mix! Gently mix until just combined, no further, and carefully fold the rhubarb in to avoid chewy muffins.
• Bake on the centre rack: if you don’t have a fan-forced oven, be sure to bake these right in the middle of the oven so that they cook evenly. If there’s too much heat coming from the top, the rhubarb topping will burn as well.
• Don’t worry about the colour: as with any rhubarb recipe, pink rhubarb is going to make for a prettier muffin. It doesn’t change the taste, though, so if your rhubarb is green they’re be just as good.

More Rhubarb Recipes

• Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler – vegan, minimally sweetened, and made with simple ingredients, this is a real late spring treat.
• Rhubarb Almond Cake – almond flour adds a nice buttery note to this dairy-free cake, otherwise made with spelt flour.
• Gluten-free Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp – the flour component for this recipe is chickpea flour, then combined with oats and other typical crisp ingredients, and you don’t taste chickpeas.
• Stewed Rhubarb with Honey – this is such a nice way to use rhubarb, for topping yogurt, ice cream, or anything else that strikes your fancy. Beetroot adds more pink colour.

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