Gluten-free sweet potato muffins made with coconut flour, rice flour, and sweetened naturally with pure maple syrup for a healthful, wholesome breakfast or snack.
Oh, hello muffin of my dreams!
These gluten free sweet potato muffins make for an incredible breakfast or snack to go alongside your coffee or tea. They are made with coconut flour and brown rice flour and are sweetened with pure maple syrup. Plus, the sweet potato gives natural sweetness so you don’t need to add a huge amount of sweetener!
This combination makes for an insanely fluffy and flavorful muffin that you’d never guess is gluten-free, dairy-free and refined sugar-free!
The way I see it, the whole food, cleaner ingredients makes these muffins a healthier option than your standard bakery or coffee shop muffin.
Does that give you license to slather butter all over them and drizzle more maple syrup on them? You betcha.
I know what you’re going to ask, and the answer is yes.
Yes, you can use pumpkin for this recipe instead of sweet potato. But pumpkins are less rad than sweet potatoes. You can fact check that one up, down, and sideways, it doesn’t make it any less true. 😉
You know what would go really well with these sweet potato muffins? Roasted sweet potato soup.
If you’d like, you can also add chocolate chips and/or chopped walnuts to these sweet potato muffins to level up the flavor and texture. I’d recommend about 2/3 cup of either/or.
Recipe Notes:
Avoid the temptation to substitute the coconut flour for a different flour, as coconut flour absorbs four times more liquid than any other flour. If you want to swap it out, you’ll need to change the amount of eggs and liquid in the muffins.
If you’d like, you can use almond flour or oat flour instead of the brown rice flour in a 1:1 replacement.
More Healthy Muffin Recipes:
- Carrot Cake Banana Muffins
- Healthy Apple Muffins
- Flourless Oatmeal Banana Nut Muffins
- Avocado Chocolate Muffins
- Gluten-Free Pumpkin Muffins with Streusel Topping
Keep calm and muffin on!
Gluten Free Sweet Potato Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 small sweet potato roasted (1 cup, mashed)
- 3 eggs lightly beaten
- 3/4 cup full-fat canned coconut milk
- 1 tablespoon olive oil or avocado oil
- 1/3 cup pure maple syrup
- 1 cup brown rice flour
- ¼ cup coconut flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Poke several holes in the sweet potato with a fork and wrap it in foil. Bake it in the oven for 60 minutes or until very soft. Remove potato from the oven and allow it to cool.
- When cool enough to handle, scrape the potato flesh out of the skin and mash it in a large mixing bowl (discard the skin…or eat it, I do that all the time). Note: you should end up with about 1 cup of mashed sweet potato..if there's more, you can save the rest for a different baking endeavor.)
- Add the eggs, coconut milk, olive oil, and maple syrup to the mixing bowl with the mashed potato and whisk everything together until smooth.
- In a separate bowl, combine the rest of the (dry) ingredients and stir together.
- Pour the dry ingredients into the bowl with the wet and mix together just until combined.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and lightly oil a 12-hole muffin tray (or line with muffin cups).
- Pour muffin batter into muffin holes and fill ¾ of the way up.
- Place on center rack in the oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until muffins are golden brown around the edges and feel firm in the center when poked. Remove from the oven and allow muffins to cool 20 minutes before releasing them from the muffin tray. Serve with a dollop of butter and a drizzle of pure maple syrup or honey.
Nutrition
Hey there, I am in the middle of making these and the directions say, “3. Add the eggs, coconut milk, olive oil, and maple syrup to the mixing bowl with the mashed potato and whisk everything together until smooth.”
There is no olive oil listed in the ingredients. Does this recipe need olive oil?
Thank you
Tried making sweet potato muffins and I think I should have greased the muffin tins. The muffins did not pop out clean. Should these muffins made in cupcake paper cups?
Hi Sonja, did you oil the muffin tray? I lightly oiled my tray and the muffins popped right out, no problem. Also, did you let the muffins cool before trying to remove them from the pan? I find that if I skip the cooling process, sometimes muffins stick. One more question: did you substitute any of the ingredients for something else? This would definitely have an effect on the batter and its ability to hold together. My apologies that the muffins stuck to your pan – that’s no fun!
These might have been the best gluten free muffins I’ve ever made. And I’ve made A LOT of GF muffins. Most of them are super dense and heavy, but these were light and fluffy. Fluffy is not a word that’s usually associated with GF baking! I made two small substitutions, out of necessity, which I thought I’d share in case others are interested. I only had about a cup of sweet potato purée, and no coconut flour. I subbed in one mashed super ripe banana for the missing 1/2 cup of sweet potato and 1/4 cup of almond meal for the coconut flour. They turned out beautifully, and I can’t even taste the banana. Your blog is wonderful and hilarious. Thank you for a great recipe!
I’m so glad you liked the recipe, Jennie! And thanks for sharing your substitutions. I LOVE GF muffins and definitely enjoy figuring out how to keep them fluffy. A little experimentation goes a long way in gf baking 😀
Can i sub sorghum or teff for the brown rice flour? I’m always concerned with arsenic in brown rice.
Hi Lil, I have actually never used sorghum or teff. As long as they act similarly and have a similar liquid absorbency as brown rice flour, I’d say you’re good to go. Almond flour combined with gluten-free oat flour would be great, too 🙂 Let me know how they turn out!
I substitute almond flour for the rice flour. Recipe does not list OLIVE OIL in ingredients but includes it
in the directions. No one noticed that?
Shit. Back fat is in my future in 30-odd days? Better eat a few muffins then.
You are sooo funny!!! These muffins looks amazing! I wouldn’t dream of subbing them with pumpkin either. Gotta make these this weekend!!!
Thanks for giving me insight into what I am going to be expecting! At least then I will know that I’m not alone.
These muffins look fabulous!! I could eat the whole batch!
G’day Julia! Thanks for brightening my day, true!
Love your photos and your recipe…very inspiring re GF recipe too!
Cheers! Joanne
Wait, I’m not the only lady in my mid-20s who can’t stay up past 10:30 on a Friday and would rather these bake muffins on Sunday morning than nurse a hangover? Loved reading this post and the comments!
I love the line about having a heart being more badass 😀 Amen sister, amen. Preach on while I go stuff my face with these muffins!
Bahahaha I’m totally using sonofabeehive in conversation today. You are just TOO funny. Actually you’re the perfect amount of funny. And these muffins are the perfect amount of delicious. Holy yum!
I turn 25 next month (wahhhhh) but I keep trying SO hard to act like I’m still in college. When I fall asleep at 1030 on a Friday, I think that pretty much proves that I can no longer hang. And that’s okay, because then I’m up early enough to make these muffins for breakfast 🙂
I’m feeling ya, Kelly. Just wait until you’re 27! It gets harder and harder every year to make it past 9:30pm and all of a sudden you wake up one morning and do old people things, like solve a cross word puzzle while you drink your coffee. I look back to the days of yore, shake my head and wonder how the hell I drank that much jager. Onward and upward, my friend! Let’s become old fuddy duddies together!
Julia, you are wise beyond your years! So as we age; life gets better, because we become more confident and comfortable in our identities, bodies get worse (back fat is just the beginning), cuz we’re just getting old!
I don’t necessarily do gluten free, but if it includes coconut flour I’m all over it! And the maple syrup with the sweet potatoes…the bomb!
You know, you are kind of a pretty wise 27 year old!I love your thoughts on life! 🙂
Ok and I love these muffins! Wish I had some in front of me right this very second!
They say I’m an old soul, Tieghan, they say I’m an old soul. But seriously, I feel like I’m still 12. Let’s go to A Basin and jump off some cliffs! 😉
Hahahaha! You are right! Sweet potato muffins. Girl, you need to just come live with me. You can have your own room and bathroom and even a dog on occasion (can’t totally expect Jerry to give up his beagles all of the time) and you can bake and cook to your heart’s content. Plus, hanging around us old geezers will make you feel young and spring-like all over again. True story here: I’m very scared of the whole gluten-free deal. It’s true. I have a bag of 4 different flours staring at me each time I open the freezer, mocking this home ec major because she doesn’t know what to do with them and is scared of the food turning out crappy. But, I’m going to suck it up and try these for the two of us. Pinky promise!
Juuuuuuliiiiiiiiie! I promise these won’t turn out crappy. Use them flours, lady! If you do, you may want to add some extra maple or even use regular sugar cause they’re not super sweet…unless you don’t like your muffins super sweet, in which case stick with the recipe.
My uncle used to have a beagle named Moo Moo. Anytime they would drive past cows, he’d say, “Moo Moo, look at the cows!” and She’d jolt up, bark and wag her tail off.” This is a true story…you wonder where I get my loony bin brain? Totally in my DNA. We Muellers name dogs Moo Moo and train them to love cows more than anything else on the planet. Why? Why not. Unfortunately, Moo Moo passed away a few years back, but she was a really cool pup. So yes, I’d love to cuddle with your beagles. But I can’t guarantee I won’t try to train them to love cows with every fiber of their beagle souls. 😉
I love the beagle name! Then and again, our boy is named Steinbeck. Who named him that? Stephie. Literary nerd of the world. Although, he would be very interested in seeing the cows and learning about them. Our first beagle was born on a dairy farm that my great-grandfather owned. So, yeah. It’s ingrained in us. And I really will try these and stop being scared of these flours. 🙂
Julia, you are not only badass but totally hilarious! Badass-hilarious, I believe is what that’s called. Add in badass-deliciousness in the shape of a muffin, and you are elevated to badass-awesomeness! I think that’s more naughty words than I’ve used in a week, but it sure seems to apply to these gorgeous muffins! Yuuuuuummmmmmm! 😀