Soft and moist Banana Muffins with melty chocolate chips are the ultimate treat and are a great way to use overripe bananas. These banana chocolate chip muffins take less than 30 minutes to whip up, so they are perfect for meal prep, sharing with neighbors and coworkers, and a quick recipe to bake with kids.
This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy.
Helpful Reader Review
“My kiddos loved how these turned out. I loved making these for us all. The easiest most delicious and moist muffins. I’ve made this 4 times already and came here to make it for the 5th time. I can tell this is going to be a repeat recipe for me so I better memorize now.“ – Fayeza ★★★★★
Banana Muffins Video
Watch me turn those brown, overripe bananas into the best banana bread muffins with chocolate chips. See how easy this recipe truly is, and then let’s get baking!
Easy Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
If you’re staring at a few browning, speckled bananas on the counter, please don’t toss them! Those ripe bananas add the perfect natural sweetness to this banana muffin recipe. The browner the better, in fact! Once they are smashed up and baked into muffins, you’ll never see how brown they started anyway.
We’ve had so many questions about turning our chocolate chip banana bread into muffins so here you go – your guide to the best banana muffins! While we love classic banana bread, these muffins bake fast (25 minutes), and are irresistible with melted chocolate morsels.
Banana Muffin Ingredients
Whip up these banana muffins with just a few pantry staples, like flour and sugar. You’ll need 30 minutes and a muffin pan for the single-serving-sized treats.
- Dry ingredients – flour, baking soda, salt, and sugar
- Wet ingredients – unsalted butter (to control the sodium level), eggs, and vanilla
- Ripe Bananas – 3 medium-sized bananas (about 1 cup) mashed up. Browned bananas work best since they have the most natural sugar. If they aren’t quite ripe, see my tips below on how to ripen them quickly.
- Chocolate Chips – we prefer semi-sweet chocolate chips, but you can use any kind you prefer. You can omit if you’d prefer, or also substitute the chocolate chips with an equal amount of toasted chopped pecans or walnuts to make banana nut muffins, or replace them with raisins for banana raisin muffins.
Pro Tip:
To ripen bananas in 24 hours, place the bunch into a brown bag, close it, and store it on the counter for 24 hours. You can also bake almost-ripe bananas in the oven at 250°F for 15-20 minutes.
Can I use Frozen Bananas in Banana Bread Muffins?
If you have overripe bananas and aren’t ready to use them, toss them in a ziploc (peel on) and freeze them for later. Before adding frozen ripe bananas to the recipe, thaw completely at room temperature, or in the refrigerator overnight. Frozen bananas tend to release more moisture, so peel and lightly pat dry with paper towels to remove excess liquid.
How to Make Banana Muffins
Our easy Banana Muffins recipe comes together in just a few minutes and has that irresistible banana flavor and a moist, spongy crumb.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and place liners in a 12-count muffin tin.
- Cream together butter and sugar, then mix in lightly beaten eggs.
- Add mashed bananas and vanilla.
- Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt, then mix into the batter. Fold in 3/4 cup chocolate chips.
- Scoop batter into your lined muffin tin (a trigger-release ice cream scoop makes it easy), sprinkle with chocolate chips, and bake for 20-25 minutes.
Natasha’s Tips for The Best Banana Muffins
There are 3 “secrets” or key points for achieving tender and moist muffins:
- Use very ripe or overripe bananas. Underripe bananas will be difficult to mash and won’t incorporate into the batter well.
- Do not skimp on the butter. Since there is no other ‘liquid’ in this recipe, softened butter is needed for a soft and moist crumb. Watch our video on how to soften butter in 5 minutes.
- Don’t over-bake. If you’re wondering how long to bake banana muffins, test for doneness by inserting a toothpick into the center after 25 minutes and continue baking only if you see wet batter on the toothpick.
Please DO NOT throw away your overripe bananas because they are the secret ingredient for these moist and delicious banana muffins. The browner and spottier the peel, the better!
What is YOUR favorite way to use overripe bananas?
Banana Muffins
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, (8 Tbsp), softened
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, room temp, lightly beaten
- 3 bananas, very ripe, coarsely mashed with a fork
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, measured correctly
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips, divided
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350˚ F and line a 12-count muffin tin with paper liners.
- In a mixing bowl, cream together 8 Tbsp softened butter with 2/3 cup sugar. Add 2 lightly beaten eggs.
- Add 3 mashed bananas and 1 tsp vanilla extract and mix until blended.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together dry ingredients: 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp salt. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until incorporated.
- Fold in 3/4 cup chocolate chips. Divide batter evenly into your 12-count muffin tin and sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup chocolate chips evenly over the tops. Bake at 350˚F on the center rack for 25-30 minutes or until the top is golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes then transfer to a baking rack to cool to room temperature.
Notes
- Room Temperature: Cooled muffins keep well on the counter in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
- Freezing: Place cooled muffins in an airtight freezer container for up to 3 months. Thaw on the counter or in the fridge.
Nutrition Per Serving
Filed Under
More Muffin Recipes
Enjoy our top-rated, made-from-scratch, bakery-quality muffin recipes. I hope you find some new favorites here.
- Egg Muffins
- Blueberry Muffins
- Mixed Berry Muffins
- Zucchini Muffins
- French Breakfast Muffins
- English Muffins
- Cinnamon Muffins
- Apple Muffins
- Cottage Cheese Egg Bites
These were delicious and I even forgot to add the vanilla extract!
Hi Tammi, good to hear that you liked these muffins but hope you can try with the extract next time!
so tasty and easy! I followed the recipe exactly. my muffins were done cooking at 20 minutes 🙂 I may try adding a 4th banana next time since I love the banana flavor!
I’m so happy you enjoyed that. Thank you for sharing that with us, S!
I used two very large bananas instead of three and they turned out perfect! So easy and so delicious. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing, Molly! I’m happy you loved this recipe.
Can you make mini muffins with this recipe? How long would you bake mini version for? For my daughters lunch.
Hi Debbie. I have not tested this recipe in mini cupcake size to advise on specific instructions but it should work fine. You’ll have to watch them in the oven and decrease the baking time as needed.
Hi, I don’t have vanilla essence, can I substitute with almond extract?
Hi Sam! Almond extract would be fine. It will alter the taste a bit but I think it would still taste good with almond extract.
Very yummy and moist! However, they do stick to the cupcake liners. Not sure what’s causing it because I’ve used the liners many times before for muffins and cupcakes and they never stuck. Will make them without the liners next time and see if that helps.
Hi. This recipe sounds just yummy and I can’t wait to try it. I do have one question. If I want to make the really big muffins(6 instead of 12), how long do you suggest I bake them? I’ve been looking over some of your other recipes and can’t wait to try them, too. I’m actually going to try your ‘banana bread’ and ‘banana muffin’ recipes this afternoon. (I’ve got a bunch of bananas that I need to get rid of.) The muffins are for me and my roommate and the bread is going to be a ‘thank you’ gift. (Of course, I’ll have to make a trial loaf of that for us, just to make sure it tastes alright, lol! Anyways, thanks for your help and for the amazing recipes! God bless you and I hope you have a wonderful day day!
Hi Angie! You’re very welcome!
I have not tested this jumbo muffins but my guess would be to start with a couple mins longer and keep checking them! Good luck. 🙂
I did not use chocolate chips, but put 4 blueberries in each muffin and chopped walnuts in half. They were delicious, moist and really tasty!
That sounds delicious as well! Thanks a lot for sharing that with us.
This recipe is very yummy and delicious! I made 2 batches on 2 consecutive days to give away to family and friends! I love that it has metric because that’s the way I prefer.
The 2nd day I added a dash of cinnamon.
So glad you enjoyed this recipe, Julie! Thank you for sharing that with us.
This is second time making these. Last time I did 36 mini muffins for half the time and used vanilla chips cut up instead of chocolate and they didn’t last 3 days in my house. Now I’m doing 12 muffins with a small loaf because my muffins are smaller then usual pans. Will come back with the taste. I love banana breads.
Sounds like you have a new family favorite, Jessica! That’s just awesome! I hope you all love this batch just as much!
The recipe is delicious! Yes, I agree. Very moist, even though mine were overdone. And I also like because easy to fold inside-out to easily clean too.
I just made banana cupcakes. And they were unbelievably tasty.
Definitely I take your recipe to my recipe notebook
Thank you, Natasha!
That’s just awesome! Thank you for sharing your wonderful review, Zhanna!
Can these be made into mini muffins, how long would u bake them for?
Ashley, I haven’t tried these as mini banana muffins but it would probably be about half the amount of time. You might test with a toothpick for doneness at 10 minutes and do 10-15 minutes at 350˚F.
Hi could I use baking spread (ie. Stork) as a substitute for the butter in this recipe?
I haven’t tried those substitutions, so I can’t speak to that. Substitutions may hinder the recipe outcome. I always suggest making a recipe as written the first time around.
Yum! Very very good and moist! This will be my favorite recipe to follow from now on!
Awesome! I’m glad you found your new go-to recipe!
This was a great recipe. I substituted 1:1 gluten free flour and used chopped pecans instead of the chocolate chips, and they were amazing! Moist and flavorful!
I’m so happy you enjoyed that. Thank you for sharing that with us, Tanis!
Delicious 😀
Natasha, thank you for another great recipe. This was a easy to follow recipe and even better it’s delicious.
I followed the recipe exactly. The second time I added about 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp nutmeg.
Thank you ☺️
You’re welcome, so glad you enjoyed it!
So I followed the recipe exactly and they are very moist and delightful texture/ratio with banana to chocolate chip…… my only concern is I did not spray the muffin liners or pan and the batter stuck to my liners!
That being shared…. spray your liners!! EEK I lost 1/3 of my batter and they aren’t exactly servable ….. 🙁 Might be helpful to add that in the guide…. I’m sure an expert would know to always spray, however I was just following along and not thinking throughly.
Thanks for the tasty recipe!!
Hi Jasmine, I haven’t had that happen, maybe it could be the type of liners you used? For muffins, I found the best non-stick liners to be either silicone cupcake liners or Parchment liners.
I agree. Very moist, even though mine were overdone. I lost track of time and didn’t check them until 28 minutes. I use silicone liners and nothing sticks to them. Easy to fold inside-out to easily clean too.
Thank you for the time and efforts providing delicious recipes and ideas. I am using 3 ripe bananas to make those muffins. I am adding blueberries. Love your family.
I hope you love them, Mary! I’m so glad you’re giving this a try!
Hi Natasha: I made these 2x in the past month in double batches. I gave them to our neighbors and brought some to work as well as keeping some for ourselves. This is an awesome recipe. Everyone loved it.
That’s nice of you to always share, Jill. I’m happy to know that this recipe is always a hit!