Blueberry Lemon Muffins
These blueberry muffins are made with whole wheat flour and Greek yogurt. So delicious, no one will guess they're wholesome, too!
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on October 22, 2024
Today, I present to you the perfect muffin recipe. That’s what Deb of Smitten Kitchen called it, and after trying her recipe last weekend, I can confirm that the recipe is, indeed, quite nice.
Update, 10 years later: I actually prefer these healthy blueberry muffins to this recipe!
The muffins turned out so light, fluffy and flavorful that no one could tell they were wholesome muffins masquerading as crazy-delicious muffins. I used whole wheat pastry flour to ensure that the muffins would end up as light and fluffy as they would using white flour. Greek yogurt and lemon zest lent a decadent texture and flavor, respectively.
For the fruit, I used blueberries and blackberries, whereas Deb used blueberries only. Neither of those berries are in season, but you could certainly substitute other seasonal fruit or frozen fruit. You can’t go wrong with this versatile recipe!
Blueberry Lemon Muffins
These blueberry muffins are made with whole wheat flour and Greek yogurt. So delicious, no one will guess they’re wholesome, too! Recipe yields 9 to 10 standard muffins.
Ingredients
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- ½ cup sugar (I used organic turbinado sugar)
- 1 large egg
- ¾ cup plain Greek yogurt (I used 0% fat plain Chobani yogurt)
- ½ teaspoon grated lemon zest
- 1 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, don’t bother defrosting). I suspect any muffin-friendly fruit would be great!
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F.
- Line a muffin tin with paper liners or spray with nonstick cooking spray.
- If you have an electric mixer, use it to beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (that’s how Deb did it). I mixed the ingredients by hand, with a whisk, since I don’t have an electric mixer.
- Add egg and beat well, then yogurt and zest.
- If you have a sifter, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and sift half of dry ingredients over batter. I don’t have a sifter, so I mixed the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl and added it to the bowl of liquid ingredients.
- Mix until combined.
- Sift (or add) remaining dry ingredients into batter and mix just until the flour disappears.
- Gently fold in your blueberries (or whatever fruit you’re using).
- Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the tops are golden. Enjoy!
Notes
Recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen, which was adapted from Cooks Illustrated.
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
I can’t wait to try making these muffins with chopped apples and cinnamon, cranberries and whatever else I can find. What will you try?
I am 7 years old and I made your blueberry lemon muffins all by my self. They are delicious. I can really taste the lemon zest.
These sound great!! Any idea of the nutritional value? Thank you Amanda
Hi, can i replace butter with canola oil? Maybe 1/4 cup?
I made these with equal tbsp. canola oil for butter (spouse is severely lactose intol.) and it worked great. Favorite muffin recipe for now.
I plan on making these for Labor Day for my family friends. But I was wondering how much does the recipe serve?
It makes 9 to 10 muffins.
Kate,
I’m trying to find a blueberry muffin recipe with NO sugar or maple syrup, or agave. Just maybe sweetened with bananas or apple sauce, etc. Suggestions to alter this recipe to no sugar?
Thank you!
Grace
Hi Grace, that’s a tough order! I’d probably start with my banana muffins recipe, omit the sweetener and maybe add more bananas (or applesauce) instead, and add blueberries. Please let me know how that works out!
I made these muffins this morning and they were absolutely wonderful. I only had vanilla greek yogurt, so I added that instead of plain greek yogurt, and left out some of the sugar. Also added the juice of a whole lemon. The house smelled amazing as they were baking! I am usually a chocolate girl… but I think these are my favorite muffins ever!! A tad on the sweeter side for my liking, but thats because of the vanilla yogurt… Thank you for this and all the other wonderful recipes you post. Already pre-ordered your book :)
So glad they worked out with what you had on hand! & I can’t wait til the books come in :) Hoping you’ll love it!
These were FANTASTIC! Didn’t have lemons so I used vanilla extract and the muffins turned out great. Love the greek yogurt in these muffins.
I’m glad that substitution worked out, Christy! Sounds warm and delicious.
These are perfection! I’ve been on a muffin kick lately and these are hands down the best; just a little sweetness and perfectly moist. My boyfriend was hesitant about blueberries and lemon in the miffins…then “accidentally” ate half the batch. I am making a double batch tonight.
I put a lemon glaze on top for an extra lemony zing
Thanks, Kate! I am in love with your blog and recipes.
Oh, lemon glaze sounds delicious with these, Katie! Thanks so much for the suggestion. I’m so glad you both enjoyed them so much. :)
Hello Kate!!!
I love all your recipes!! I made your whole wheat banana muffins..I make them very often to use up the ripe bananas and put them in the freezer so that it’s always at hand when I crave for something sweet. I just made your blueberry muffins with regular whole wheat flour and virgin coconut oil, and they’re a hit too!! So finally I had to leave a comment, it would not be right if I didn’t appreciate your work. Will be making your apple muffins next!!
Thank u soo much for all the HEALTHY recipes.
Thank you so much, Naila! I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed my recipes. Thanks for commenting.
I just made these, they smell and taste amazing! I love that they aren’t too sweet and you can really taste the fruit! I went for blueberries and strawberries and it is the perfect combo :)
I’m officialy hooked on your recipies :D In the past three days I made these muffins, Red Thai Curry and the Avocado Pesto Toast – yummy!
Can’t wait to buy your book! Do you know if it will be available in Germany?
I forgot to rate the recipe! Of course it deserves 5*
This is a great, versatile recipe! I made it with white sugar, whole wheat flour (not pastry), added 1/2 tap vanilla and added a splash of almond milk since I didn’t have quite enough yogurt. They were great! Seems like most reviewers made substitutions based on what they had handy and it turns out great. Very forgiving, yummy muffins!!! Baked mine for 24 minutes exactly.
Yum! I’m so glad these worked out so well for you, Caitlin.
For these, I used the zest of 1/2 a lemon and its juice – perfect flavor. I used kerrygold butter, organic greek Kirkland fat-free yogurt, unbleached all purpose flour from Trader Joe’s, and about 1 cup of fresh bluberries. Turned out perfect – great summer muffin :) I highly recommend using silicone muffin baking cups – so easy to pop out.
I love all your baking recipes and so does my fiance! He doesn’t typically like “healthy” baked goods, but yours are a winner in our house. I love these and your banana bread – I make them on the regular for us :) Thank you so much!
Thanks, Andrea! I hear those silicon baking cups are super easy, I’ll have to try it. I’m glad both of you enjoy these, even though they are “healthier” than most. :)
Cookie & Kate – Your recipe for the Lemon Blueberry Muffins is absolutely delicious! I just made two batches of this recipe as mini muffins and am enjoying them! I also made this recipe as mini muffins and gave them away as Christmas gifts last year and they were a big hit! Your recipe for Lemon Blueberry Muffins has now made it into my recipe file. Thank you!
~Kris
PS – Going to make the cranberry cornbread next, but will substitute blueberries for the cranberries.
Thank you, Kristine! I hope the cornbread goes well, too.
Made these today. Hubby who is
not a big fan of Greek yogurt gobbled up his muffin and didn’t suspect a thing ;) What a delicious way to sneak in healthy baking substitutes. Thanks for making the baking bug bite me with your easy peasy recipes!
Hi! Can i substitute butter with coconut oil?
Tks! Love your recipes
Of course! It should be a 1:1 substitution.
Excellent recipe, thank you! Turns out nice and light, even when I used a 2:1 ratio of wholemeal to white flour!. Have made twice now, and added a bit extra lemon zest and blueberries the 2nd time and turned out great and flavoursome.
Delicious! Thank you, Tayla for your star review.
Just wanted to share an orange and blueberry variation I made the other day that turned out so well! I used your recipe as the base, and got quantities/ideas for the other ingredients from a recipe over at ‘Pretty. Simple. Sweet’
Apart from the other main ingredients, I used 2 eggs (as you have mentioned to do in other comments), low fat greek yoghurt, 55g butter (reduced from the original), a scant 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup fresh pulp-free orange juice, about 1 Tbsp orange zest, and at the end folded in blueberries and a little bit of chopped white chocolate. They turned out very nicely and flavoursome, though could do with even more zest and some more white choc if wanted.
Thanks so much for the base recipe, I have been using it to try all sorts of flavour variations and it is the best!!!
Delicious and healthy .What more can you ask for!!!!!
Thank you, Maggie! I appreciate the star review.
My daughter and I just made these and they are a hit! Even a picky brother/son loved them! We did have to make a few modifications: I am lactose intolerant so we used plain, lactose-free yoghurt but ended up not having enough so we used some applesauce to make up the difference. We did not have turbinado sugar so just used brown sugar. We did not have whole wheat pastry flour so we used 1 cup regular whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup of regular flour and added an extra egg to counter the coarser flour used. Sprinkled a bit of brown sugar on top – yummy. Thank you for the recipe. One day I will have all the correct ingredients and can make it as written but the variation we made was excellent!
You’re welcome, Rita! I’m so happy you liked it with your alterations. I appreciate the review.
Fantastic recipe. I never baked with whole wheat flour (or the pastry which I used). So I didn’t know what to expect. But it was easy to do I had to substitute light brown sugar. My only effort I would do for my next round is a bit more zest!
Great recipe. I substitute 1/4 c. flax meal for the flour and use locally grown and milled flour from Beck’s bakery. Delish!
Thanks for sharing your substitutions, Lisa.
Has anyone tried this recipe with standard whole wheat flour? Does it work well? So excited to try these muffins! Kate has excellent recipes!
Let me know what you think, Maggie!
I just did! Sorta haha… used half a cup whole wheat flour and a cup of almond meal… delicious!
REALLY GOOD!
I used truvia baking blend instead of sugar, only 4 tbs of butter, .5 cup of whole-wheat flour, 1 cup of almond flour, and added lemon juice to enhance the lemony flavor:) I did add blackberries with the blueberries but I think I won’t next time because of the seeds…
Overall the is delicious!!
Thanks for sharing, Haley!
From now on, I will push aside doubts and follow your recipes without questions. I thought “Wow, this is far too thick a batter, obviously missed a liquid.” Nope! I honestly fought to get the batter into each paper liner equally and evenly but holy cow was it worth the effort. These are awwwwwesommmme.
Ha, thank you Kimberly!
My husband is not a fan of yogurt or whole wheat flour and he loved these muffins. They will be my go to recipe for berry muffins from now on. Thanks for the recipe!
I’m glad these won him over!
Can you use splenda (for baking) as a substitute for the sugar?
I don’t cook with splenda, but it could work. Let me know if you try it.
Hi! These muffins look amazing. One problem though. My family is vegetarian and we can’t eat/use eggs. Do you have any substitutionary ingredients we could use instead? Thanks!
Hi Venya! Check out the vegan notes below the recipe. Flax eggs should work.
I used chia eggs (same as flax eggs) because I ran out of eggs and they were great! I also used oat flour instead of pastry flour
Ok! Thank you!
Is it normal for the consistency to be more like cookie dough? I got all of my measurements right, but when I get to the stage where it’s just batter and then fold in the fruit, my recipe looks sort of harder than I imagined muffin batter to be.
How did they turn out?
They actually turned out pretty well, if I would have folded the blueberries in the night before, they probably would have been a bit more moist. I had to prep the batter the night before because we had a busy morning, so the next morning I tried to fold them in and the batter was pretty hard. I ended up stuffing as many in as I could and calling it a day. I’ll do better next time!
I made these today using spelt flour (as that was what I had) and regular unflavoured yogurt. Perhaps my muffin tins are small but it did make a dozen. They disappeared quickly … two to the Internet repair guy
Very tasty!
Simple, wholesome and delish. Thanks for sharing your version. I may try to up the yoghurt and reduce the butter the next time. Made them for my son and his friend and they devoured them so quickly I had to hide the rest away. :-) I used spelt instead of whole wheat pastry flour which is what I normally use for most of my baking and they were perfect.
These were awesome!! I’ve been trying to find a muffin recipe that uses whole wheat pastry flour and still tastes good and doesn’t have such a dense texture. I only had regular vanilla yogurt and it worked fine. It actually helped the batter not be so dry (compared to the pics here).
I’ve made this 2 times now. My kids LOVED the muffins both times.
Thank you for sharing this recipe!!
Hooray! Thank you for sharing, Chelsea.
I added a Tbsp of honey and it added the perfect amount of sweetness.
Thank you Kate! This recipe is always delicious! I just experimented with replacing 1/2 cup of wheat flour with 1/2 cup of millet flour and they were great! Also used Earth Balance instead of butter. I have also made this gluten free using Bob’s flour and xanthum gum which turned out well too.
Hands down the best muffins I’ve ever had!
My husband really like these, the rest of us not so much. Not enough lemon flavor, tasted too sweet and like butter. I made a gluten free version. Will not make again. Much prefer the lemon cranberry muffins.
Loved it! Surprisingly moist!
I used whole wheat flour instead of the pastry flour. Added a few tablespoons of flaxseed meal.
Added juice of 1 lemon.
Added a teaspoon of lemon extract.
Sprinkled brown sugar on top.
Thank you for this great go-to!
Perfect recipe- and perfect bc it’s so versatile. First batch I made exactly as the recipe called for and they were so yummy. (Actually I added a lil lemon juice Bc i was seriously craving lemon). Second batch i made eggless – and used oil bc I was out of butter. I just added a whole cup of Greek yogurt instead of the 3/4 c in the recipe. And 5 tbs oil instead of the 5 tbs butter. Also added seltzer water bc I read online it helps with fluffiness as an egg replacement, and it worked – so that’s cool.
Thanks for this recipe!
These muffins are delicious! I decreased the sugar to a heaping 1/4 cup, used regular whole wheat flour, zested a whole lemon (roughly 1 tablespoon), and split the fruit between frozen blueberries and frozen cherry pieces. Also, I was lazy and didn’t soften the butter enough, so my batter needed a little more moisture – I added 2-3 tablespoons of milk. Altogether, they were a success!
Hi I love this recipe, but please can you make it a dozen!!!
Kate, the muffins came out delicious! I did have to substitute some of the ingredients such as the greek yogurt for blueberry coconut milk yogurt (I’m glad I had that in my fridge), and I used regular whole wheat flour instead of pastry flour. And I think I accidentally added two more tablespoons of butter than called for, but they came out very moist and rich. So it worked! Thanks for the recipe!
Kate, can I sub coconut oil for the butter without impacting the consistency?
Hi Susan, I haven’t tried it. But, I believe others have and had great results! Be sure to report back.
Awesome!! Awesome!! So delish, light and fluffy!! Thank you for this great healthy receipe!!
Easy to follow recipe, with the simplest ingredients! Absolutely Devine! Kids ate them warm out of the oven-winning!
These muffins were lackluster for me. As others mentioned, a very thick batter. I ended up pouring in some orange juice to thin it out. Also I would use much more lemon zest, and juice because they don’t taste very lemon-y. Not sweet enough for my taste either. Could be a good base with some modifications. I appreciate the health factor.
I’m sorry you didn’t love these, Kelsey.
Thanks for this deliciously versatile recipe! Loved it.
Thank you for your review, Maja!
These were delicious! I doubled the blueberries and the lemon zest. Baked up (10 muffins) in 18 minutes.
Thank you for sharing!
These are scrumptious! I made a few substitutions for what I had on hand – King Arthur all-purpose unbleached flour and low-fat lemon yogurt. I also added some toasted almond slivers. They are light, moist and flavorful. This will go in the recipe keep box!!
I used almond flour and mango yogurt. This was a hit with my teens!
My batch turned out amazing! Hubby isn’t a fan of blueberries and whole wheat anything but just loved these muffins, even commented how fluffy they were! This recipe is going to be well used.
That’s great, Celia! Thank you for your review.
This recipe was much too dense thus the muffins were very dry even after I had to add a lot of milk to make the batter usable. Also couldn’t taste the lemon at all.
Hi Ashley, I’m sorry to hear that. It sounds like you had too much flour. How did you measure your flour?
Super fluffy and delicious! Would definitely love a little more lemon flavor. Thinking of making a lemon glaze for them next time. Thanks for the recipe :)