4 Weeks to Fill Your Freezer: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins (Day 19)
This recipe is one of our longtime family favorites. These muffins are so good and freeze so well.
These also make a great dessert to add to a sack lunch. Just pull a frozen muffin out and stick it in a baggie in your sack lunch and by lunchtime, it’s all thawed and ready to eat.
If you want to try a bit of a different and healthier twist, The Frugal Girl remade this recipe using sweet potatoes, whole-wheat flour, and less oil.
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
- 4 eggs
- 2 cups sugar or raw sugar (can be reduced)
- 1 (16 oz.) can pureed pumpkin (or two cups cooked and pureed fresh pumpkin)
- 1 1/2 cups oil (vegetable, Canola, or olive)
- 3 cups flour (whole-wheat, white, or any combination of both)
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1-2 cups chocolate chips
In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs, sugar, pumpkin, and oil until smooth. Add in dry ingredients and mix well. Fold in chocolate chips. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups 3/4 full. Bake 16-20 minutes at 400 degrees.
To freeze: Thoroughly cool muffins and stick in an airtight freezer bag and freeze for up to 6 weeks.
To thaw: Let muffins thaw at room temperature for 30 minutes to an hour. Or, defrost individually for 1-2 minutes in the microwave.
Makes 24-30 muffins.
Did you do any freezer cooking today? If so, I’d love to see the results of your efforts! Link up your blog posts below or tell us about your success in the comments.
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51 Comments
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Joy says:
I’ve made these many times for our family. I like to freeze them too. We all love them!
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Mine too! Maybe if I had muffins in the freezer he would eat breakfast on a regular basis…
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Kristen, we have the opposite problem. My husband is a big man that works outside and it’s like he can’t get enough breakfast. And he is picky!
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Rachel says:
Any thoughts on if I could substitute all the oil with applesauce? I would love to use less oil, but don’t want to lose the moistness.
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Mandi says:
There is a light version of these on food.com. That is the recipe that I usually work off of. I think it says you can replace all of the oil with applesauce but I’ve never tried it. But I have taken the remaining half oil and done a partial flax seed substitution. I bet you could easily reduce the oil to 1/3 oil vs. 2/3 applesauce or 1/4 oil vs. applesauce and they would still be good. The pumpkin keeps them moist, too. Sometimes if I want try changes like that I start with something less conservative like half and half and gradually replace more. Good luck!
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Rebecca says:
I replace all the oil with applesauce and they are very moist and sweet. I reduce the sugar to one cup for white and I can use only 3/4 cup for raw. I used honey once and it did not work. I have used whole wheat flour too. I now use gluten free flour.
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Amy says:
Does anybody know if the same recipe will work if I want to make bread instead of muffins?
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Charity says:
I’ve never tried it, but I make muffins with things that are supposed to be bread (banana or pumpkin bread) and have no problems. It would probably work the other way around.
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Susan says:
I have had good results using other muffin recipes for bread (and vice versa). This recipe should work as well. You would need to bake it at a lower temperature. 25 degrees lower usually works for me. Good luck!
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Oh I wish canned pumpkin were on sale all year! $1.79 per can at the grocery store this time of year. Next Thanksgiving I am buying 50 cans. We ran out of 5 cans in less than a month making:
Pumpkin Oatmeal –
http://whisktogether.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/baked-pumpkin-oatmeal/
Pumpkin Pancakes-
http://whisktogether.wordpress.com/2011/09/12/100-whole-wheat-pumpkin-pancakes/ -
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shonda says:
I love this recipe, but also like to make pumpkin spice muffins, too. It’s a spice cake mix and a 15 oz can of pumpkin. No oil, eggs or other ingredients. You could still add the chocolate chips if you wanted, and they are really moist and yummy. I haven’t made enough to try freezing yet, they go too fast!
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These look like something my daughter and I would love!
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These look really good, and I still have a ton of pumpkin in my freezer from last year.
I have a lot of oregano in my garden right now so I made 4 batches of oregano chicken for the freezer.
This weekend I plan on making a bunch of oregano pesto as well (If I can get rid of this cold).
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Carla says:
Even though I love chocolate, would the recipe be just the same without adding the chocolate chips? Thanks for posting it!
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haely says:
Yes, My husband doesn’t like chocolate (weird I know) and he liked them very much . I just made them last week and added the chips (less than a whole package) after I poured a few in the pan for him.
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I usually reduce eggs to two , sub half oil for applesauce, and use far less sugar and these are STILL one of the best muffin recipes I have ever tried! Thanks for sharing!!
http://confectionsofacheapskate.com -
Kelly says:
I have a recipe very similar to this that I found online over 15 years ago! Over the years, I’ve made frequent adjustments to make it healthier. I only use 2 eggs & use a flaxseed/water combo to replace the other 2. I use 1/2 c. melted butter & 1/2 c. applesauce for the oil. The sugar has been cut down to 1-1/4 c. and no one can tell a difference in the sweetness. I’m currently using a combination of whole wheat & white whole wheat flour. I use mini choc. chips and just 3/4 c.; the minis make it look like there are more plus stretch my supply of choc. chips! 🙂 I can usually get 24 big muffins & 24 mini-muffins out of one batch.
These have been gradual changes over the years. My version looks nothing like the original I found all those years ago (which also had sliced almonds–never used those!). I just made a batch this morning. Some will be eaten for breakfast & the rest will go into the freezer.
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Kelly says:
Our family loves these muffins. I have made them several times and everytime we take the last one out of the freezer the kids ask when can we make more! Plus they are so easy the kids always like to come in and help. Like others have said I replace at least half of the oil with applesauce and I always use olive oil in mine and they still come out super moist. Thanks for the great recipe.
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Diane says:
I’m not a big fan of chocolate (yes, I’m weird!) so I substitute the chocolate chips with raisins. I also substitute half the oil with applesause and half with melted coconut oil, along with reducing the sugar. They’re still moist and freeze great!
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shannon says:
This series has been all the motivation I need! Thanks so much Crystal as my due date is the beginning of July and now I have ham and cheese pockets, southwest burritos, brown bag burritos and pizza pockets made for lunch. Yesterday I made quinoa chocolate chip muffins and I already have a nice stash of breakfast foods. Finally, your chicken tetrazinni, BBQ meatballs and a few other meals are in the freezer for dinner as well.
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Kate says:
I’m due August 1 and I have GOT to get freezer cooking! I am a teacher, and I just got out of school last Wednesday. I took Thursday and Friday off for myself. This week I focused on cleaning house. Next week I will tackle freezer cooking. So happy to finally be off work, but I’m getting nervous about how quickly the weeks are flying by! Good luck with your little one!
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Tara says:
Did you use full size chocolate chips? They appear to be the mini ones in the picture. Thanks!
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Laura Horn says:
I make these quite often to keep in the freezer. Like some others have posted, we use applesauce in place of the oil and only 1 cup of sugar. They are still wonderful! I also use mini chocolate chips because they seem to disperse better throughout the muffins and you get chocolate in every bite!
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Marion says:
I have been making these for as long as Crystal has have had them on her website (3 yrs maybe). The best muffins hands down! We eat them about once a week for breakfast. Last year I started playing with the recipe. I now make them with 3/4 cup of oil and 1 cup of natural apple sauce (not homemade). I also add 1 T of pumpkin spice and 1 T of cinnamon. I think mini chocolate chips work better.
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Andrea O says:
Just made these yesterday! We love them here! I use organic spelt flour and this time I used about 3/4 cup of coconut sugar (replaced 3/4 cup of the white). Despite freezing some, they usually only last 2 weeks top in our house! Thank you!
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Jenni Naselli says:
I use 2 cups of whole wheat flour and 1 cup of oatmeal. The oatmeal blends right in and you can’t even taste or see it.
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Roxanne says:
My family loves these muffins, but I make them with butterscotch chips instead of chocolate chips. Don’t get me wrong, we love chocolate around here, but there’s something about the pumpkin and the butterscotch chips that work so well together. One time I made a batch and put chocolate chips in half of the muffins and butterscotch in the other half and the butterscotch muffins were a much bigger hit.
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Suzanne says:
This is an old thread but making these as I speak. I forgot how great they make the house smell!
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I love the variety of possible changes to this recipe posted in these comments. We also have a pumpkin chocolate chip muffin recipe that we have improved and used for years. I recently posted it here; runranfam.blogspot.com.
Crystal, your freezer challenge is excellent. I always hope to freeze some of these muffins away, but alas, they are usually gone before I get them there!
Thanks for your blog. It’s a good one. -
`Mary says:
I’ve been making this same recipe for my kids for many years now, but have changed some of the ingredients to make them a little healthier. This is the only muffin my 15 year old son likes for breakfast. They eat them up and there’s no chance to get them into my freezer. I use only 1/2 cup of coconut sugar, 1 cup of olive oil and I use gluten free flour with 1 1/2 tsp. guar gum. They turn out good. I found this recipe in a Taste of Home magazine many years ago and actually have the recipe memorized because I make it so much. Need to go make more because they are gone and I just made about 2 1/2 dozen a couple of days ago.
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Sarah says:
These were good, just made them today with my 6 year old. I cut the sugar to 1c, that was plenty and used 1 cup of chocolate. I would have cut the oil but I didn’t have any applesauce. I wish the pumpkin flavor was stronger though. Even my daughter expressed she couldn’t taste the pumpkin. Not sure what would happen I feel I added extra pumpkin and cut some oil.
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Wifey says:
What if I want to double the recipe but only have 29 oz canned pumpkin? Should I substitute with applesauce for the remaining 3 oz?
holi 
charity crawford 
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Kim 
Jamie 
Heather MM 
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