Bran muffins are a quick and easy treat for breakfast or snacks. They taste amazing and your whole family will love them!
What makes these the Best Ever Bran Muffins
For starters, they are super easy to make, they don’t require a lot of steps, they are delicious, and they are packed with nutrition.
If you’ve been around here for a while, you know I love Chocolate Covered Katie. So naturally, I loved her cookbook, too!
I dog-eared a bunch of pages with recipes I wanted to try, but then my friend Stacy said her family loved the Ironman Muffin recipe… so Kaitlynn (my 10-year-old) and I gave them a try!
Kaitlynn made the first batch and we instantly fell in love!
By the way, Stacy sent me these USA Pans as a gift. Now I know why she has sung their praises over and over and over again. They are amazing!
If you’ve been looking for a good bran muffin recipe that is also really good for you, try these out!
Oh, and in typical “Crystal style”, I took the original recipe and re-did it. 😉
Bran Muffin Recipe Ingredients
- 2 cups wheat bran
- 1¼ cups milk
- ¼ cup melted coconut oil
- 2 Tbsp. molasses
- 1 egg
- 1¼ cups whole-wheat flour
- ½ cup raw sugar
- 1 Tbsp. baking powder
- ¼ tsp. salt
- ⅔ cup raisins (optional)
Bran Muffin Substitutions
If you’re dairy-free, you can substitute your favorite “milk”.
You can also swap in melted butter for the coconut oil, if that’s what you have on hand.
Maple syrup or honey could be an alternative to molasses, although it will change the flavor slightly.
Granulated sugar, or even brown sugar will work in place of the raw sugar.
And, the raisins are totally optional. You could use craisins for a different taste — or even chocolate chips!
How to Make Bran Muffins
1. Preheat oven to 400ºF.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine bran and milk and let soak for 5-10 minutes.
3. Mix in oil, molasses, and eggs.
4. In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients and raisins.
5. Pour the dry ingredients into the bran mixture and stir until just combined.
6. Pour batter into 12-15 greased or lined muffin cups.
6. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until lightly browned.
7. Allow to cool for 10 minutes and then remove from muffin tins.
How to serve Bran Muffins
Bran muffins are a perfect on-the-go breakfast option for busy mornings.
They are also an easy take-along snack as they don’t need to be refrigerated.
If you have a bit more time, serve them with eggs, sausage, and fruit for a more leisurely breakfast or brunch.
Best Bran Muffin Recipe Storage
Keep bran muffins in an air-tight food storage container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
If you want to store them for longer, we recommend freezing them in a zip-top bag.
Bran Muffins Recipe FAQs
The main difference is that bran muffins use less flour, and include bran, which is denser, and more nutritious than white flour.
While bran muffins do contain a good amount of fiber, they certainly aren’t a “low calorie” food. Bran muffins are still made with oil and sugar, just like most other muffins.
Over-mixing is the main reason why bran muffins get too tough. When you over-mix the batter, the gluten structure is too tight to expand around the gas bubbles, so the end muffin is much more dense and chewy instead of light and fluffy.
Bran Muffin
Ingredients
- 2 cups wheat bran
- 1¼ cups milk
- ¼ cup melted coconut oil
- 2 Tbsp. molasses
- 1 egg
- 1¼ cups whole-wheat flour
- ½ cup raw sugar
- 1 Tbsp. baking powder
- ¼ tsp. salt
- ⅔ cup raisins optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400ºF.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine bran and milk and let soak for 5-10 minutes.
- Mix in oil, molasses, and eggs.
- In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients and raisins.
- Pour the dry ingredients into the bran mixture and stir until just combined.
- Pour batter into 12-15 greased or lined muffin cups.
- Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until lightly browned.
- Allow to cool for 10 minutes and then remove from muffin tins.
Notes
Nutrition
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Looking for more muffin recipes? Check out my post on My Top 7 Favorite Freezer-Friendly Muffin Recipes.
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Reader Interactions
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I made these today and added 1.5 tsp of cinnamon – super yummy!
That sounds delicious! Thanks for the great idea! -Jordan, MSM Team
Could you use oat bran in this recipe instead of wheat bran?
I think you maybe could. Let me know if you try it!
I think you probably could. Let me know if you try it!
Do these freeze well? It seems like most muffins do. Thanks!
Yes, they do!
Hi! I hope to try these soon. I lost my favorite bran muffin recipe some years ago and have been reluctant to try other recipes since they come out dry. Would you say this is a moist muffin or a hearty texture type? I’m really particular about moist baked good such as muffins and cakes.
Also, I noticed a discrepancy between this recipe on here and the one in the post you sent out on 08/03/17 via email. This one says 1 egg and the email version says 2 eggs. Please advise which it is. Thanks so much!
This is a heartier muffin, but it’s also fairly moist. I like it fresh from the oven with lots of butter! 🙂 I’ve done both 1 egg and 2 eggs, but I decided to change it to 1 egg since that mirrors the original recipe better.
Your nail polish is super fun! 🙂
Thank you so much! I love it!
I’m impressed you didn’t use chocolate chips instead of raisins. I am not that strong yet. ? These look great! Where do you get your wheat bran and in what aisle is it found? Probably a silly question, but I have a hard time finding things that aren’t my usuals. ?And I LOVE how you constantly give comment love and props to others!!! You are hands-down my favorite blogger!
You’re so kind!!
So you could use bran flakes instead of wheat bran, as the original recipe calls for. But the wheat bran should be near the baking supplies — somewhere near the flour, oats, etc.
I would find it in the organic baking section of my store most likely. I am going to try this recipe since I have a bunch of wheat bran in my freezer. Do you think that oat bran could be substituted for the wheat?
I haven’t tried it before, but I think it would maybe work. Let me know if you try it!
Ok I think we must be related 🙂 I am always changing recipes & I will probably do my own version of this one 🙂 They look really good so hmmmmm
Let me know what you change in them! I’d love to know — and it might inspire me to try something new! 🙂
I’m so curious why you don’t create pinnable images for posts like these? Would look great and be so much better to pin! And a recipe plugin? The “Print This” button isn’t working….
Ha! That’s a great question! We do create pinnable images… it just takes us a few weeks to get them done. Because I usually write the posts the day that they go live and then our graphics girl goes back and makes pinnable images that we then share on social media a few weeks later. Someday I hope to be able to do better about not blogging the post for the day the day it goes up, but we’ll see! 🙂
Unfortunately, our backend of the site is having issues so we can’t add any new plugins right now or it breaks the site (not fun!), but I didn’t realize that the Print This button wasn’t working. I’ll go see if we can get that fixed!
haha I know all about last minute! 😉 Bummer about the plugin.
Just curious….why did you decide to add eggs to the recipe? Did it make them more moist? Thanks.
The original recipe calls for flax, which is a substitute for eggs (the creator of the recipe is vegan). I didn’t have flax seeds, so I used eggs instead.
Ah ha!! Understand!
Those are the best muffin pans. I never use liners, and I’ve never had anything stick.
Since I was taking these muffins on our trip, I used liners for them, but I can’t believe how I can make muffins without liners and have no issues with them sticking in this pan!! They are amazing!