Soft and perfectly spiced pumpkin oatmeal muffins are made with simple baking ingredients, real pumpkin, and the familiar fall season flavors of pumpkin pie spice. Topped with a buttery streusel, these fluffy muffins are perfect to grab for an easy breakfast or snacking on all pumpkin season long!
There are so many ways to get creative with the flavor of fresh pumpkin, whether it’s in pumpkin snickerdoodles, pumpkin dip, pumpkin bread, or pumpkin pudding shots!
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Table of contents
Easy Pumpkin Oat Muffins
Pumpkin definitely deserves its own season! I mean, it’s pretty much Spring, Summer, Pumpkin, and Winter as is anyway, right?!
For good reason too!
However, sometimes it’s nice to get back to the basics and whip up a batch of simple homemade pumpkin oatmeal muffins. Topped off with a cinnamon sugar streusel, one bite of these soft moist muffins made with real pumpkin and warm fall spices and you’ll remember why simple bakes are sometimes the best bakes!
Ingredients/shopping list
- All-Purpose Flour: Use a kitchen scale to measure it accurately, or use the spoon and level method. If you scoop the flour right out of the bag, you’ll end up using too much and your muffins will be dense.
- Old Fashioned Oats: I love the texture of using old-fashioned oats. Instant or quick oats can be used as well, but they absorb liquid faster, so they will have less texture, but just as much taste!
- Baking Powder: This is what we want to help our muffins to rise and become nice and fluffy!
- Pumpkin Pie Spice: A traditional blend of all the fall spices used in all kinds of pumpkin desserts. I have a wonderfully aromatic homemade pumpkin pie spice blend that I use.
- Salt: Brings out the flavors in everything.
- Pumpkin Puree: Pure 100% pumpkin please! Not pumpkin pie filling as that will alter the taste of the muffins because of the added sugar and spices that come in the filling.
- Light Brown Sugar: A delicious caramelized flavor with a hint of molasses that pairs well with pumpkin and spice!
- Whole Milk: Using whole milk adds richness to the batter keeping it from being too runny. You can also use nondairy milk like soy milk, almond milk, or oat milk if you prefer.
- Vegetable Oil: Gives the muffins added moisture.
- Large Eggs: Used to bind the ingredients together.
- Vanilla Extract: Just makes everything taste better! Use pure vanilla extract if you can.
- For the Streusel Topping: A combination of old-fashioned oats, all-purpose flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and softened butter.
Variations/ Substitutions
1. Stir some mix-ins into the batter! Chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, raisins, chopped nuts like pecans or walnuts, etc.
2. To make this egg-free, use ½ cup of unsweetened applesauce.
3. You can also use the applesauce or greek yogurt as a replacement for the oil to make them healthy pumpkin muffins, but I wouldn’t use it for both at the same time. Pick one or the other!
4. Swap the streusel topping for a crumble topping by omitting the oats altogether.
5. Use half whole wheat flour or oat flour and half all-purpose flour if desired. You can easily make your own homemade oat flour by pulsing whole oats in a food processor.
6. Swap light brown sugar for dark brown sugar, white sugar, coconut sugar or even maple syrup.
7. Make these muffins gluten free by using a 1:1 gluten free flour like Bob’s Red Mill.
How to Make this Pumpkin Muffin Recipe
Whip up an entire batch of 12 delicious pumpkin oatmeal muffins in just 30 minutes and have them on hand for breakfast on the go, brunch with the family, or a snack when the mood for pumpkin spice strikes again!
Step 1: Preheat the oven to 375°F and line a muffin pan with paper liners or grease it with nonstick baking spray.
Step 2: In a medium mixing bowl, add the rolled oats, flour, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, and salt together well.
Step 3: In a large bowl, add the pumpkin puree, brown sugar, milk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. Whisk until smooth.
Step 4: Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Do not overmix.
Step 5: Fill the prepared muffin tin with ¾ cup of muffin batter in each cup. Set it aside while you combine the ingredients for the streusel.
Step 6: In a small bowl, add the flour, oats, brown sugar, and cinnamon and stir to combine. Then, add the softened butter and use a fork to mix the butter into the dry ingredients until coarse crumbs are formed.
Step 7: Sprinkle an even amount of streusel overtop each muffin then bake for 18-22 minutes.
Place the pumpkin oatmeal muffins on a wire cooling rack once out of the oven. Enjoy!
Tips
- Kosher salt is the preferred salt for baking because it has a milder flavor than table salt, which is mellowed out and not “salty” when used in the same amount.
- Make your own pumpkin pie spice or swap it for 1 ¼ teaspoons ground cinnamon, ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg, and ¼ teaspoon ground cloves.
- Swap the vegetable oil for an equal amount of unsweetened applesauce for lower-fat muffins.
- Once you’ve combined the wet ingredients with the dry, be sure not to overmix. You just want to make sure there are no streaks of flour left in the batter. If you overdo it, you’ll end up with dense, dry pumpkin oatmeal muffins.
- Make mini muffins with this recipe by lowering the cooking time to 11-14 minutes.
FAQ’s
These can be kept at room temperature for up to 1 week. Store them in an airtight container so they don’t dry out.
You can! Once they pumpkin oatmeal muffins are completely cooled, transfer them to a freezer bag or freezer-safe container to keep frozen for up to 2 months. Thaw at room temperature.
Absolutely. Since the recipe doesn’t specify one way or the other it’s because I’ve tried both, and both are great!
Canned pumpkin is thicker and contains less water, so you may end up with a thicker batter. In both cases, you’ll want to blot the excess water as much as possible from the pumpkin.
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Pumpkin Oatmeal Muffins
Ingredients
For the Muffins
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup old fashioned oats
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup 100% pumpkin puree
- 1 cup light brown sugar lightly packed
- ½ cup whole milk
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the Streusel Topping
- ¼ cup old fashioned oats
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup light brown sugar lightly packed
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons butter softened
Instructions
Make the Muffins
- Preheat the oven to 375°F and line a muffin pan with paper liners or grease it with nonstick baking spray.
- In a medium bowl, add the old fashioned oats, flour, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, and salt and stir to combine well.1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour, 1 cup old fashioned oats, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice, ½ teaspoon salt
- In a large mixing bowl, add the pumpkin puree, brown sugar, milk, oil,eggs, and vanilla and whisk until smooth.1 cup 100% pumpkin puree, 1 cup light brown sugar, ½ cup whole milk, ½ cup vegetable oil, 2 large eggs, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix just until barely combined. Be careful not to over mix or the muffins will be more dense instead of fluffy.
- Fill the the muffin cups about ¾ of the way full with the batter.
Make the Streusel Topping
- In a small bowl, add the flour, old fashioned oats, brown sugar, and cinnamon and stir to combine.¼ cup old fashioned oats, ¼ cup all-purpose flour, ¼ cup light brown sugar, ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- Add the softened butter and use a fork to mix the butter into the flour mixture until all the dry ingredients are coated in butter and it forms clumps. (you can also use your fingers)2 tablespoons butter
- Sprinkle about a tablespoon of the streusel topping over the uncooked batter
- Bake for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and place the muffins on a wire cooling rack to cool.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional Disclosure
Nutritional facts are estimates and are provided as a courtesy to the reader. Please utilize your own brand nutritional values to double check against our estimates. Nutritional values are calculated via a third party. Changing ingredients, amounts or cooking technique will alter the estimated nutritional calculations.
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