These Chocolate Protein Muffins are healthy chocolate muffins packed with 5 grams of protein per serving. They are perfect for fixing your chocolate cravings and keeping you full for hours. Bonus, these protein muffins are vegan since they are made without eggs, dairy, or butter.
I love vegan high-protein recipes! They are so fulfilling and perfect for any time of the day to fix a quick craving with no guilt. Since I work out every day, I like to make my snacks contribute to my protein intake, so I always have either my Banana Protein Cookies, Protein Mug Cake, or Strawberry Protein Balls.
Why Adding Protein Powder To Muffins?
Let’s see how you can add protein powder to your muffins to make them even better for you. The key to making high-protein muffins is to use quality plant-based proteins like:
- High-protein flour – oat flour is our favorite choice. We make our own homemade oat flour in a blender or food processor.
- High-protein milk – like protein-fortified soy milk or almond milk.
- Plant-based protein powder for a protein booster.
Ingredients and Substitutions
It’s super easy to make chocolate protein muffins using your favorite protein powder and a few basic ingredients. All you need to make these delicious healthy protein muffins are:
- Unsweetened Soy Milk – We used protein-fortified soy milk to increase proteins in the recipe.
- Dairy-Free Yogurt – Any yogurt works well, but to keep the recipe dairy-free, we used soy yogurt. It’s as high in protein as regular Greek yogurt.
- Apple Cider Vinegar – To make it rise better.
- Oat Flour – Oat flour is naturally higher in protein than all-purpose flour and, therefore, the best choice to boost the protein in your muffins recipes. You can follow my oat flour recipe (it’s really easy to whip up) or buy it from the store.
- Unsweetened Cocoa Powder – Use an unsweetened version to make it easier to balance the sweetness.
- Chocolate Protein Powder – We used pea protein powder for this recipe. It also works fine for almond protein powder or peanut protein powder.
- Baking Powder – To give them their fluffy texture.
- Unrefined Cane Sugar or any granulate sweetener you love, including sugar-free erythritol or coconut sugar.
- Chocolate Chips – optional but delicious for a double chocolate flavor.
- Light Olive Oil or melted coconut oil.
- Vanilla Extract – for flavor.
- Salt – to boost the chocolate flavors.
How To Make Chocolate Protein Muffins
- First, preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a muffin tin with muffin paper liner. I made 10 muffins with this recipe, so you won’t need to fill the 12 holes.
- Spray some oil in the paper liner, then fill with the batter – about 1/4 cup for each muffin.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk liquid ingredients: soy milk, yogurt, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, and vanilla extract. Set aside until it gets slightly creamy and curdles.
- In another mixing bowl, whisk all the dry ingredients together until they are evenly combined: oat flour, sugar, unsweetened cocoa powder, chocolate protein powder, salt, and baking powder.
- Next, combine the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients and stir well until they come together into a chocolate muffin batter. Fold in the chocolate chips at the end if used.
- Finally, fill the 10 muffin cups with the batter – about 1/4 cup per muffin. Don’t make them too thick, or they take longer to bake.
- Bake the muffins in the center rack of your oven for about 20 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center of the muffins.
- Cool them down on a cooling rack for 1 hour before adding the protein frosting on top.
Making Protein Cupcakes With This Muffin Recipe
You can also use this protein muffins recipe to celebrate and turn them into cupcakes! You can frost these healthy muffins with any frosting you like, but we love high-protein frosting.
To make a protein frosting, whisk:
- 1/2 cup of PB2 Powdered Peanut Butter
- 1/4 cup of almond milk or yogurt
Other dairy-free frosting recipe ideas are:
Storage Instructions
These protein muffins store very well in an airtight box for 2-3 days at room temperature. Otherwise, place them in the fridge in an airtight container or freeze them for later. Finally, thaw the muffins the day before eating.
Frequently Asked Questions
Below I listed the answers to your most common questions.
No, the recipe won’t work with low-carb flour.
In fact, these are egg-free cupcakes, and therefore, low-carb flour would come together without binding ingredients like eggs.
We don’t recommend using high flavor protein powder like soy or hemp.
Also, whey protein powder is known to dry out baked goods, plus it’s not vegan, so we don’t use it in our recipes.
Yes, you can find some gluten-free certified oats at the grocery store and blend them into oat flour to make your own gluten-free oat flour.
Another option is to use all-purpose gluten-free flour, but the muffin will come up dense and packed.
More Vegan Protein Recipes
If you enjoy high-protein vegan recipes, you’ll love these:
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Chocolate Protein Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 cup Soy Milk - I used protein fortified soy milk
- ¼ cup Dairy-Free Yogurt - or applesauce
- 1 teaspoon Apple Cider Vinegar - or lemon juice
- 1 cup Oat Flour
- ⅓ cup Chocolate Protein Powder
- ½ cup Cane Sugar
- ⅓ cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
- 1 ½ teaspoon Baking Powder
- ¼ cup Light Olive Oil - or melted coconut oil
- 2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- ½ teaspoon Salt
Frosting
- 1 batch Protein Frosting Recipe
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Line 12-holes muffin tray with 10 paper liners – the recipe makes 10 muffins. Lightly spray oil on the paper to prevent the cupcakes from sticking to them.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk milk, yogurt, and apple cider vinegar. Set aside for 5 minutes until it curdles – this is what we call the vegan 'buttermilk'.
- In another bowl, stir all the dry ingredients: flour, protein powder, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl with the soy milk, stir in olive oil and vanilla extract.
- Stir in the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in three addition to avoid lumps. Stir well between each addition. The batter should be fairly liquid by smooth with no lumps.
- Fill each cupcake liner up to 3/4 level.
- Bake on the center rack of your oven for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcakes comes out clean.
- Cool them down on a cooling rack for 2 hours before frosting. Don't frost if the cupcakes are hot, or the vegan chocolate frosting will melt.
Storage
- Store for up to 3 days in the fridge in an airtight cake box, or freeze for later.
I made these tonight! They were delicious and easy. I was looking for a high-protein vegan muffin, and this is the first recipe of many I’ve tried that I really like. I was a bit worried because I had a lot more batter than expected, but all was well. I just have more muffins!
Thank you!
Can I use lactose free milk for the soy milk?
Sure, it should work!
I just made this with regular Greek yoghurt, and Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Protein Powder in Extreme Milk Chocolate. These are the fluffiest, most delicious protein muffins I’ve ever had. The texture is not compromised at all. I might reduce the sugar next time just for healthier breakfast purposes but they are perfect as is.
Owww thank you so much!!
I’m excited to try these, but they need to be gluten free and oat free for my family. Could I use an all-purpose GF flour (that is a 1-1 substitute for regular flour) in place of the oat flour?
That’s tricky, gluten-free flour tends to make cookies much more dense and gummy. It might work, but I’m not certain.
Made these per recipe except with AP flour and they came out decadently fluffy! The exact “tastes like dessert for breakfast” recipe I was looking for!
Is there anything I could use in place of protein powder. I don’t keep protein powder, but these look delish!
I haven’t try something else yet. Protein powder is highly absorbent so a swap would need to be a flour with same level of absorbency. I didn’t try yet so I am not sure, may oat flour …
Hi there!
I know it would make the recipe not vegan, but so you think collagen powder would work in place of the protein powder? We have many food allergies we work around.
The thing is I never used collagen powder before so I am not sure how it impact a cake texture. Protein powder really absorb liquid and firm up the muffins here.
Did you use baking soda in this recipe and how much?
I am in the middle of making them and noticed in the steps it’s says add all dry ingredients including baking soda but I don’t see it in the list of ingredients.
Thank you
Sorry for the late reply, the recipe only use baking powder as stated in the ingredients listed. I corrected the instructions to make it clear. Thanks for noticing my mistake. I hope you enjoyed the recipe.
Thank you so much!
I appreciate you reply!
I’m making this awesome recipe again for the second time!