Recipe: Banana and sunflower seed muffins
For most athletes, healthy snacking is an important part of a sound sports nutrition plan. This recipe for banana and sunflower seed muffins not only sounds healthy, it contains a range of healthy ingredients that will satisfy your taste buds, keep the digestive system going and top up the tummy. It is ideal for an in-between snack, and if you choose the topping right and add an orange juice and/or glass of milk, your early morning post-run recovery meal is taken care off.
Ingredients (~12 muffins /~80g each)
- 225g self-raising flour
- 120g oat bran
- 120g seeds (I’ve used 45g sunflower seeds, 20g pumpkin seeds, 20g linseeds and 15g sesame seeds in the muffin mix plus 15g sunflower and 5g pumpkin seeds to sprinkle on top)
- 70g sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
- ½ cup (175g) low-fat plain yoghurt
- 90g margarine, melted plus extra for greasing
- 3 small to medium ripe bananas (160g), mashed
- (125g blueberries – optional)
Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 180⁰C, grease a 12-hole muffin pan
- Combine the self-raising flour, oat bran, sugar, salt, and seed mix in a large bowl.
- In another bowl, combine the eggs, yoghurt, margarine and banana. Whisk until well combined.
- Make a hole in the centre of the dry ingredients. Pour in the wet ingredients and fold until just combined. (Fold in blueberries as well)
- Spoon the mixture evenly between the muffin-pan holes and sprinkle with the remaining seeds. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown (a cake tester should come out clean).
- Topping: Add fat-free or low-fat cottage cheese and lean biltong shavings to up the protein content. Enjoy with a glass of milk and an orange juice to meet your post-run carbohydrate and protein requirements.
Additional tips/notes
To enhance the flavour of the seeds, you can slightly roast the seeds and allow to cool down before you add it to the rest of the dry ingredients. 125g of fresh blueberries can also be added if you are more of a sweet tooth, but then I would perhaps opt for a sweet rather than savoury topping
(…unless blueberry and biltong is your thing).
To lower the fat content per muffin (~ 1.5g/per muffin), omit the sesame and linseeds. Substituting the low-fat yoghurt for fat free yoghurt and using a light margarine can further reduce the fat content with 0.5g per muffin. In my opinion the muffin becomes too dry if you reduce the amount of margarine added to the recipe or if you substitute the fat with a fat free alternative (more fat free yoghurt or even apple sauce).
I freeze the muffins in single portions as soon as the muffins have cooled down – and it seems to freeze well and stay fresh (at least if consumed within 2-3 weeks).
Nutrition information
- Nutritional composition/80g muffin (without blueberries and topping): 1138kJ, 7.4g protein, 30g carbohydrates, 12g fat and 3.5g fibre.
- Nutritional composition/80g muffin (with 15g lean biltong and 1 heaped Tbsp cottage cheese) and 1 glass of fat free milk: 1625kJ, 20g protein, 43g carbohydrates, 13g fat and 3.5g fibre. To top up the carbohydrates, add a glass of orange juice.
Author
Lize Havemann-Nel, PhD, RD (SA)
My inspiration for this recipe stems from the following three South African foods – banana bread, sunflower seeds and biltong. Whilst they may not go entirely together as is – with a little modification and the right application they can – hence banana and sunflower seed muffins (with cottage cheese and biltong topping).
