I freakin’ love cornbread. Give it to me with whipped honey butter and strawberry jam, or even with a little pumpkin infused into the muffins… or even a mile-high square that’s topped with my fabulous healthier sloppy joes. I’ll pretty much eat them any way and at any meal.
A few months ago while making my beef stew, I experimented with using gluten free oat flour in my usual cornbread muffin recipe instead of regular flour. The result was INSANELY good; neither Tony or I could stop slathering them with butter and drizzling honey over every last bit. Talk about melt in your mouth healthy cornbread muffins!
So finally, I’m sharing the recipe with you, and I promise you’re going to fall in love. Who cares if they’re gluten free cornbread muffins? All that matters is that they’re completely delicious.
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Ingredients in gluten free cornbread muffins
This healthy gluten free cornbread muffin recipe uses super simple ingredients to make the best, fluffiest muffins in these entire world. Here are the ingredients you’ll need:
- gluten free medium grind cornmeal (I love this brand)
- gluten free oat flour (feel free to make your own)
- gluten free baking powder
- a pinch of salt
- almond milk: unsweetened or vanilla are both great, or any milk you’d like if you have a nut allergy.
- apple cider vinegar
- eggs
- honey
- butter (or vegan butter to keep these cornbread muffins dairy free!)
These delicious cornbread muffins come together in just 10 minutes for an easy side to pair with dinner or bring to parties.
How to make your own oat flour for cornbread muffins
You can easily make your own gluten free oat flour by placing oats into a blender and blending or pulsing until they’re smooth and resemble flour. This is probably the cheapest option. Check out my tutorial with all of my best tips & tricks. So easy!
For this cornbread muffin recipe, you’ll most likely need at least a little more than 1 cup of gluten free rolled or old-fashioned oats to make about 1 cup gluten free oat flour.
How to store and freeze gluten free cornbread muffins
Store the cornbread muffins on the counter in an airtight container for a day, then transfer them to the fridge. If you want to freeze the muffins, allow them to cool completely then put in an airtight container and freeze for up to 3 months. Once ready to reheat, you can thaw at room temperature, or heat up in the microwave in 30 second intervals.
Customize these gluten free cornbread muffins
What I love about these healthy cornbread muffins is that you can easily make them your own with fun add-ins. Here are a few suggestions:
- Jalapeno cheddar: 1 diced jalapeno + 1/2 cup cheddar cheese
- Blueberry: 3/4 cup fresh blueberries
- Honey bacon: 1/2 cup chopped bacon
- Cheesy garlic: 2 cloves garlic + 1/2 cup cheddar cheese
- Green chile corn: add 1 (4 oz) can drained green chile + 1/2 cup thawed frozen corn + optional 1/2 cup cheddar cheese
- Breakfast cornbread: fold in 1/2 cup chopped or crumbled cooked breakfast sausage
- Cranberry: 1/2 cup dried cranberries
What to serve with gluten free cornbread muffins
The options are honestly endless, but here are a few of my go-to’s:
- The Best Healthy Turkey Chili (a no-brainer)
- Healthy White Chicken Chili
- Cheddar-Stuffed Sweet Potato BBQ Turkey Meatloaf
- Actually, the Best Vegetarian Chili Ever
- Mom’s Slow Cooker Beef Stew
- Lightened Up Cheddar Cauliflower Broccoli Soup
I know you’re going to love these gluten free cornbread muffins, please let me know if you make them by leaving a comment and rating the recipe below. I’d love to hear from you and it helps encourage others to make the recipe too! Enjoy xo!
Ambitious Kitchen
Cookbook
125 Ridiculously Good For You, Sometimes Indulgent, and Absolutely Never Boring Recipes for Every Meal of the Day
Gluten Free Cornbread Muffins
Ingredients
- Dry:
- 1 cup gluten free medium grind cornmeal (I use bob’s red mill)
- 1 cup gluten free oat flour
- 2 teaspoons gluten free baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- Wet:
- 1 cup unsweetened almond milk (can use vanilla almond milk if you like sweeter cornbread, or any milk you'd like)
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 2 eggs, at room temperature
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled (or use vegan butter)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 12 cup muffin tin generously with nonstick cooking spray or line with paper liners. I always spray the inside of the liners to ensure the muffins do not stick!
- In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: cornmeal, oat flour, baking powder and salt.
- In a separate large bowl, mix together the wet ingredients: almond milk, apple cider vinegar, eggs and honey. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir with a spoon until just combined. Finally stir in the melted butter. Divide batter evenly into prepared muffin liners.
- Bake for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Serve warm with a pat of butter and a drizzle of honey! Makes 12 muffins.
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Recipe by: Monique Volz // Ambitious Kitchen | Photography by: Eat Love Eats
81 comments
These look delicious! Since I don’t do any dairy, I am wondering if I could use coconut oil instead of butter?
Yes but they’ll likely have a different taste to them. I suggest using a vegan butter instead.
Kelly I thought they worked out great with coconut oil!! I was really surprised. Def worth doing!!! So thankful.
Hello!
Can I just leave out the honey if I don’t want them sweet? Or should it be made up for with another wet ingredient? Thank youuu 🙂
Hi! They really aren’t that sweet even with the honey. You could always try using 2 tablespoons extra almond milk instead or 1/4 cup applesauce
These are absolutely delicious! I’m not a fan of cornbread but couldn’t pass up the opportunity try Monique’s gluten free version and let’s just say these will forever be a favorite and baked regularly.
Amazing! So happy to hear that, Amber 🙂
I seriously love AK! I’m not a very good recipe follower I feel like but your recipes ALWAYS actually work!!! These taste perfect and you’d never know that they’re real and gluten free!
I actually even used coconut oil to keep dairy free/no vegan butter and it works! I will absolutely be making these again and even for non health conscious individuals. Thanks Monique! I am SO thankful for this blog and your effort!
Amazing! So happy to hear that, Vanesa 🙂 I hope you keep finding recipes here that you love!
These came out great! Can I freeze them?-
Glad you liked them! And absolutely!
These were great! Great consistency, easy to make, quick to bake. Made them tonight and as I am trying to cut down on fat I substituted nonfat greek yogurt (1/2 of the butter amount) which worked great. My family of 5 all enjoyed them!
Perfect! So glad everyone like them 🙂
These look delicious! I don’t have a food processor and there isn’t any oat flour where I live, so can I replace it with ordinary flour and if, how much can I use?
Yes you can use the same amount of regular flour in place of the oat flour 🙂
I loved them!!
So happy to hear that!
Amazing! So easy to make and tasted incredible. Will make again.
So happy you loved them!
I omitted the salt and honey, and added 1/2 tsp of guar gum to help it rise. Turned out great!
I’m glad that worked out well! 🙂
I gave this recipe a four . The moisture and cornbread texture is there but it lacks sweetness . It def needs something for flavor but love the texture. I will make the honey butter to accompany this .
It’s definitely not meant to be an overly sweet cornbread. If you’d like them to be sweeter, you can do 1/3 cup honey in the batter, or feel free to top them with extra honey.
These are delicious!!! I used coconut oil and applesauce bc we were out of honey and that’s what we had in the pantry. Thankful the sub was in the comments! And whipped up some maple butter.
I’m glad that worked out well! Maple butter sounds delicious 🙂
Made these with the turkey chilli. Comfort food! Amazing recipe, keeping forever!
Simply great and easy to make! They reminded us in taste to the Venezuelan cachapas. Difficult to stop eating 😀
So happy you loved them!
This recipe is super easy to follow and doesn’t take long at all! I asked my boyfriend to get plain unsweetened almond milk (not vanilla, which we usually drink)… he came back with unsweetened coconut almond blend… i didn’t want to use that in this recipe so I used half of the unsweetened vanilla and half plain unsweetend flax milk (that I don’t raelly like). Can definitely taste the sweetness of the vanilla, but I still like it!!
I’m glad they still worked out well!
That should be a 5 star, but again, it won’t let me choose/click on last star.
These were super yummy! I think my baking powder is old, so they didn’t rise a lot, but didn’t affect flavor. I was out of eggs so used flax substitute. I even added a 1/2 cup of squash and a little less milk. It worked!
Only two of us here and they were gone in less than a day. 😁
Working on a fix for that! I’m glad those little swaps worked out well 🙂
Pleasantly surprised how good these turned out for being gluten-free. Oat flour provides an earthy flavor to the muffins. Appreciated the simplicity of the recipe ingredients and preparation. Makes it an easy weeknight recipe to throw together. Used whole milk in lieu of the almond milk. Muffins had a decent rise with the levaning combination of baking powder and vinegar. Made an excellent accompaniment to homemade chili.
Absolutely! Such a great side for any meal. Glad you enjoyed!
Made this for thanksgiving and loved them! I saw your cornbread waffles idea and now I’m wondering if these could be turned into waffles?!
So happy to hear that! And Most likely yes, but I do recommend just using the cornbread waffle recipe!
This is the BEST cornbread I’ve ever had ! Thanks for another great recipe!
Absolutely! Glad you loved it!
Sooo good! Made these with regular flour instead of oat and they are amazing. Paired so well with AB’s chili recipe too!!
I’m glad that worked out well! Such a great side with chili 🙂
YUM! Super happy with these! I should’ve followed your note to grease the muffin liners, though. Next time!
Glad you enjoyed! And yes, that extra step really helps 🙂
Yum! Could I use this same recipe and make a regular cornbread in a baking dish? Would the cook time/temp be the same?
Hi, Margarita! I think that should work just fine 🙂 It depends on your baking dish, so you can bake it at the same temp and bake until a toothpick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached.
I had such a sudden strong corn muffin craving. Never made them in my life and WOW these were amazing! I used refined coconut oil (which doesn’t have the coconut flavor) in place of the butter which worked perfectly. I’ve been using my Ninja chopper for awhile to grind oats into flour and they always deliver such fluffy muffins. It’s a great hack!
With my new intolerance to gluten, I decided today to make these for the first time. They are great, moist and look so pretty on a plate and it was so easy to prepare. Next time I will bake it as a whole in a bread tin as it would be great to be able to slice them. I halved the sugar content because I was worried it would taste too sweet. So with jam, butter and/or honey on top, they are just PERFECT! Next time I feel like trying them with some pre-soaked raisins and some nuts inside – just for fun and because it helps to be inventive when you need to… Thank you for this lovely recipe!
I’m so glad to hear you tried and loved these!! Let me know if you try them with the raisins and nuts–sounds delish 🙂
Can I use stone/fine ground instead of medium? That’s all I have. Thanks!
I haven’t tried it but probably! Let me know how it turns out 🙂
These are delicious! I only had 1/2 the ingredients so I used mini muffin tins, coating them with coconut oil. I used coconut oil & and coconut sugar; adding fresh blueberries. All organic ingredients!
This cornbread was so delicious!! I didn’t have any oat flour on hand so I just used my gf flour mix and I can’t get enough of them. SO GOOD. I also ended up using rice wine vinegar because I had run out of apple cider vinegar & I couldn’t tell at all. I highly recommend you try this recipe!!
Nice, so happy that all worked well and that you loved them!
In the middle of making these and wondering if I can use flax eggs instead? Thanks!
Sorry for the delay! I think flax eggs should work ok in here. Let me know how it went!
Very good! I was a little nervous putting it in the oven, because the batter was thinner than what I’m used to, but it came out great! Nice and moist. Best healthy recipe I’ve tried so far! Can’t wait to try the add ins!
Perfect! Glad you enjoyed!
The Gluten Free Cornbread Muffin recipe is so good, thanks for your much appreciated good work done. Ambitious Kitchen
Thanks, Judith! Happy you loved them 🙂
This recipe looks really easy and health. I’m making it now, however I’m curious why use vinegar? What happens if I omitted the vinegar from the batter?
Thanks
Hi! It helps keep them extra fluffy 🙂 Let me know what you end up trying!
can i use polenta/corn grits for this recipe?
I’ve made these a half dozen times and love them! I’m curious if anyone has tried using chia eggs. I use chia eggs for sweet muffins made with things like oats, bananas, and chocolate, and those always come out fantastic. I saw someone in here used flax eggs.
Hi Jessica – I haven’t tried these with chia egg so I am not sure how they will turn out but if you give them a try let me know how they work out for you!
I was very surprised at how delicious these gluten free corn muffins were :light , fluffy and tasty especially with jam on top. I used homemade gluten free oat flour which was easy as pie to make. I will certainly makes these again.
I made this recipe today (as written) to go with my chili and the muffins turned out great. I don’t find them sweet at all with the honey. Looking forward to having one tomorrow morning for breakfast with my scrambled eggs. Will definitely make this again.
Amazing! So excited that you are loving this recipe ❤️
Can you use almond flour?
I haven’t tried it so I’m not sure how the muffins would turn out!
These were so amazing! I have a tried-and-true cornbread recipe for my gluten-eating family, but have been struggling to find a good, clean-ish recipe for me since I went gluten-free last year. I made these tonight and was so pleasantly surprised at the wonderful cornbread flavor. I’m printing it right now! So happy to have found my new go-to cornbread recipe! Thank you. 🙂
Absolutely! SO glad you found this one and are loving it ❤️
Love this recipe! Making it tonight for the 3rd time in two weeks!
YUMM! So glad you’re loving these muffins, Martha ❤️😍
Here’s a variation that worked for me using oil instead ofbutter:
1/3 cup of oil
add: 3/4 cup of GF mix.
They came out perfectly in 22 minutes.
Perfect! Glad they turned out!
I substituted unsweetened almond milk for milk, Greek nonfat yogurt for butter and dropped the honey. They are delicious!
Perfect! Happy to hear this recipe out great ❤️
Why is there egg in your VEGAN recipe?!!
Hi! Can you let me know where this recipe mentions that it’s vegan? These muffins are gluten free but are not vegan.
I used flax meal instead of the cup for cup gluten free flour. I subbed 1/4 cup mashed banana instead of the honey. These came out great! I let them sit for a few minutes to help with getting them to rise and they puffed up nicely. I’ll definitely add this recipe to my gluten free rotation.
these muffines
are amazing we love them as a family they are also really good for snacks at school or just as a picnic if you are going to beach and just need something to. eat
Absolutely! Such a great snack 🙂