Sugar Free Summer Squash Muffins

With fresh vegetables and whole grain flour, these muffins are healthy enough to serve for breakfast, but yummy enough to taste like dessert!

I invented these muffins last night, because my garden has produced quite the bumper crop of summer squash this year:

The resulting recipe turned out some very healthy, yet delicious muffins! In my pictures, you are seeing mini-muffins with mini chocolate chips (smaller muffins=less mess). But you could easily make them as regular-sized muffins with regular-sized chocolate chips, too!

Here’s the recipe:

Sugar Free Summer Squash Muffins

• 3 cups grated/shredded summer squash
• 1 cup honey
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 2 eggs

Slice the summer squash and remove their seeded centers. Shred the squash on the fine setting of your cheese grater or food processor. Place the zucchini on a finely woven cotton towel like this:

Next, close the towel around the squash and squeeze out excess liquid, like this:

You should end up with a play-doughy ball of summer squash pulp that looks like this:

Next, add honey, eggs, vanilla, and oil to the squash in a medium-sized bowl and stir to combine.

In a separate, larger bowl, combine the following:

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup white flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup chopped nuts (or mini semi-sweet chocolate chips–which I use because otherwise my kids won’t eat muffins this healthy). Can also add chopped dates, craisins, or raisins.

Combine dry ingredients, then stir in the squash mixture. Next add:

• 1 egg white, beaten until thick and foamy

(Note: this egg white is optional, but I like to add it because it makes the muffins lighter, fluffier, and they puff out more in the pan when I add it).

Drop muffins into tins sprayed with canola oil cooking spray, using an ice cream scoop to ensure uniform sizes (or use a large cookie scoop for regular-sized muffin tins, since in this picture, I was using mini muffin tins)

Bake them at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes (remember: this is for mini muffins. You want 15-20 minutes for regular-sized). These tasty muffins hide the vegetables so well, that all you see is a hint of gold on the inside (unlike zucchini, which leaves green tints in baked goods, thereby alerting my children to their healthy content!)

I made these muffins last night. Now that we have early church, I don’t have time to cook on Sunday mornings, so once the kids are up and dressed, I hand them each a baggie with 3 or 4 mini-muffins on our way out to the car. By the time we get to church, they eat them all gone! What a great way to have a quick–yet healthy!–breakfast.