Protein Muffins (Low-Carb)

These Protein Muffins are fluffy, moist low-carb chocolate muffins packed with 10 grams of protein, no sugar or gluten, and guaranteed to keep you full for hours.

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I love to bake my low-carb breakfast, and since I workout every morning, I love adding more proteins to my post-workout meal. I usually have my keto protein shake or a stack of my low-carb protein pancakes. But today, I was craving my keto chocolate muffin recipe, and I thought, how can I make high-protein muffins?

So I decided to play in the kitchen and experiment with my favorite high-protein, low-carb ingredients: peanut butter, Chocolate Protein Powder, eggs, etc. The result is a fluffy, pure chocolate dream, and I can confidently claim that this is the beginning of a long list of low-carb protein muffin recipes! I am thinking about twisting my keto blueberry muffins into protein ones next time.

Ingredients and Substitution

• Chocolate Protein Powder – I am using chocolate pea isolate protein powder from NuZest. It’s a plant-based protein powder made in my country, and it’s wholesome and made with just 5 ingredients, no additives, or preservative. It’s sugar-free, low-carb, and taste amazing. You can also use whey protein powder, but you can’t use collagen protein powder for this recipe. Collagen powder won’t add texture in the muffins and it won’t firm up as well.
• Unsweetened Cocoa Powder – To enhance the chocolate flavor of the muffins.
• Erythritol – Feel free to use more if your protein powder is not very sweet in flavor, or decrease if you like the muffin less sweet. Watch out, if you decrease the sweetener, it might be bitter!
• Almond Flour for texture, it makes the protein muffins moist and fluffy.
• Baking Powder to rise the muffins.
• Salt to balance the chocolate flavor.
• Vanilla Extract for a sweet flavor.
• Large Eggs – The size of eggs matters, if too small the batter end up super dry and thick.
• Sugar-Free Chocolate Chips – Optional but it add a delicious sweet chocolate flavor, feel free to use milk chocolate or dark chocolate flavor depending on your taste.
• Plain Greek Yogurt – I love using Greek yogurt in baking, like in my Greek yogurt brownies. This is a crucial ingredient to add proteins and moisture to these keto protein muffins. Plus, it’s low in carbs.
• Natural Peanut Butter – with no added oil or added sugar. This boosts proteins, adds a lovely chocolate peanut butter flavor to the muffin, and it’s low-carb. Read more about how to make healthy homemade peanut butter if you need it.
• Unsweetened Almond Milk or coconut milk if you prefer.

How to Make Protein Muffins

1. In a mixing bowl, whisk the wet ingredients: large eggs, yogurt, natural peanut butter, vanilla extract, unsweetened almond milk. It should be smooth with no lumps.
2. Whisk in the remaining dry ingredients: chocolate protein powder, cocoa powder, sugar-free sweetener, and salt. The batter should be quick and thick but not dry.

3. Fold in the chocolate chips and stir with a spatula to evenly incorporate.
4. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a 12-hole muffin pan with 11 muffin paper liners and grease them with cooking oil spray. Fill each muffin liner with about 1/4 cup of protein muffin batter.
   Bake the muffins for 25 to 30 minutes until they are set on top, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
   Remove them from the oven and cool down for 5 minutes in the muffin tin. Then, transfer to a cooling rack.

Expert Tips To Bake The Best Low-Carb Protein Muffins

• Use pure protein powder – Your blend should have a maximum of five ingredients: the source of the protein powder like pea protein isolate or whey protein then a sweetener, some natural flavor, and if chocolate powder, unsweetened cocoa is added too. You shouldn’t see a long list of ingredients in your protein powder or it means it’s not clean and it will certainly impact the protein muffin texture.
• Don’t use collagen powder – Collagen powder is not protein powder. They are two different ingredients. Protein powder firms up baked goods. It absorbs liquids and acts a bit like flour, such as in my keto protein bars. On the other hand, collagen powder has no impact on baking texture, except by adding a slight chew, but it will clearly not replace protein powder in these low-carb muffins.
• Check baking time often – Protein powder muffins, like my keto protein cookies, bake super fast. Always watch them closely, inserting a pick in the center to check if they are set. If baked too long, they get dry.
• Don’t swap almond flour for coconut flour. Keto baking with protein powder is tricky because low-carb protein powders absorb lots of liquid. If you add a little too much, you end up with dry muffins. So if you use coconut flour, which is the trickiest low-carb flour to bake with because it’s also so liquid absorbent, then you multiply the risks to end up with super dry protein muffins. So if you are a beginner at baking low-carb protein muffins, stick to almond flour; it adds moisture and it’s more forgiving.

More Low-Carb Muffin Recipes

Keto Blueberry Muffins

Keto Carrot Cake Muffins

Coconut Flour Blueberry Muffins

Almond Flour Pumpkin Muffins

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Protein Muffins (Low-Carb)

3.7gNet Carbs

These Low-Carb Protein Muffins are fluffy, moist chocolate muffins packed with 10 grams of protein, no sugar or gluten, and guarantee to keep you full for hours.

Author: Carine Claudepierre

Prep: 10 minutes mins

Cook: 30 minutes mins

Total: 40 minutes mins

Yield: 11 muffins

Serving Size: 1 muffin (without chocolate chips)

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4.41 from 5 votes

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Ingredients

US Customary – Metric

• ▢ 3 large Eggs
• ▢ ½ cup Erythritol
• ▢ ½ cup Greek Yogurt
• ▢ ½ cup Peanut Butter or almond butter
• ▢ ⅓ cup Almond Flour
• ▢ 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• ▢ ½ cup Chocolate Protein Powder must be pea protein isolate powder or whey protein powder, not Collagen protein powder
• ▢ 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
• ▢ 3 tablespoons Cocoa Powder
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon Salt
• ▢ 4 tablespoons Unsweetened Almond Milk
• ▢ ½ cup Sugar-Free Chocolate Chips – optional

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper liners – I made only 11 muffins with this recipe. Spray cooking oil in each. Set aside.
• In a large bowl, whisk the wet ingredients: eggs, yogurt, almond milk, peanut butter, and vanilla extract until smooth.
• Whisk in dry ingredients: chocolate pea isolate protein powder, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder, and erythritol. The batter should be thick but not dry. If it looks dry and hard to stir, whisk in extra tablespoons of almond milk.
• Fold in chocolate chips if used and stir to incorporate.
• Fill the 11 muffin liners evenly and bake in the center rack of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Cool down on a rack for an hour.

Notes

Storage

• Fridge – store in an airtight container for up to 4 days.
• Freeze – place in Ziploc bags and freeze them for up to 1 month. Thaw at room temperature the day before.

Tools

Getting Started What Is Keto? Macro Calculator Sweetener Converter Intermittent Fasting    Keto    Fruits Keto Vegetables Keto Flours Fighting Keto Flu Healthy Sweeteners

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NutritionServing Size: 1 muffin (without chocolate chips)

Yield: 11 muffins

Nutrition

Serving: 1 muffin (without chocolate chips)Calories: 139.7 kcal (7%)Carbohydrates: 5.1 g (2%)Fiber: 1.4 g (6%)Net Carbs: 3.7 gProtein: 10 g (20%)Fat: 9.7 g (15%)Saturated Fat: 2 g (13%)Polyunsaturated Fat: 1.7 gMonounsaturated Fat: 3.6 gTrans Fat: 0.01 gCholesterol: 51.3 mg (17%)Sodium: 260.3 mg (11%)Potassium: 106.4 mg (3%)Sugar: 1.9 g (2%)Vitamin A: 79.6 IU (2%)Vitamin B12: 0.1 µg (2%)Vitamin D: 0.3 µg (2%)Calcium: 86.6 mg (9%)Iron: 1.8 mg (10%)Magnesium: 28.5 mg (7%)Zinc: 0.6 mg (4%)