These sweet potato superhero muffins are filled with sweet potato and zucchini, almond flour and whole grains, yet taste actually out of this world. They’re a perfect quick breakfast or snack. And if I’m a betting woman (which I am), they’re going to become a staple in your home.

These sweet potato superhero muffins are adapted from my all-time favorite muffin recipe from Run Fast Eat Slow, a cookbook by Olympian Shalane Flanagan and her fellow marathoner Elyse Kopecky. The book is about fueling athletes (and really any human being) by focusing on nourishing meals rather than just macronutrients. And it happened to come out in 2016, when I was a Division I rower who also lived with (and cooked with) seven other ever-hungry rowers.
Run Fast Eat Slow, and superhero muffins in particular, became bible in our rower house (we had TWO fridges, if that gives you any indication of how much food we ate). Over the years, I’ve tweaked the recipe, adding sweet potato and banana for carrots and adjusting almond flour to regular flour ratios. While I love Elyse and Shalane’s original recipe for superhero muffins, these to me are even better.
I sat on this superhero muffins recipe for a year debating whether or not to post it, because as a baking recipe developer, I believe in enjoying sweets and not “healthifying” them. But to me, these muffins are just good. AND because they’re packed with veggies and protein, they’re morning fuel on busy days, an afternoon snack, or even a weekday dessert. They’re a favorite in my house, and I’m so stoked to share them with you.
This post is all about sweet potato superhero muffins.

Sweet Potato Superhero Muffins
Ingredients
- Flour. You can use all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, spelt flour, or gluten free flour. The original recipe calls for just almond flour, but I’ve found that adding a little regular flour keeps the muffins from feeling greasy from all the almonds.
- Almond flour. Almond flour (sometimes called “almond meal”) adds some protein and fat to the muffins to keep you full, and makes the muffins super moist. You can also make your own almond meal at home.
- Old-fashioned rolled oats. Opt for rolled oats instead of instant. These have a different structure and take your body longer to break down, helping keep you full.
- Cinnamon. Cinnamon helps flavor the muffins beautifully.
- Nutmeg. Nutmeg adds a little extra spice to complement the cinnamon.
- Baking soda. This helps give the muffins a little rise.
- Kosher salt or another coarse salt. If you only have fine table salt, reduce the salt to 1/2 teaspoon.
- Unsalted butter. Butter adds fat to the muffins, keeping them perfectly moist and flavorful. If you want to make the recipe vegan, you can try subbing coconut oil or vegetable oil.
- Eggs. Eggs keep the muffins moist, give them structure, and add protein. If you want to make the recipe vegan, you can try subbing flax egg for regular eggs, but I haven’t tried it.
- Zucchini. Part of our fruit and veggie trio! Zucchini has a pretty neutral flavor and is great in muffins and quickbreads.
- Sweet potato. Sweet potatoes and bananas add a little natural sweetness to the muffins.
- Banana. Sweet potatoes and bananas add a little natural sweetness to the muffins.
- Maple syrup. Maple syrup is our sweetener here and it works great with the spiced cinnamon and nutmeg flavor.
- Vanilla extract. Vanilla always adds flavor in baked goods!
- Chocolate chips, chopped nuts, raisins or any other mix-ins. I’m a personal fan of chocolate chips here.

Tips for the best sweet potato superhero muffins
- Microwave your sweet potato! You can roast it in the oven, but it’s much faster to prick it with a fork and microwave for 5-7 minutes.
- Measure out your fruit and veggies before you add them to the batter. This is definitely a forgiving recipe, but it’s good to measure out my prepped veggies before putting them in, so you don’t accidentally add too much of one ingredient.
- Don’t overbake the muffins. Overbaked muffins = dry muffins. These superhero muffins are done when the top is set and slightly brown.
- Stash some in the freezer! I like to keep a bag of these in the freezer wrapped in foil, so I can take one to go any time. You can let them defrost at room temperature or in the microwave on low power.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Yes! Just use a gluten free flour that has xanthan gum (I love Cup 4 Cup) and make sure your oats are certified gluten free.
To make superhero muffins vegan, you can replace the butter in the recipe with coconut oil or vegetable oil, and the eggs with homemade flax eggs. I’ve never done this, so if you give it a try let me know how it goes!
Yes! If you don’t have muffin liners, you can make your own with parchment paper. IMO, they’re also prettier than paper muffin cups. To make them, cut even squares that are a half inch wider than the muffin hole circle. Make a cut on the middle of each side of the square halfway toward the center. Then you can place the parchment paper and place it into each muffin hole, letting the parchment fold over itself. Fill with the batter, and you’re good to go!
Check out more amazing recipes
- For more breakfast recipes, check out the best vegan banana bread, carrot cake cinnamon rolls and dirty chai cinnamon rolls.
- If you’re jonesing for some dessert, try dipped-strawberry chocolate chip cookies, BIG chocolate chip cookies or brown butter blondies.
- If you want a single-serve dessert, try the viral half-baked single serve cookie skillet, edible cookie dough for 2 and edible peanut butter cookie dough for 2.
Amazing recipe! Definitely becoming a staple in my household! Such a hit! Next time I might try grating the zucchini instead to make it even more discrete.
Thanks, Danny, that’s awesome to hear! I recommend grating the zucchini instead of finely chopping for the reason you mentioned, but either work. I finely chopped in the video because I was traveling and didn’t have a grater 🙂
These are good, but dense, and heavier than I’d hoped. I added nuts instead of chocolate chips because I don’t care for chocolate chip muffins and I felt like it would cut against the healthiness of the muffins.
My new favorite 😍 love these! I was worried about the eggs but I made 24 mini muffins so it wasn’t too much per serving. Sometimes egg yolks don’t sit well with me which makes desserts difficult. I boiled the zucchini and sweet potato bc I don’t have a microwave then I blended in the ninja with the banana so we wouldn’t get chunks. I don’t do regular butter so I bought plant based butter and used a little white flour a little almond flour and added half a cup of cocoa powder with the oats. They are so great. Even one of my kids is stealing them from me.
hahaha I love that, Monica!! you’re gonna have to hide them from your kids!
yummy! i made this immediately after seeing your recipe on instagram, and i added a carrot, and replaced reg flour and oats with spelt flour.
love it love it love it. 😊
thank you xoxo
Thank you, Aanchal! I’m so glad you loved them <3
A bit dense but delicious and easy to make
They are indeed a dense muffin, packed with a lot of goodness! I’m glad you enjoyed them 🙂
Could I use less butter and egg whites?
hi Joy! I would not recommend that – both add important fat to the muffins to make them tender
Curious about what would happen if you accidentally use cucumber instead of zucchini in this recipe? Don’t worry, it will turn out just fine.
Made this recipe for the first time in a sheet pan as Sweet Potato Superhero BARS, and even with the accidental cucumber, they turned out great.
I’m cracking up, thank you, Isabelle!! Bars are an AWESOME idea!
I am making these as I read the reviews 15mon to go. I used walnuts instead if Chocolate chips abd I did grate my zucchini.
WOWWW!!! these truly are amazing.
They are so delicious and flavorful, wouldn’t even guess they are packed with so many great ingredients!
i did half recipe with two egg whites and baked them for 22 minutes, they turned out perfectly! I added a few chocolate chips, I think putting like three in each muffin is the perfect amount or else is overpowers the other flavors. I found them on instagram and will definitely be trying out more of their recipes!!
Thanks for letting me know, Lauren!! I’m so happy you loved them!
Love these healthy muffins! I really experimented with ingredients I had on hand. I replaced the zucchini with grated carrots and the maple syrup with applesauce. Didn’t have enough gluten free flour so I used some gf pancake mix. The recipe is really flexible and they turned out great!
That’s awesome, Melanie! Thanks for sharing 🙂
My 4 year old and I LOVED these. Used a combo of 1:1 GF /Paleo flour for the flour and flax eggs for the eggs (1:2 flax to water ratio because of all the wet ingredients) plus mini chocolate chips and they turned out awesome. I like the way tiny chopped zucchini works in this rather than grated (even though grated is in the recipe).
I’m so glad you and your 4 yr old loved them, Chrysanthemum! Thanks for sharing 🙂
I’m looking forward to baking these muffins. Would like to know if you have nutritional information available on these and your other recipes?
hi, Debbie! I don’t have nutritional information for this recipe or others on the blog, as I believe in eating and enjoying balanced meals without tracking information. I understand some people need this info for other reasons – I’m sure you can plug in the ingredients on another site to find this out!
These were amazing!!! Definitely going to make again!
so happy you loved them!!
What measurements are 1 cup or 2 cups please? I still measure in grams
I would do like to know the nutritional value. Complicated recipe with several healthy ingredients and no calorie count.
Hi Laurel – I don’t believe in providing calorie count or other nutritional values, and just enjoying food. If you need this information for health reasons, you can plug the ingredients into a separate calculator 🙂
These were awesome. I want to bake for some people at work. If I wanted to make two batches, would I just double the ingredients, or ????
I made gluten-free and Used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free “1 to 1” Flour. Delightful, moist (I love dense for GF)
Hi Felicia! Thanks for reaching out and for your patience. Yes, to make a double batch you would just double the ingredients!
these were perfectly sweet and moist for me! the one thing that shocked me was how full they kept me. usually i get hungry quite easily but i had just one and it kept me full and energised for the entire afternoon! thank you so much for sharing this recipe ❤️
that’s so awesome to hear, Daisy! thanks for sharing
Great recipe! Swapped the almond flour for coconut flour because that’s what I had. Still came out great.
Let me stay off with how amazing this recipe is!!
It’s become a staple at my house, it freezes really well and is great for an on the go breakfast.
I did make some adjustments to the recipe to make it more friendly for my family and thought I’d share it here.
I use 1.5 bananas or 2 small bananas (Not the mini ones)
Instead of maples syrup I use a couple of drops of liquid Sucrazit.
For the dry ingredients I use a 3/4 cup of almond flour, a 3/4 cup of oats that I ground into oat flour with my blender, and a 1/2 cup of o quick oats.
They turn out amazing ever time!!