Black Bean Chocolate Mini Muffins for Toddlers (Low Sugar)
These double chocolate black bean mini muffins are rich, fudgy, and secretly packed with nutrition. Made with black beans and zucchini, they're a kid-friendly, low-sugar recipe that helps kids get comfortable with nourishing foods - without even realizing it.
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This recipe is written in proud and paid partnership with our friends at the Canadian Sugar Institute. We can’t wait for you to try this one!
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"My toddler, who has entered the picky stage, loves these! Such an easy snack or addition to a "snack plate" lunch. Will for sure make again." -Kaitlyn
Picture this scene… you're two years old and have recently discovered that you have a mind of your own! And it seems as though your mind has different opinions than your parents. This opens up a whole new world of opportunities!
Wearing a jacket outside? Totally overrated.
Allowing Mama to brush your teeth? Naw-you can do that yourself.
Eating anything green or bean-y? No thank you! That's much too bitter!
Even though your parents repeatedly put zucchini noodles on your plate and offer you black beans on Taco Tuesday, you *politely* decline to eat them.
One day Mama invites you into the kitchen to make chocolate muffins with her. Your eyes light up! Yum! Muffins are sweet and delicious!
She has already prepped some of the ingredients. Your brow furrows slightly as you notice black beans and zucchini on the counter. You're a little suspicious and uncertain that you'll end up trying the end product, but - it's so much fun to bake with Mama! - so you humour her and help her with the muffins.
As they're baking, you smell the sweet aroma and think to yourself, "maybe I'll just try a nibble. If it's awful, I can wash it down with a glass of milk."
Once they're cooled, you sit down to enjoy a snack of muffins, fresh fruit, and milk with Mama. You take a tiny bite and discover "hmm - baked inside a muffin, zucchini and black beans aren't terrible! In fact, the muffins are delicious!" Since the mini size of the muffin isn't too intimidating, you end up finishing it and helping yourself to a second.
When Taco Tuesday comes around again, your mind is a little bit more open to the idea of black beans. You decide to start small and place one in your taco. Hmm, that wasn't too bad after all!
And that my friends, is the magic of trust and exploration.
Why this black bean chocolate mini muffin recipe works
🕒 20 minute prep time
🥒 Exposes your child to zucchini, a vegetable
🙌Low in sugar, and offers fibre thanks to black beans
♥️ One bowl recipe, less clean up for you
✅ Can be served for breakfast, snack or send to nursery/school
👶 Toddler friendly from 18 months+
SUMMARIZE AND SAVE THIS CONTENT ON:
Jump to:
- Why this black bean chocolate mini muffin recipe works
- Using sugar as a bridge
- Other nutritional highlights
- Why bother putting black beans in muffins?
- Hidden veggies & beans?
- Key ingredients
- Allergen information & substitutions
- How to serve these double chocolate mini muffins
- Black Bean Chocolate Mini Muffin Recipe FAQ
- Other recommended toddler friendly recipes
- Black Bean Chocolate Mini Muffins
Using sugar as a bridge
Kids have a naturally higher affinity for sweet foods than adults (we've talked about this in detail over here). As a parent, you can use this strategically!
While the end goal may be to help your child to learn to enjoy and appreciate foods such as zucchini and black beans prepared in other (perhaps more traditional) ways, by incorporating them into a food they already know and love, such as muffins, this can help bridge the gap from zero interest to being willing to eat them.
The sweet taste of the overall muffin is much more approachable!
At the same time, we wanted to keep the added sugar content low. In the end, there's only 1g of added sugar in each mini muffin! This is equal to ¼ of a teaspoon. If you're curious about how to spot sugar on a nutrition label, we've taken time to teach you that and it can be a really helpful skill if you're the primary food shopper and cook.
Other nutritional highlights
You might be surprised to learn that despite this looking like a bite sized chocolate cake, each mini muffin offers up a powerhouse in terns of nutrients. We did the same when we developed a recipe for carrot zucchini banana muffins and our infamous chocolate prune breakfast cookies.
Back to these chocolate mini muffins, each mini muffin contains:
- 1g added sugar
- 1.5g fibre
- 0.5mg iron
Why bother putting black beans in muffins?
Black beans are soooo nutritious! They're high in fibre, folate, potassium, protein, and contain iron, a vital nutrient that many toddlers are not getting enough of!
But for some reason, beans get an automatic "ew" from a lot of kids. The second they see them, they're out. Maybe it's how they look?
The ironic thing is, they don't really taste like much. They're pretty neutral!
So when you mix them into something like muffins with ingredients your kid already likes, it just works. It's a really easy way to get them used to beans without it feeling like a big deal.
Hidden veggies & beans?
As you may have already gathered… we're big fans of adding nutritionally dense foods into recipes. We did this in our delicious veggie loaded pasta sauce that you all love. But we need to be honest about something: we are not fans of hiding their presence from your kids. Doing so can erode trust which is incredibly important in a feeding relationship.
Put it this way: if your kid doesn't know that there are black beans in their muffins, how can their brains make the connection that they're not so horrible after all? What happens when they grow up and start to prepare their own food? Are they going to be reaching to eat black beans? Not likely. They've grown up believing that they don't like them!
Fostering a love for vegetables takes time, but the good news is, you can use a lot of strategies to help your child learn to like vegetables.
Key ingredients
Banana: For this recipe, you'll need two overripe bananas to add sweetness but also make these muffins moist and flavourful.
Got a ton of ripe bananas to use? You could also try our other banana-based breakfast ideas like baby banana custard or a refreshing chocolate peanut butter smoothie that honestly tastes more like a milkshake.
Black beans: You'll need ¾ cup cooked black beans, a type of legume, for this recipe. You can use canned black beans which makes things easier! Black beans are loaded with fibre and offer other nutritional benefits like being a source of iron.
Zucchini: Shredded zucchini adds more moisture to this recipe and the veggie factor. Don't feel like you need to completely dry out your zucchini, just remove a bit of the moisture by patting it with a paper towel.
Ground flaxseed: Flax seeds are a powerhouse ingredient rich in omega-3 fatty acids and fibre, making these mini muffins even more nutritious with little extra effort.
Cocoa: look for unsweetened cocoa powder when you're shopping.
Milk: you can use any milk you'd like, we always choose to use whole cow's milk since that is what our families enjoy. To find the best milk alternative for you, look at this chart we created with plant milk options.
Egg: This recipe uses one egg, which means a little bit of egg nutrition for your little one.
Allergen information & substitutions
These double chocolate mini muffins contain three of the top priority allergens as identified in Canada and the USA: wheat, milk and eggs.
If you need to avoid wheat, use a flour replacement that you enjoy! Instead of cow's milk, use a plant milk beverage that is suitable for your family. Finally, we've learned that a flax egg works beautifully (see this tutorial) when trying to replace eggs in baking recipes, so give that a try!
For the most recent step-by-step recommendations for introducing food allergens to infants, visit our video lesson in Start Solids Confidently, your go-to resource for feeding babies.
How to serve these double chocolate mini muffins
As you know by now, we respect health recommendations, but also add a dose of reality since we're also feeding growing children. Formally it is recommended that children under 24 months not be offered foods that contain added sources of sugar. In this recipe we utilize sweetness from brown sugar which by definition is an added sugar.
However, this recipe is very wholesome! It's also an opportunity for your child to enjoy a variety of other ingredients so you're welcome to wait until 24 months if you're a rule follower, or serve it at 18 months knowing that it offers a small bit of added sugar (1g added sugar per mini muffin!).
You can serve this to your child whole and model how to take bites of the muffin, or sliced into bite sized pieces.
Black Bean Chocolate Mini Muffin Recipe FAQ
Formally, since children under age 2 are advised to not consume any added sugars, you are welcome to wait until this age. However, most of you know by now that we're realistic when it comes feeding children within the family setting. So, if your child is slightly less than two and you really want to serve up these muffins, go for it knowing they contain a very very low amount of sugar with the opportunity to reap a ton of other nutritional benefits as previously highlighted!
Of course! We love making big batches of muffins and freezing them for an easy breakfast. To defrost, leave at room temperature or microwave for 20 - 30 seconds and let it cool slightly!
We tried baking a few in our testing and to be honest… the texture wasn't great! They took too long to bake and ended up not being as fluffy. In general, we love mini muffins--you can tell--here's our coconut baby banana muffins and banana carrot zucchini muffins.
With chocolate chips in the mix, any dark brown flecks make your brain think it's chocolate! Having said that, we'd encourage you to make these muffins with your kids, so that they know exactly what goes into them, aren't surprised, and realize that black beans in muffins isn't so weird after all 🙂
And then, we're hopeful they'll grow into kiddos who enjoy beans in other ways like a black bean quesadilla or this flavourful Moroccon stew, Loubia, that uses white beans.
We haven't tested the substitution, but we believe the recipe would likely work just as well with white sugar.
Again, we haven't tested it, but we believe the recipe would likely work just as well to omit the zucchini.
Other recommended toddler friendly recipes
If you tried these double chocolate black bean mini muffins or any other recipe on our blog, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let us know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Thanks for visiting!
Black Bean Chocolate Mini Muffins
Ingredients
- ¾ cup black beans cooked from dried or drained and rinsed from a can
- 3 ripe mashed bananas
- 1 egg
- ¾ cup milk
- ¼ cup canola oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup shredded zucchini
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose or whole wheat flour
- ⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup ground flax
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup mini chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400° F.
- Mash the beans until no lumps remain. You'll still see the skins - that's okay!
- Mash in the bananas, and then the egg.
- Stir in the milk, canola oil, vanilla, and shredded zucchini.
- Stir in the flour, cocoa powder, brown sugar, ground flax, baking powder, and salt.
- Fold in the chocolate chips, do not over mix the batter.Grease your muffin tins or -even better- use silicone muffin pans!
- Using a small scoop, fill the muffin tins.
- Bake mini muffins for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
- Store muffins in the fridge or freezer. The moisture content is higher than typical muffins and they will go bad quickly on the counter.
Do you think these would turn out ok with a flax egg in place of the egg?
While we haven't tested it ourselves, I do feel that the recipe would work with a flax egg.
I don't have ground flax on hand, what can I substitute?
Wheat germ? Bran? Or you can just replace with more flour!
If you use regular size muffin tins how long do you recommend bake?
Hey - we actually tried it in a normal muffin pan and it was not great. The product was soooo heavy and dense! We highly recommend the smaller size!
Ok good to know thanks!!
Great and easy!
We're so happy to hear that, honestly...easy is the way to go!
Wondering what your thoughts are around the cocoa powder for little ones?
This is such a clever way to use black beans! Love it, thanks for developing this recipe.
This was super yummy! I can confirm though, mini size is the way to go.
Yes, we agree. The large size was really dense when we tested it!
This recipe has been a hit for my toddler! I love having an easy snack in the freezer that's packed full of nutritious ingredients.
So glad to hear it!
Love this recipe so much because they are so easy to freeze and pull out for breakfast and lunch later!
Thank you Kathlyn. We're glad it's a good fit for you. We agree - also awesome snack situations.
My toddler, who has entered the picky stage, loves these! Such an easy snack or addition to a “snack plate” lunch. Will for sure make again.
We're so glad it worked well for your family, toddler included! Love the idea of adding it to a snack plate.
What could I substitute zucchini with? Grated carrots?
Yup, that would totally work but the taste will be slightly different!