Are you looking for a savoury vegetable muffins recipe? I recently made some with some friends. We all made the same recipe, then met up on Zoom to compare results. Great fun!
The use of the term to describe what are essentially cupcakes or buns did not become common usage in Britain until the last decades of the 20th century on the back of the spread of coffee shops such as Starbucks.
When I was growing up, a muffin meant a flat leavened bake, sort of like bread. What we now call muffins, we called the more down to earth ‘buns’. Pile a lot of icing on top, and those same buns become cup cakes in modern parlance.
How to make savoury vegetable muffins
In one bowl put all the dry ingredients – the flour, cheese (reserving about a third of the cheese) and any herbs and spices you are using.
In another bowl, put all the wet ingredients – the oil, eggs and milk
Prepare all the vegetables you are using, chopping them into small pieces. Add the veg to the wet mixture and bowl and mix thoroughly. This is because when the flour is added, it shouldn’t be mixed very much as this tends to result in a tough muffin.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and gently fold together.
Divide between 12 muffin cases, silicone cases or a 12 hole muffin tin and sprinkle over the reserved cheese.
Bake at 200°C / 180°C Fan / 400°F / Gas Mark 6 for 20-25 until the tops are looking golden and cooked through. Best enjoyed warm, freeze any not eaten the same day. Gently warm through in the microwave for about 30 seconds from frozen to enjoy at its best
What are savoury vegetable muffins like
The muffins are very light and taste delicious. Would be lovely tucked into a lunchbox, or enjoyed alongside a bowl of lovely soup
You really need to have some of the cheese on the top to get the cheese flavour.
What other ingredients can be used in a savoury vegetable muffin recipe
The recipe uses 250g of vegetables, and these can be pretty much anything.
- I used onion, carrot, red pepper and mange tout
- other options include
- mushrooms
- mushrooms and marmite or soy sauce
- swede and parsnip
- carrot and raisin
- courgette (squeezed out) feta and olive
- sun dried tomatoes
- replace the milk with chopped tomatoes
Change the cheese to feta, mozzarella or a blue cheese.
Swap the spices to a big spoon of a Patak’s paste, any flavour. Or use a tsp each of ground cumin and ground coriander. Personally, I preferred them without the spice. I’m going to try a mushroom version next – yum!
If you like muffins, you might like this easy to make recipe too
Or if you’d rather have a savoury bake, these savoury flapjacks are seriously good!
Savoury flapjacks, fragrant with rosemary, caramelised onions and sweet chilli, 15p
Ingredients
Wet ingredients
- 2 medium eggs
- 150 ml milk semi-skim or whole
- 100 ml rapeseed oil
Dry ingredients
- 250 g self raising flour or plain with 3 tsps baking powder
- 120 g cheddar
- pinch sage
- 1 tsp dried basil
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
Vegetables
- ½ red pepper
- 1 medium brown onion
- 20 g mange tout
- 1 medium carrot
Instructions
Prepare the vegetables
- Grate the carrot.
- Finely chop the onion.
- Chop the mange tout into small pieces.
- Chop the red pepper into small pieces.
Dry ingredients
- Into a bowl, put the flour, herbs and spice, grated cheese. Reserve ⅓ of the cheese in a separate bowl. Mix all the dry ingredients, except the reserved cheese, together
Wet ingredients
- Into a separate bowl, put all the wet ingredients - the oil, milk and eggs
- Whisk the oil, milk and eggs together
- Now add all the prepared vegetables and mix them all together. We don't want to work the flour very much, so give the veg and egg mix a good stir now.
Combine
- Tip the flour mix into the vegetable and egg mix and gently fold together. Stirring as little as possible. Too much stirring makes the muffins tough.
Put in muffin tin
- Divide the mixture between 12 muffin cases / holes in a muffin tray
- Sprinkle the ⅓ of retained cheese over the top
Bake
- Bake in a hot oven for about 25 minutes. Bake at 200°C / 180°C Fan / 400°F / Gas Mark 6 for 20-25 until the tops are looking golden and cooked through
Serve the muffins
- Best served immediately, warm from the oven. Any not eaten the same day can be stored in the freezer to keep them fresh.
Equipment Needed
Video
Notes
Haven’t made any for a while, maybe time I did! That combination sounds great!
Great. I use wholemeal or white flour. Different veg. Spring onions, red pepper, courgette and carrot fresh taste.
That sounds a lovely combination!
I made these with carrot, onion and spicy chopped Turkish olives. Used curry powder and fresh sage as I didn’t want to pick my vanilla yet.
DELICIOUS and a lovely texture.
Thanks Angela. The knee is starting to improve slowly, with a lot of advice from the osteopath
Muffins and pikelets and many other things have lots of different names just in the UK, let alone anywhere else. It can get very confusing!
I haven’t said which flour have I! I’ll change that now. You need to use self raising. I have to strip the ingredients right back to get the nutrition to calculate properly, it wouldn’t recognise ‘self raising flour’ for instance, and I’ve obviously forgotten to
go back and put it in
Hi Lesley these muffins look delicious does it matter whether plain or sr flour is used please. Thanks for all your recipes.
I was a little puzzled when I came to live in Australia when they were talking about English muffins and pikelets – nothing like the things I’d grown up with in Brum.
Nice recipe by the way : )
Oh yes another thing, I don’t think I’ve heard of an osteopath since I’ve lived here,but there are plenty of chiropractors. Hope your knee gets better soon : )
Oops I didn’t see those options, even though they are so obvious. Thanks xx
Hi Caroline, I’m glad you like the look of it, and thanks so much for your kind words.
If you press the Print option in the recipe card, you’ll see 2 boxes at the top ‘Recipe Images’ and ‘Instructions Images’. Deselect those boxes and you’ll have a 1 page document
Hi Lesley
This looks a lovely recipe and congratulations on mastering videoing.
Is it possible for a Print Recipe option with just the ingredients and instructions – minus the videos, as this makes it an 8 page document?
Thanks for this wonderful site, we love your bread pudden recipe and it’s often made.
Love from sunny Leigh.
Caroline xx