Blueberry Sourdough Muffin Recipe
Sourdough Blueberry Muffins are a perfect and quick way to use your sourdough starter discard. Tender, moist and flavorful, these easy muffins are studded with juicy sweet blueberries and topped with a crunchy cinnamon spiced sugar coating. Makes 12.
One of the best parts of keeping a sourdough starter on hand is being able to bake with it almost any time you want! There are so many amazing and delicious ways you can use your sourdough starter (I have over 60 recipes on how to use your starter in my recipe index!)
These muffins are great any time of day – I love them as an afternoon snack, or for breakfast! For a complete breakfast meal, serve these with easy breakfast tacos and fresh fruit.
Other easy recipes to use your sourdough starter discard:
- Sourdough Cornbread is one of my favorite ways to use sourdough discard! Cornbread will never be the same again after you try this easy and utterly delicious skillet cornbread!
- Sourdough Naan – homemade naan is really easy to make and tastes awesome with a slight sourdough tang!
- Sourdough Banana Bread – This delicious sourdough banana bread will quickly be a new favorite. Not quite as cake like as some other banana breads can be, with also a bit more spice due to the lemon zest and ginger, its makes a great winter breakfast – especially warmed and slathered with butter!
Sourdough muffins with blueberries
These muffins are easy to make and a simple (and delicious) way to use your sourdough starter. In this recipe, the sourdough doesn’t give much “rising” power to the recipe – the baking soda is in charge of that still.
In these blueberry muffins, the sourdough starter just gives a slightly sourdough taste to the recipe, so there is no need for any fermentation or rising time. Just dump in your sourdough discard! There is no need to feed it first.
How to make sourdough blueberry muffins
For the full recipe and directions, please scroll down to the recipe card below. This is just a general overview of how to make these muffins so you know the method before you start baking.
- Preheat your oven and liberally grease a muffin pan with either baking spray or with using the butter and flour method.
- In a small bowl, combine the dry ingredients.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the sourdough starter with the other wet ingredients. Really whisk it and make sure the starter is well mixed in, or you will get streaks in your muffins.
- Place the blueberries in a bowl with a few spoonfuls of the flour mixture and toss to coat. This will help them not all sink to the bottom of the muffins.
- Using a spatula or wooden spoon, add the flour mixture to the starter mixture and mix to combine. You are going to have to stir, stir, stir to incorporate the sourdough mixture well.
- Carefully fold in the blueberries coated in flour, as well as any excess flour that is in the bowl the blueberries were in.
- Evenly spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin. You will barely have enough batter to fill all 12 muffins about ¾ full.
- In a separate medium bowl, mix together the ingredients for the sugar coating, using a fork or your fingers to really mix the butter in.
- Evenly sprinkle the sugar coating over the muffin, being really careful to not get any of the coating on the muffin pan itself.
- Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Allow to rest for 5-10 min in the pan before removing to a wire rack to cool the rest of the way. Use a knife to run along the edges of each muffin and carefully pull them out of the pan.
- Enjoy!
Can I use other fruit?
You bet! Any kind of berry works really well here! You can use strawberries, blackberries or raspberries. Just make sure you dust them all in the flour mixture before you add them in.
Can I use frozen berries?
Of course! You don’t even need to thaw them, just toss them in the flour to coat and add them in. Frozen berries are less likely to burst during baking, too, so they tend to hold their shape in the muffin.
Kids in the kitchen: How your kids can help you cook
Getting your kids in the kitchen is an amazing way to help them be more interested in trying new foods and confident in their own abilities. This sourdough muffin recipe is great because it helps them to practice their whisking and stirring.
This recipe is perfect for beginner sourdough bakers because it is so easy! And it is a great recipe for kids to experiment and become more comfortable with new flavors – which means they are more likely to eat it!
- Kids aged 1-3 can help you measure and mix the ingredients together.
- Kids aged 4-6 can do everything above, plus help you toss the blueberries in the flour mixture, mix the batter, and sprinkle the sugar coating on the muffins.
- Kids aged 7-10+ can help you do everything above, plus help you spray the muffin pan and test to see if the muffins are finished baking.
*Please note that these recommendations are generalized, and to please use your personal discretion with your child’s skill level. And always, always supervise! Read more about how to have your children help you in the kitchen.
Food tastes better when its shared with the ones you love!
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Make sure you also check out my top 10 easy recipes that use sourdough discard for more ideas for how to use your sourdough starter in quick ways!
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Did you know that making muffins from sourdough starter is not only a delicious idea, but a simple way to use your sourdough discard?
Sourdough Blueberry Muffins
Ingredients
Muffin
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- ¾ tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 cup blueberries
- 1 cup 100% hydration sourdough starter * see notes
- 1 egg
- ¼ cup butter melted and slightly cooled
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Crumb topping:
- ½ cup sugar
- ⅓ cup all purpose flour
- ¼ cup butter very soft
- 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 F and liberally grease a muffin pan with either baking spray or with using the butter and flour method.
- In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the sourdough starter with the sugar, egg, melted butter and vanilla. Really whisk it and make sure the starter is well mixed in, or you will get streaks in your muffins.
- Place the blueberries in a bowl with a few spoonfuls of the flour mixture and toss to coat. This will help them not all sink to the bottom of the muffins.
- Using a spatula or wooden spoon, add the flour mixture to the starter mixture and mix to combine.
- Carefully fold in the blueberries coated in flour, as well as any excess flour that is in the bowl the blueberries were in.
- Evenly spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin. You will barely have enough batter to fill all 12 muffins about ¾ full.
- In a separate medium bowl, mix together the ingredients for the sugar coating, using a fork or your fingers to really mix the butter in.
- Evenly sprinkle the sugar coating over the muffin, being really careful to not get any of the coating on the muffin pan itself.
- Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Allow to rest for 5-10 min in the pan before removing to a wire rack to cool the rest of the way. Use a knife to run along the edges of each muffin and carefully pull them out of the pan.
- Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Sourdough Blueberry Muffins
Ingredients
Muffin
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- ¾ tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 cup blueberries
- 1 cup 100% hydration sourdough starter * see notes
- 1 egg
- ¼ cup butter melted and slightly cooled
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Crumb topping:
- ½ cup sugar
- ⅓ cup all purpose flour
- ¼ cup butter very soft
- 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 F and liberally grease a muffin pan with either baking spray or with using the butter and flour method.
- In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the sourdough starter with the sugar, egg, melted butter and vanilla. Really whisk it and make sure the starter is well mixed in, or you will get streaks in your muffins.
- Place the blueberries in a bowl with a few spoonfuls of the flour mixture and toss to coat. This will help them not all sink to the bottom of the muffins.
- Using a spatula or wooden spoon, add the flour mixture to the starter mixture and mix to combine.
- Carefully fold in the blueberries coated in flour, as well as any excess flour that is in the bowl the blueberries were in.
- Evenly spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin. You will barely have enough batter to fill all 12 muffins about ¾ full.
- In a separate medium bowl, mix together the ingredients for the sugar coating, using a fork or your fingers to really mix the butter in.
- Evenly sprinkle the sugar coating over the muffin, being really careful to not get any of the coating on the muffin pan itself.
- Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Allow to rest for 5-10 min in the pan before removing to a wire rack to cool the rest of the way. Use a knife to run along the edges of each muffin and carefully pull them out of the pan.
- Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Looking for a more visual step by step? Check out the “how to make blueberry sourdough muffins story“.
I never would have guessed that you could make muffins from a sourdough starter, but I am so glad that I did!! These muffins are not as “cakey” as muffins tend to be. They had a bit of a bite to them, and the tanginess from the sourdough starter was wonderful! I also really enjoyed the fantastic streusel crumb layer on top of these. All in all, I was really impressed with these muffins and will be making them a lot!
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I've never seen sour dough in a muffin. What a great idea! I wonder if a little Pam on the top of the pan would have helped with cleanup.
Nice recipe 🙂 I love blueberry muffins… Such a great snack.
Here's another recipe you might like.
http://www.wascene.com/food-drink/recipes/blueberry-muffin-recipe/
Thanks for sharing.
Nat
I wonder if using a silicone pan would help with the mess? I find they have to bake a bit longer, but they're much easier to get baked things off of!
That is a great idea! I recently got a silicone pan, I will have to try it out and see how it helps!
I just made these and they were incredible. I only had half a cup of sourdough, so I used a half-cup of cashew milk and a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to make up the rest of the liquid. I also used a flax egg, and canola oil instead of butter for both the muffins and the topping (with a bit of added salt to the topping to make up for the lack of butter salt). They are Top 5 muffin material without a doubt – delightfully soft and subtly sweet on the inside, and crunchy on top. Delicious. Thank you for the recipe!
I just made these today and they came out awesome. I usually don’t change a recipe but I did use half AP Flour and half whole wheat. I sprayed the heck out of my pan with baking spray and used paper muffin liners. Clean up was a breeze! Baked in convection oven @ 425 for 20 minutes. I did wait like 20 minutes after mixing everything before placing into the oven. I’m not sure if that made a difference with anything or not, but my muffins were not super dense. I did use fresh blueberries too. Would totally make these again! Thank you for sharing the recipe.
I’m not sure what “sour” you are referring to in Step 7. The sourdough starter has already been added. Just a little confused.
Hi Sierra! There was a typo in the directions. It should have read “sugar”. Thanks for letting me know, it has been fixed!
These Are a great way to use excess starter. I made a few minor changes. I used 2/3 cup white flour and 1/3 cup corn meal instead of whole wheat. Because I used white flour, I used 1 tsp baking powder instead of baking soda. I didn’t have muffin liners so I used three small bread tins and baked for 25 minutes. They came out perfectly! Next time I will add the zest of a lemon to the batter.
I am so glad you liked them! Adding lemon zest is a great idea, too!
an Oven temp would be helpful….
Hi! The temperature is 350 F!
I thought these tasted great! I’m new to sourdough starter and had a lot and needed to use some up and this was the perfect recipe. I used frozen blueberries and was successful. I seemed to have a lot of topping and when they baked, the topping spilled over onto the pan. I’m wondering if there’s any tricks to getting the topping to stick to the muffin batter? I lost a lot of that delicious topping.
Thanks for a great recipe! I look forward to trying your other sourdough recipes!
@Shannon Bowden,
My topping kept falling off. I’ve never had this issue with streusel topping before.
Is this recipe one where I could use my sourdough discard that has been in the fridge for a day or two? The ingredient list calls for fed and active starter. But the title says discard.
Hi Kristin! You can definitely use it as discard (just bring it to room temperature before so it mixes in well), or you can use it fed. Thanks for catching that in the recipe card – its supposed to say either one!
I’m wondering if I can cut the sugar?
Hi Reagan! I have not made this recipe with reduced sugar. The muffins itself only require a 1/4 cup of sugar. If you are looking to make these a little healthier than they are, I would leave off the sugar coating on top.
I made them without the topping because I wanted to limit the amount of sugar per muffin. The muffins had a nice texture. I think there is a reason why the crumb topping is part of the recipe. I found the muffins a bit bland so next time I will either do a topping or add some extra flavoring in the batter. I definitely will make these again. So easy to make and a great use of the starter discard.
I am having a hard tome finding whole wheat flour right now. Any thoughts on how the topping would turn out with all purpose? Or perhaps a mixture with a nut based flour? Very excited to try these!! They look fantastic!
You can definitely use all purpose!
Hello. These muffins were amazing! Second time making them. First time I divided the muffins using blueberries for some and apple for the others since we all have different tastes at home. This time I made some with apples, raspberries and blueberries. Great way to use up sourdough discard. We love the flavour!
Thank you for the recipe!
Great recipe! I had doubts when the “batter” turned out more like a sticky cookie dough. Was tempted to add some liquid. But they turned out great. Made them without the topping and felt pretty good about feeding them to my toddler. 1/4 cup sugar between 12 muffins is just the right amount.
@Lisa, Thanks for mentioning this. I was digging through the comments to see how dry the dough was supposed to be cause mine seems dryer than I’d typically expect.
Same!
I’m going to ask a crazy question here, what could I do instead of the sourdough? I LOVED these muffins but have given up on starter. Anything else I could add instead? Thanks for this great recipe it’s tops on my list!
Plain greek yoghurt would probably work! I’ve successfully subbed that in other recipes. 🙂
These are my husband’s favorite muffins right now because they’re a bit like scones in texture, not cakey. I don’t use the crumb on top and they’re still delicious! I also use little silicone muffin cups/liners and there is no mess. Thanks for the recipe!
I don’t have sugar. I do have honey. How would I, or can I, replace the sugar with honey?
or maple syrup…
I made these with 1/4 cup maple syrup in the batter instead of sugar and kept everything else the same, including the topping. I did use muffin liners. It took about 6 or so more minutes to bake but they were moist and light and delicious. My husband doesn’t like heavy baked goods so he really loves these. These are the best blueberry muffins I’ve ever baked. Thank you for the recipe!
Hello! You can replace the sugar in the muffin recipe with 2 Tablespoons + 2 teaspoons of honey. You will not be able to replace the crumb on top of the muffin with either honey or maple syrup, so you will have to skip that part. The honey will also cause the muffins to brown faster, so you will want to reduce the oven temperature by 25 degrees.
Amazing!! Thank you so much!!
Thanks so much for this recipe. It is amazing! I tried several sourdough muffin recipes before and it all came out eatable but not nice. And then this one… fantastic at the first try! I never thought I’d be able to make something this good, since I am definitely not a natural in the kitchen. So I was very happy with how it turned out and surprised to find out how easy it is to do as well.
After I already made these muffins twice, I wanted to do it again but discovered that the silicon muffin shapes had been forgotten when the dishes were cleaned. So instead I made a blueberry muffin-pie… I just poured all of it into a big round silicon pie shape. O..M…G… the best! Yesterday I made it like this again for my sister’s birthday party and the whole family loved it. They were really surprised how light, fluffy and juicy it was. It works great as a pie because it keeps the shape really well during and after slicing and serving. For the pie I do recommend adding a cup and a half of berries, and perhaps a tiny bit less butter in the topping. Does take longer to bake like that, but it makes it all very juicy inside and with just a tad less butter, it’s easier to make sure that the topping doesn’t become ugly, like a solid layer on top.
These muffins were incredible. I couldn’t believe it. Just wanted to comment that the dough was quite a bit thicker than a normal muffin batter but they still turned out amazing. Thank you!!!!!!
Super easy and quick to put together – always on the lookout for another discard recipe! Thank you.
These are good! The first time I made them the topping melted all over the oven and made a big mess, so the next time I upped the sugar in the muffin batter to 1/3 cup and then sprinkled sanding sugar mixed with some cinnamon on the top. Definitely a prettier option for me. I made with a mix of blueberries and raspberries, frozen from picking last season, and delicious!
Made them, ate them, loved them! One of the better blueberry muffin recipes I’ve tried.
Made these with my new to me sourdough starter and it was a great recipe! easy to follow and TATSE SO GOOD! fluffy and tangy and not too sweet. Adding them to a regular rotation around here!
Elevation 6700 feet
Sour dough starter always on hand. Blueberries as well. This is an amazingly tender, crisp, crusty, tart (fresh blueberries), WOW! Just wow. Kudos to the Gingerbread Whisk. Looking for more starter recipes!
I used silicone molds. I didn’t really get a good browning on them or crisp. Also want sure how much of the sugar coating we were supposed to use. I had a ton leftover. Oh well. I liked that they weren’t too sweet anyway. Came out very moist and you can see how the sourdough created pockets just like when you make bread.
Can I mix the dough and refrigerate overnight to make it more fermented? Or leave on counter overnight to ferment longer? I saw another muffin recipe somewhere and they said you could do this and bake in the morning even though their recipe had eggs and buttermilk in it.
Thanks!
@Melanie, You could mix the batter and let it ferment in the fridge overnight, but I would make sure to leave out the baking soda when you mix it. Baking soda is a fast acting leavener, and if you mix it into the dough and then let it sit overnight, it won’t be active by the time you bake the muffins in the morning and you will get flat muffins.
These are so tasty! I made them without the crumble, added the zest of an orange and topped up my sour dough starter with 1/4 cup buttermilk. Particularly like the little sugar used in the recipe!