Wonderful sweet-tart cranberry sauce infuses these easy, whole grain, dairy-free muffins with delicious flavor and the perfect amount of moisture. I discovered a recipe for cranberry sauce muffins just before the holidays, many years ago, on Serious Eats. And I snatched up all of the leftover Thanksgiving cranberry sauce from the family meal just so I could make it!
Festive Cranberry Sauce Muffins Made Dairy-Free & Wholesome
I did end up making a few modifications, including adapting the recipe to be dairy-free and purely whole wheat. The end result was flavorful and still perfectly tender.
You can use store-bought or homemade cranberry sauce to make these dairy-free cranberry sauce muffins. In fact, you can buy a can just to make these boisterous baked goods on any old day – it doesn’t have to be from leftovers! We’ve even made these as festive muffins to enjoy on Thanksgiving morning.
I’ve never met a can of cranberry sauce that contained dairy. But you never know, one could exist! Always check the label for ingredients and contact the company about their manufacturing processes if potential cross-contamination is a concern.
Homemade cranberry sauce is also quite easy, and it allows you to infuse more flavors. For example, you can enjoy Pineapple Cranberry muffins, Cranberry Orange muffins, or Cranberry Spice muffins.
Special Diet Notes: Cranberry Sauce Muffins
By ingredients, this recipe is dairy-free / non-dairy, nut-free, peanut-free, soy-free, and vegetarian.
For vegan cranberry sauce muffins, use one of my egg substitute options. This recipe is quite forgiving for egg-free needs.
Cranberry Sauce Muffins
Ingredients
Method
- Preheat your oven oven to 400°F and grease or line 14 muffin cups with cupcake liners.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spice.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the cranberry sauce, milk beverage, oil, and egg until well combined.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and stir until just combined. A few lumps remaining are okay; do not overmix.
- Divide the batter between your prepared muffin cups.
- Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, or until they take on a light brown hue and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin (strategically dodging any remaining whole cranberries) comes out clean.
Tried this recipe?
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26 Comments
I like that these are hearty, but they have just one flavor note. I think I’d add some orange zest next time to punch up the flavor.
It sounds like your cranberry sauce was a bit one-dimensional Kris. We typically use one that has orange in it, like this recipe – https://godairyfree.org/recipes/spiced-cranberry-sauce
If your cranberry sauce isn’t very flavorful, feel free to add orange zest to the recipe. You could even use fresh squeezed orange juice in place of the milk alternative.
I am diabetic and would like to use coconut flour if possible but I’m not sure if that would make the muffins too dry as c. flour seems to absorb a lot of moisture. What do you think?
Hi Jan, unfortunately, coconut flour doesn’t work as a 1:1 sub for any type of flour. It’s very dry and lacks structure. In general, you would reduce the flour to 1/4 to 1/3 the amount and add an egg for every 1/4 cup of coconut flour. So with this recipe, assuming you were still using the oats, you might try 1/2 cup coconut flour in place of the flour, and adding 2 eggs. I can’t guarantee this would work, but this is what I might try first.
My guests thought muffins were dry.
I’m sorry this happened to you Lola. It sounds like some other factors were at place since this is usually a very moist muffin recipe. It’s possible the cranberry sauce was more gelatinous. This would take away from the moisture of the muffins. If you live at higher altitude, above 3000 feet, adjustments would need to be made to prevent dry muffins. Also if the temperature of your oven was too hot at anytime this could dry out the muffins. I assume you used an egg but if not, some vegan substitutes can dry baked goods out a little bit.
The recipe says 1 *tablespoon* of baking powder, is that correct?
Yes, that is correct.
Delicious! The cranberry sauce brightens the flavor of the muffins so much more than dried cranberries do and I was so happy to use up the leftover cranberry sauce that was sitting in the fridge. Loved how you can sub out whole wheat and eggs included in the recipe and it works well. I added pecans sub coconut cream for the oil and all that deliciousness came together. The muffins are disappearing fast. Won’t be freezing any from this batch. Thanks so much for sharing.
That’s wonderful! So glad the recipe worked well for you Fran.
What kind of cranberry sauce? Whole verry or jellied?
I like the one with whole berries.
DELICIOUS!!! just made these muffins, and they are absolutely the BEST recipe I have ever used online. I followed the recipe to the “T” They are perfect,! I added walnuts and baked the full 22 minutes. Thank you for sharing
That’s wonderful! Thank you for the feedback Valerie.
Could I substitute the milk for orange juice instead? Would it still work out?
Thanks!
Yes, I think that would work well.
I substituted applesauce for oil which I often do with great success. Only other difference is I added mandarin oranges and dash of orange cpeel. Still more of an oatmeal taste than fruit even after I made a glaze of 3 tbsp OJ and 1 cup conf. Sugar. I usually buy a mix and make the same changes and they’re incredible but thought I’d try this. I figured scratch would be even better but not in this case. G
You added a lot of wet moisture (mandarins and applesauce) to a recipe that was already a moist-style muffin, from the high amount of cranberry sauce. Your modifications would not work well. If you wanted fat free (which I never recommend for muffins), then it probably would have worked better to omit the oil rather than adding another wet ingredient. Oil bakes up lighter and isn’t a heavy wet ingredient like applesauce, cranberry sauce, and mandarins. If you make the recipe as written, it does work well.
Just made these muffins with half a can whole cranberry sauce and added a cup of fresh blueberries. AMAZING!! Full of berries with just the right combo of sweet and tart.
I bet those berries were amazing together! Glad it worked out so well Paige.
I’ve just discovered your site and have been looking at some amazing recipes. However, I have yet to find a single one that has nutritional and caloric information. Perhaps there is a tab somewhere that shares this information? Without this, how are we to judge whether something is as “wholesome” as it is labeled?
Thanks, Kathy
Hi Kathy, I guess wholesome can be defined differently! I define wholesome as a food made with healthy ingredients. I must be honest that I’ve always been an ingredient reader, not a nutrition facts reader. We have about 3000 recipes on this website, and I’m unable to add nutrition facts for all of them – it’s a very tedious process. We don’t have any special automation in place, it’s all manual! I wish I could help you with this. When I do have the nutrition facts readily available for a recipe, I do include them.
These worked out great for cranberry sauce leftovers! I didn’t have 1.5 cups, so I did 1 cup cranberry sauce and 0.5 cup of shredded carrot. Used grapeseed oil and cinnamon. My toddler ate it up, thankfully. I’ll try it with coconut sugar next time. Thanks for the recipe!
Those modifications sound delicious! I’m glad it worked out well for you and your little one and thanks for sharing feedback!
Today I decided to try a recipe of something a little more healthy than what my family( of growing boys) may typically expect from a muffin. My Props to Alisa Fleming!
I did also make a few modifications, to accommodate what I had on hand.
I used a mix of both the recommended spices, ginger and cinnamon. I also used one of her egg subs ( THANK YOU FOR POSTING). Turns out the snack size applesauce is the perfect amount. I also used a can of jellied cranberry sauce and coconut milk.
These both look and smell like a “cheat” muffin. Purposely had a small meal to have room to taste one of these.
I assume my using applesauce for egg is the reason mine didn’t rise. Also the apple ocerpowers the jellies cranberry sauce I used. Still turned out great regardless. Maybe nextime I will use raspberries!! Yum!!
Thanks again!!
Hi Angie, I’m so glad you enjoyed the recipe! They still should have risen, but it does help to add a little baking powder (about 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon per egg at low altitude) when using a heavier egg substitute, like applesauce. I think raspberries would be delicious!