Pecan Muffins

12 Servings
Prep Time 8 minutes
Cook Time 22 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes

Pecan Muffins are the perfect blend of soft, buttery muffins with crunchy pecans mixed throughout. Made with just 5 ingredients in 30 minutes.

Just like Poppy Seed Muffins or Cinnamon Streusel Muffins, this Pecan Muffin is the perfect treat to add to your list of favorite Breakfast Baked Goods.

Pecan Muffin with bite removed

PECAN MUFFINS

If you love Southern Pecan Pie, then these muffins are the perfect breakfast for you and your family! They’re moist, soft and full of sweet brown sugar flavor. Enjoy these muffins on a crisp Autumn morning with a fresh cup of coffee for the ultimate relaxing breakfast.

We especially love baking Pecan Muffins a day or two before Thanksgiving. They’re the perfect treat to get you in the holiday spirit! This 5-ingredient-recipe is probably some of the easiest holiday baking you’ll do all year. If you want them as a Thanksgiving dessert try topping off each muffin with delicious Buttercream Frosting to make them more like cupcakes.

You can also drizzle the top with a mixture of maple syrup and powdered sugar until it makes a thick drizzle. As it sits, it’ll harden.

close-up of Pecan Muffins in cupcake tin

MAKE-AHEAD MUFFINS

Pecan Muffins are perfect to make in advance and have ready for a busy morning. When it comes to muffins, I love making a double batch so that half the muffins can be served for breakfast that day, and the other half can be stored in the freezer. Follow the instructions below to easily freeze and reheat your Pecan Muffins.

  • Leave the muffins in their tin and cool to room temperature.
  • Once they’ve cooled down, put the muffins in the freezer to flash freeze for an hour while still in the tin.
  • After they’ve frozen, you can transfer the muffins to a freezer bag. Flash freezing first will stop the muffins from getting frozen together.
  • When you’re ready to serve the muffins let them thaw out in the fridge.
  • You can either reheat them in a microwave or oven or eat them at room temperature.

MORE MUFFIN RECIPES

 

HOW TO MAKE PECAN MUFFINS

  • Prep: Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees and lining a 12 cup muffin tin with paper liners so that it’s ready when the batter is done.
  • Pecans: Put 1 cup of pecans into a food processor and pulse them into crumbs. Be careful not to process so much that it forms a paste.
  • Batter: Once the pecans are at a crumb consistency whisk them in a bowl with brown sugar, flour, eggs, and melted butter. Continue whisking until combined, but don’t over mix.
  • Bake: Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin cups. Chop the remaining ½ cup pecans coarsely with a kitchen knife and sprinkle it over the muffin batter. Bake for 22-25 minutes. When the timer goes off, stick a toothpick in the center of a muffin and see if it comes out clean to test if they’re baked through.

Pecan Muffins batter in cupcake tin

VARIATIONS ON PECAN MUFFINS

  • Nuts: You can make this same muffin recipe with a variety of different nuts like almonds, walnuts, or cashews. If you want you can also combine a few different kinds of nuts to make mixed nut muffins.
  • Flour: For more nutritious muffins try using whole wheat flour, or if you need gluten-free muffins use almond flour, buckwheat flour, or arrowroot flour.
  • Oil: You can replace the ½ cup melted butter in the recipe with ½ cup of applesauce or ½ cup of coconut oil. Either one is a great oil substitute in baking.
  • Add-ins: There are lots of different mix-ins you can try adding to this Pecan Muffin recipe besides pecans. Try mixing in mini chocolate chips, or cinnamon chips. You can also add dried cranberries or raisins. Feel free to experiment and see what you like best.

side view of Pecan Muffins

Cream Cheese Filling:

If you’d like to add a cream cheese center to these muffins, use 8 ounces softened cream cheese mixed with ⅓ cup sugar, 1 egg yolk and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and mix it well until creamy.

To add some spice to that filling you could add ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon to the cream cheese mixture. Add a pinch of nutmeg too if you like that flavor.

MORE PECAN RECIPES

HOW TO STORE PECAN MUFFINS

  • Serve: Muffins stay good at room temperature for about 2 days. For the best results seal them in a ziplock bag, or another airtight container, and store them in a dry, cool place.
  • Store: Once the Pecan Muffins have cooled to room temperature, you can store them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.
  • Freeze: Frozen Pecan Muffins can stay good for up to 6 months in the freezer. 
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Pecan Muffins in cupcake tin

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Pecan Muffins

Pecan Muffins are the perfect blend of soft, buttery muffins with crunchy pecans mixed throughout. Made with just 5 ingredients in 30 minutes.
Yield 12 Servings
Prep Time 8 minutes
Cook Time 22 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Course Breakfast
Cuisine American
Author Sabrina Snyder

Ingredients
 

  • 1 1/2 cups pecans
  • 1 cup brown sugar , packed
  • 1 cup flour
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter , melted

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a 12 cup muffin tin with muffin liners.
  • Add 1 cup of the pecans to a food processor and pulse until finely ground (do not let this become a paste).
  • Whisk together the 1 cup pecan crumbs, brown sugar, flour, eggs, and melted butter.
  • Scoop into muffin tins.
  • Chop the remaining pecans coarsely and sprinkle over muffin batter.
  • Bake for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Nutrition

Calories: 277kcal | Carbohydrates: 28g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 18g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Cholesterol: 61mg | Sodium: 22mg | Potassium: 101mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 18g | Vitamin A: 303IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 34mg | Iron: 1mg
Keyword: Pecan Muffins

Pecan Muffins collage

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

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Comments

  1. Made with apple sauce and whole-wheat flour. Realized there is no raising agent in the recipe. Which might explain why they don’t rise and are heavy. Pecans aren’t cheap. Wasted my money