My savoury polenta breakfast muffins are super easy and packed with flavour for a perfect breakfast, snack, or appetizer. This tender, healthy, vegan recipe can also be made gluten-free. Studded with all these crowd-pleasing Italian flavours: garlic, oregano, chives.
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💌 Why You'll Love This Recipe
Think mushy polenta or rustic cornbread are the only ways to use cornmeal? Meet my lunchbox staple polenta muffins!
- Works as a side or a standalone snack
- So flavourful
- Easy to customise
- Made in 1 bowl in 30 minutes
- Great when served with soups & stews
- No added sugar
- Made in a standard cupcake or muffin tin
- No fancy equipment needed
- Approved by vegans & non-vegans alike
And if that’s not convincing enough, you’ll also get step-by-step photos & video to guide you through making these easy polenta muffins.
🌱 Ingredients
You’ll need simple, staple ingredients for this delicious baked polenta dish.
PS - I know polenta/cornmeal can be a bit confusing. I’ve written about the difference between cornmeal and cornstarch here.
Polenta (cornmeal): I used ready-to-cook, fine polenta. Any cornmeal (fine or coarse) will do.
Plain flour: also called all-purpose flour. Make sure you’re not using strong bread flour.
Oil: I used olive oil but feel free to substitute for any other vegetable oil such as sunflower, hemp, etc. Can’t be substituted with coconut oil.
Chives: I used fresh chives, but this can be subbed for dry chives or other herbs too.
Seeds: I used a mix of sunflower, pumpkin & flaxseed, but you could top it off with any seeds of your choice.
⏲️ Steps
This polenta muffins recipe is SO easy you practically can’t go wrong. It’s perfect for beginners and even kids can get involved. Here’s a quick visual overview.
PS - The full ingredients list with instructions is waiting for you at the bottom of this post. Or scroll to the top and click on Jump to Recipe.
💡 Expert Tips
Weight the ingredients: while I do provide measurements in cups, using kitchen scales to measure out your ingredients in grams is a lot more precise. This will give you the best results.
Don’t overmix: your polenta muffin batter should be light & fluffy. Once you’ve added liquids, stir until the mixture is just combined and then stop right away.
Let them cool: if you’re trying to eat these straight out of the oven, they’ll get stuck to the cupcake liner and end up being a mess. Let them cool down first.
❓ FAQ
I strongly recommend that. Alternatively, you could try greasing the tin well with oil. However, this might make it harder to remove the muffins.
Every oven behaves differently - I was SO surprised to learn that a few years back.
This means that even though I tested this recipe to perfection (if I may say so myself!), your baking times might be different.
It's so important to get to know your oven which will help determine whether or not you need to bake things for longer or shorter.
The easiest way to tell if your polenta muffins are baked is to stick a skewer in the middle of 1 muffin and see if it comes out clean. If not, you need to bake it for longer and then repeat the skewer test.
📦 Storing
These muffins taste by far the best when they’re fresh. Aim to eat them on the same day of baking. If you’re not sure you’re gonna be able to eat them all, make a smaller batch.
If you do have some leftovers, the best way to store them is in an airtight container at room temperature. They should keep good for 1-2 days.
🍽️ Serving
- Eat them alone as a snack or starter
- Pair them with a hearty, feel-good stew
- They form a natural pairing with my tomato, broccoli or vegan chicken soup
- Serve them with a good dipping sauce like my mint & mango chutney
- Enjoy them with a healthy salad for a refreshing meal
🔪 Substitutions
- Make it gluten-free by swapping plain flour for GF plain flour (tried & tested)
- Customise it by adding veggies (extra sneaky portion of veg, great for fussy kids!)
- Add cheese on top for that extra comfort - I love adding smoked vegan cheese
- Add other herbs instead of chives - basil, parsley, cilantro, thyme & rosemary would all works well
If you enjoyed these polenta muffins, check out my savoury muffins, one of the most popular recipes on this blog!
Lastly, thanks for stopping by! Any questions just leave them in the comments below and I’ll be happy to help you out as soon as I see them!
🍴Recipe
The BEST Polenta Breakfast Muffins
EQUIPMENT
- Measuring cups or scales
- Muffin/cupcake tin
- Muffin/cucpake liners
INGREDIENTS
Dry ingredients
- ½ cup (80 g) polenta / cornmeal
- ½ cup (62.5 g) plain flour
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon (0.75 teaspoon) salt
- 4 tablespoon fresh chives half this amount if using dry chives
- ½ teaspoon (0.5 teaspoon) garlic powder
- 1 pinch turmeric
- 1 teaspoon dry oregano
Wet ingredients
- 2 tablespoon olive oil or other vegetable oil
- ¾ cup (180 ml) water
Toppings
- 4 tablespoon mixed seeds I used a mix of sunflower, pumpkin & flaxseed
INSTRUCTIONS
- Add all your dry ingredients to a bowl. Mix well.
- In a large cup/mug, mix together your wet ingredients.
- Pour the wet ingredients over your dry ingredients and stir until combined. Do not overmix.
- Slowly pour the muffin mixture into a lined muffin tin.
- Top off with seeds.
- Bake at 356°F/180°C for 18-20 minutes.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Disclaimer: The nutritional information above is calculated automatically. The author of this post cannot guarantee 100% accuracy of this data.
Paula
The rexipe says seeds and tou wrote you ise a mix of ……. But there’s nothing listed
Tajda Ferko
Thanks for noticing! Added the details of what seed mix I used (sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds & flaxseed).
Christine Eaton
Thank you for posting such a super recepie! The muffins are delicious in flavour and light in texture. I had no chives and added chopped garlic instead. Looking forward to trying your other recipes!
Tajda Ferko
So happy to hear than Christine, thank you so much for leaving a great review!
Kristin
These are SO good! I’ve had polenta in my pantry for months, and just hadn’t found a recipe I was sold on. These turned out moist, tender, and satisfyingly savory—and this coming from someone who tends towards sweet things. I made a few minor tweaks:
I used the recipe for 8 muffins and all the proportions turned out perfectly!
For flour, I used Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 Gluten Free Baking Flour.
I have reflux and get triggered by specific spices, so I used Rosemary instead of garlic, oregano, and turmeric.
I didn’t use baking cups, and the muffins slid out smoothly from a metal muffin tin, no problem, and no burnt edges.
Thank you for this recipe!
Tajda Ferko
Thanks so much for taking the time to leave your wonderful review Kristin! Glad to know it worked so well with GF flour.