With St. Patrick’s Day coming up, there’s a GREAT excuse for all of your food to be green- and it’s a good way to get some yummy greens in your little one’s diet. Celebrate the day with tons of green food, and see if you can introduce some new flavors and favorites for your kids.

To help out with that, we’re bringing you another green recipe this week. Last week we made Spinach Pizza Crust! This week, there was so much spinach left over that I decided to use it for Honey Gone Green Muffins! Don’t let the fact that the secret ingredient in these is spinach make you think that they’re not absolutely delicious. It’s similar to a green smoothie, in the fact that the spinach flavor is completely masked. You get all of the health  benefits of the spinach, with no compromise on the taste.

Spinach is a great source of Vitamins A, C, K, and E, magnesium, folate, iron, calcium, potassium, phosphorous, and zinc, among others. And being so low in calories (7 calories per cup), makes it very nutrient dense. Aside from all of the vitamins and minerals in this leafy green, it has notable phytonutrient content- phytonutrients are antioxidants that protect against yucky free radicals in the environment, and act as anti-inflammatories and cancer fighting agents.

Long story short (kind of)- it has numerous health benefits, can brighten up a smoothie (or muffin!), makes a beautiful salad, and it’s flavor can easily be masked by other ingredients. If you’re trying to find a new food to experiment with- make it spinach. And try out these Honey Gone Green Muffins while you’re at it!

Recipe for Honey Gone Green Muffins:

Yields 2 dozen mini muffins or one dozen large muffins

Ingredients:

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup greek yogurt
• 3/4 cup almond milk (or other milk)
• 1 6 oz bag of baby spinach
• 1/2 cup mashed banana (will normally be about 1 banana)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line your muffin tins with paper liners. (DO NOT FORGET YOUR LINERS- I speak from experience here :/ )

2. Whisk together all of the dry ingredients and set aside

3. In a blender or food processor add the greek yogurt, milk, honey, and spinach and blend until it is smooth. Then add the banana and vanilla and blend on low for a few seconds just to make sure everything is nice and mixed!

4.  Fold the wet mixture into the dry and make sure all ingredients are completely combined.

5. Pour the mixture into muffin tins until almost full.

6. Let the muffins bake at 350 for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick or knife inserted comes out clean. If your oven works correctly (unlike mine) the muffins will come out a bright green color! If your oven does NOT work correctly (like mine) they will look burnt (because they are.)

Lucky for me, the burnt outsides didn’t take away from the spinachy goodness and deliciousness on the inside. 🙂

We hope you enjoy these muffins! What is your favorite spinach recipe? We’d love to hear about your experience with this recipe or with any of our other spinach recipes! Save this recipe for later by saving it to Pinterest with this photo!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!