Prep: Preheat the oven to 425°F or 220°C for at least 10 minutes. Line a 12 cup muffin pan with liners and keep it ready.
Take dry ingredients (all purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, salt, lemon zest) in a bowl. Whisk till everything is incorporated.
Now take a tablespoon of the flour mixture and sprinkle over the blueberries. Mix and coat every blueberry with flour mixture.
In another large bowl, add wet ingredients (oil, yogurt, milk, vanilla). Beat it using a wire whisk till everything is well combined.
Add flour mixture into the wet. Start mixing using a wire whisk and halfway through switch to a spatula. And mix till everything is incorporated well. Do not overmix.
Now add flour coated berries. Fold them into the batter gently. Make sure not to break any berries, otherwise, the batter will have blue streaks.
Divide the batter into prepared muffin pan. Bake into the preheated oven for 18-20 minutes or till the toothpick inserted into the center of the muffin comes out clean.
Let it cool in the muffin pan for 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack. You can serve warm or at room temperature.
Video
Notes
Ingredient Notes:
Lemon zest: It is the outer yellow part of the lemon peel. Use the citrus zester to grate the skin, but make sure not to grate the white part of the peel. That white part is bitter.
Yogurt substitute: I have also tried with the same amount of unsweetened applesauce. I noticed a slight difference in texture: applesauce makes muffins spongier like cake vs yogurt makes right muffin texture.
Oil: Always use flavorless oil like canola, corn, vegetable, safflower, etc.
Blueberries (fresh or frozen): I prefer and highly recommend using fresh. But yes you can use frozen ones. No need to thaw, just add frozen directly into the batter, so they don’t bleed too much into the batter. Since using frozen, increase the baking time by 1-2 minutes.
Recipe Notes:
Do not overmix the batter. Otherwise, you will get tough and chewy muffins instead of tender crumbs. Just mix till everything is combined.
To prevent blueberries from sinking to the bottom, toss them with a tablespoon of the flour mixture (just enough flour to coat the berries). Then fold this flour-coated berries into the batter as a very last step before baking.
Storage:
Eggless blueberry muffins stay good for 2-3 days at room temperature, 1 week in the refrigerator and up to 3 months in the freezer.
Store them in a single layer in an airtight container and keep on the countertop or in the refrigerator. If you want to stack them then keep a layer of parchment paper before stacking.
To store in the freezer, wrap individual muffins using plastic wrap and freeze into a freeze-safe ziplock bag. Re-heat in the microwave for 15-20 seconds before serving.