Healthy Orange Cranberry Wheat Bran Muffins! Perfect for meal-prep mornings, these muffins are naturally crowd-pleasers and pair beautifully with coffee or tea, making them an ideal addition to your healthy bakery repertoire.

These Healthy Orange Cranberry Wheat Bran Muffins are a wholesome, flavorful breakfast option that delivers both nutrition and crave-worthy taste. Crafted with hearty whole wheat flour and wheat bran, these muffins showcase bright orange zest and juice for a sunny citrus note, while dried cranberries add bursts of tart sweetness in every bite. The result is a moist, lightly sweet muffin with a satisfying texture.

Whole Food Plant Based, Vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, no highly processed ingredients.

Hi there, Ameera here!

We totally fell in love with these tasty muffins! A total winner that blends wholesome ingredients with bright flavor. The orange aroma is irresistible, and the cranberries provide joyful pops of tart sweetness. The wheat bran adds a hearty bite while keeping the muffins moist and satisfying.

If you’re searching for a muffin recipe that’s both nourishing and delicious, this one is a must-try that will keep you coming back. Give it a go, bake a batch, and watch them disappear in no time!

Tips for Success:

• Flavor Profile: These Healthy Orange Cranberry Wheat Bran Muffins are healthy and delicious, filled with whole wheat flour, wheat bran, orange goodness and studded throughout with dried cranberries. They are moist, lightly sweet, and have fantastic texture.
• Sweetness: These muffins are lightly sweet.
• Coconut Sugar: We used coconut sugar, but other dry sugars like date sugar, maple sugar or other dry sugars will work great in this recipe.
• Oven Temperature Switch: Start the oven at 400F for the first 7 minutes, this allows the muffins to quickly crest and puff up creating that beautiful muffin dome.
• Measuring Flour: Spoon the flour into the measuring cup and level off. Do not pack it in and do not scoop it in. Do the same with the wheat bran.
• Wheat Bran Substitutions: We have not tested any substitutions for the wheat bran. This recipe was specifically created to use wheat bran.
• Whole Wheat Flour Substitutions: These muffins were specifically designed to use whole wheat flour and wheat bran. We do not have any substitutions to offer.
• Gluten Free: This recipe is not gluten free. There are no substitutions to offer to make them gluten free. There are many gluten-free muffin recipes on our site, simply type ‘muffins’ in the search bar to locate our gluten free muffins.
• Orange Juice: You can use freshly squeezed or unsweetened store-bought orange juice. If using freshly squeezed, you may need an extra teaspoon of orange zest to really bring the orange flavor forward.
• Why Roughly Chop the Cranberries: This is optional; however, it does make for a wonderful distribution of cranberries throughout the muffins and makes for a great mouthfeel.
• Resting the Muffins before Baking: Resting the muffin batter for at least 5 minutes (up to 10 minutes) before baking allows the flour to fully hydrate. This makes for a tender crumb.
• Cookie Scoop or Ice Cream Scoop: If you have a medium-sized cookie scoop or a small ice cream scoop, use that to fill the muffin liners. Otherwise, after filling the batter, if the tops look a tad bit “choppy”, then try to smooth out the tops a little by using a warm, wet spoon to avoid the choppy peaks and valleys that may occur when dropping batter with a spoon as the batter is thick. This is not required, but it does help the muffins look prettier and rounder when using a spoon to smooth out the muffins. In other words, the muffins will rise, but they will keep pretty much the same form coming out of the oven as when you put them in the oven.
• Health Benefits of Wheat Bran: Wheat bran is the nutrient-dense, hard outer layer of the wheat kernel, separated during the milling process. It is exceptionally high in insoluble fiber and packed with nutrients like magnesium, selenium, phosphorus, and iron. Often used to boost fiber intake, it has a light, flaky texture and a mild, sweet-nutty flavor. It can also help manage blood sugar, reduce cholesterol, support heart health, and aids in relieving constipation.
• Wheat Bran Helps Relieve Constipation: Wheat bran relieves constipation by increasing stool water content making it easier to pass. It is highly effective. Because of wheat bran’s effectiveness it promotes the growth of bifidobacterium, a healthy bacteria found in the gut which is linked to a decreased risk of colon cancer.
• Muffin Paper Liners: We used natural cupcake liners.
• Muffins Sticking to Liners: Because we do not use oil on the Whole Food Plant Based Diet, the muffins will slightly stick to the paper liners after baking; however, the longer you wait to eat them (several hours), the less they will stick. They don’t stick enough to be concerned, but we do want you to know that they can stick and you will lose a tiny bit of the muffin to the liner.
• Table Salt: If using table salt, you should use less table salt than the amount listed in the ingredients as sea salt crystals are larger than table salt crystals. Since table salt crystals are very fine, less table salt is required to season a dish. We would suggest starting with about 1/4 to 1/2 the amount of sea salt listed. You can always add more salt but cannot take it away. We recommend using sea salt as it is less refined than table salt.
• Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.

Leftovers and Freezing:

Leftovers will generally keep 4 to 5 days at room temperature.  Store in a covered air-tight container.

These muffins freeze well.

Pantry Products:

• Whole Wheat Flour: We used Sunrise Flour Mill Organic Heritage Whole Wheat Flour. Feel free to use your favorite whole wheat flour.
• Wheat Bran: We used Bob’s Red Mill Wheat Bran. Feel free to use your favorite wheat bran. 

Kitchen Equipment:

• Muffin tin (holds 12 regular-sized muffins)
• Paper muffin liners
• Medium-sized cookie scoop (optional)

If you try these wholesome muffins, we would love to know if you enjoy it as much as we do! Please leave us a review! Post a picture on Facebook or Instagram and tag us! We would love to hear from you.

Healthy Orange Cranberry Wheat Bran Muffins

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star No reviews

• Author: Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures
• Prep Time: 20 Minutes
• Cook Time: 17-20 Minutes
• Total Time: 40 Minutes
• Yield: 12 Muffins 1x
• Category: Breakfast, Dessert
• Method: Oven
• Diet: Vegan

Print Recipe

Pin Recipe

---

Description

These Healthy Orange Cranberry Wheat Bran Muffins are a wholesome, flavorful breakfast option that delivers both nutrition and crave-worthy taste.

---

Ingredients

Scale 1/2x1x2x

 

Dry Ingredients:

• ½ cup coconut sugar (or other dry sugar) *
• 1 Tablespoon orange zest
• 1 ½ cups organic whole wheat flour *
• 1 cup wheat bran *
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon sea salt (+/-) *
• 1 Tablespoon cornstarch (or arrowroot powder)

Wet Ingredients:

• ½ cup pure maple syrup
• 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
• ½ cup + 1 Tablespoon unsweetened plain plant milk
• ¼ cup + 1 Tablespoon orange juice *
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Other Ingredients:

• 3/4 to 1 cup dried cranberries, rough chop, divided *

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

---

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 F, center rack.
2. Line the muffin tin with 12 paper liners, set aside.
3. Roughly chop the dried cranberries, set aside.
4. Place the coconut sugar (or other dry sugar) into a small bowl, add the orange zest. Pinch and rub the orange zest into the sugar repeatedly for several minutes to infuse the orange zest into the sugar, set aside.
5. Place the all the Dry Ingredients (including the orange zest/sugar mixture) into a large mixing bowl, whisk to combine.
6. Add all the Wet Ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly by hand to incorporate all the ingredients.
7. Stir in nearly all the roughly chopped dried cranberries (saving a small amount for decorating the tops.
8. Carefully and evenly spoon the batter into the paper-lined muffin tin up to the top.
9. If needed, smooth out the tops with a wet, warm spoon.
10. Sprinkle the tops with a few chopped dried cranberries, press down gently onto the batter to ensure they adhere to the batter.
11. Allow to rest for 5 minutes (up to 10 minutes) on the counter.
12. Place in a 400 F preheated oven for 7 minutes, then after 7 minutes, lower the oven temperature to 350 F for 10 to 13 minutes or until set and a toothpick comes out clean.
13. Remove from the oven and allow the muffins to cool in the muffin tin for several minutes, then remove the muffins and move them to a cooling rack. Allow to cool for 30 to 45 minutes on the cooling rack, then enjoy! Store at room temperature in an air-tight container.

---

Notes

Please reference the blog post for Tips for Success, Pantry Items Used, Storage and Freezing, and Kitchen Products Used. 

Sea Salt:  Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.   

Servings:  Makes 12 regular-sized muffins

This post contains affiliate links, and we may receive a very small commission if you purchase through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures! For more information, see our disclosures here.