Blueberry Chocolate Chip Muffins with Blue Corn (Gluten-Free)

These Blueberry Chocolate Chip Muffins, made with blue cornmeal are the best gluten-free muffins ever! Blue cornmeal recipes are rare and offer a unique and delicious flavor. Lovely for breakfast or a portable snack -- you will love them any time.

Made with fresh or frozen blueberries and blue corn, this muffin recipe is easy to make, the muffins keep for days, and they freeze well, too.

There are many recipes out there for blueberry muffins with cornmeal, but you'll rarely find one like this for blueberry blue cornmeal muffins -- especially with the addition of chocolate! Not to mention, they're made with avocado oil, which helps create a soft texture.

I make large-sized muffins for this recipe, which are ideal for a satisfying quick breakfast or an easy grab-and-go snack.

Jump to:

• What to Know About the Ingredients
• How to Make Blue Corn Blueberry Chocolate Chip Muffins
• Variations
• How to Store Fresh Muffins
• What is Blue Corn?
• More Must-Try Muffin Recipes
• More Must-Try Blueberry Recipes
• Blue Corn Blueberry Chocolate Chip Muffin Recipe

What to Know About the Ingredients

blue cornmeal

• the blueberries - Both fresh and frozen blueberries work well in this recipe. I like using wild frozen blueberries (in the image above). You do not need to thaw them, and as you can see their color is more of a deep burgundy. If you use fresh, look for blueberries with smooth, unbroken skin that are deep purple to almost black in color.
• the blue cornmeal - The use of blue cornmeal in this recipe makes the flavor deliciously earthy and sweet. You can sometimes find it larger grocery stores, and more often in stores that have more health food options, like Whole Foods. Or you can get it online, here. You'll find it labeled a few different ways: Blue Cornmeal, Blue Corn Flour (more finely ground), Blue Masa, and Roasted Blue Cornmeal or Flour. Any of them should work well, and if you and yes, you can substitute with yellow or white cornmeal if you want, though you won't get that earthy flavor of the blue corn. (More on blue corn is below.)
• the gluten-free all-purpose flour - I always use Cup4Cup Gluten-Free Multi-Purpose flour -- I find it behaves the most like regular all-purpose flours, and the results are great. (You can of course use the regular one if keeping it gluten-free isn't important for you.)
• the avocado oil - Oil tends to create a muffin texture that is soft and moist, and I love using avocado oil when I can. The flavor is totally neutral and it's generally considered a healthier choice than canola, vegetable or grapeseed.

How to Make Blue Corn Blueberry Chocolate Chip Muffins

- Preheat the oven to 375°F, and line a 6 cup jumbo muffin pan with paper liners. (Alternately, you can use 2 standard-sized muffin pans with standard-sized paper liners, and make about 18 muffins.)

Important Recipe Tip: Made from natural parchment, tulip muffin/cupcake liners are fun and pretty -- and most importantly, they allow more room to fill them generously with the batter. You can however use regular large paper liners, but you likely won't be able to fill them as much, so you'd have slightly smaller muffins, and need to do this in batches with the 6 cup pan.

- Combine the blue cornmeal, gluten-free flour, baking powder, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, and the salt. Mix, add the blueberries and chocolate and gently toss to coat them with the dry ingredients.

Recipe Tip: Coating the berries and chocolate with the dry ingredients like this, helps keep them from sinking to the bottom of the muffins.

- Combine the oil with the sugar, milk, sour cream, vanilla and eggs and mix. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in about half of the wet ingredients. Mix, and then add the rest and mix until you no longer see dry spots.

- To make the topping, mix the brown sugar, remaining ½ teaspoon of cinnamon and melted butter.

- Evenly divide the batter among the 6 lined cups in the pan. Then evenly distribute the brown sugar topping among the muffins by drizzling it on top.

- Bake until they're golden and feel spongy when gently pressed with your finger, about 35 minutes.

- Let them cool in the pan for about 20 minutes.

(More detailed instructions are int he recipe card below.)

Variations

• If you want to go for blueberry corn muffins without chocolate chips, swap the chips out for ¾ cups more blueberries.
• You can experiment with white or milk chocolate chips. Just note that they're sweeter and the blueberry flavor might not shine through quite as much.
• You can make the without the topping if desired. The topping is a mixture of melted butter, cinnamon and brown sugar, and it makes a thin tasty crust on the muffin's surface.

How to Store Fresh Muffins

• Room temperature. You can keep the muffins at room temperature if you know they're going to be eaten the same or following day. The best way to preserve their freshness is to let them cool completely, put them in an airtight container with a dry paper towel below and on top of them.
• Freezer. The muffins can be frozen for about three months. The easiest method is to place them in a single layer in a freezer Ziploc bag. Let them defrost at room temperature.
• Refrigerator. While they can be refrigerated for a few days, it might change their texture and dry them out a bit. If you do this.

*For both freezer and refrigerator storage, I recommend warming them in a hot oven before eating them.

What is Blue Corn?

• Blue corn is exactly that, blue corn! It's one of the oldest corn varieties, and blue cornmeal comes from ground blue corn.
• What does it taste like? The blue cornmeal has an earthier flavor than the yellow and white varieties and it's subtly sweet.
• What makes it blue? The blue-purple color is from its rich Anthocyanin content, which offers many health benefits. Among other things, it's an antioxidant. (Learn more in this article about the health benefits of Anthocyanin.) Blue cornmeal varies in color from from grayish-blue or purple to grayish-beige.

More Must-Try Muffin Recipes

More Must-Try Blueberry Recipes

• Blueberry Lemon Cookies
• Blueberry-Bacon Waffles
• Gluten-Free Peach-Blueberry Cobbler

I hope you love every last crumb of my gluten-free blueberry chocolate chip muffins!

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