High Protein Almond Chocolate Chip Muffins

TVP Muffins are one of my all-time favorite ways to use TVP! If you aren’t very familiar with TVP, Textured Vegetable Protein is a great vegan protein source. It’s a shelf stable ingredient, and basically just de-fatted soy flour. You can do all kinds of stuff with it – from savory recipes like tacos to the High Protein Almond Chocolate Chip Muffins you see here! A lot of people ask if you have to re-hydrate the TVP before using it in a muffin recipe; you do not! We use dry TVP in this high protein muffin recipe and hydrate it with vegan Greek yogurt and flax egg when making the muffin batter! The texture of the TVP in this recipe is similar to baked oats and I think you’ll love it!

TVP Muffins are literally the PERFECT easy on-the-go high protein breakfast! They literally take 20 minutes to make from start to finish! They are also great for a little protein snack to have on-hand to satisfy your sweet tooth and still keep you hitting your macros. I really like to make a batch or two over the weekend and take a couple for breakfast every morning for a quick high protein, high fiber breakfast! These can also be frozen so they last longer!

If almond chocolate chip muffins don’t sound like your thing, but you still want to try out a TVP Muffin, maybe check out my Chocolate Orange Muffin or Banana Nut Muffin recipes!

Ingredients

• TVP – Textured Vegetable Protein – this is an awesome shelf-stable vegan protein that you can find at most grocery stores near the gluten-free flour options. You can also buy it online. My go-to brand of TVP is Bob’s Red Mill.
• PB2 Almond Protein Powder – this is such an awesome ingredient – it packs in a lot of protein and a ton of almond flavor! You can find it at some grocery stores, and also online.
• Mini Chocolate Chips – my favorite are the Enjoy Life Mini Chocolate Chips. I like the mini chocolate chips because you get a little bit of chocolate in each bite!
• Flour – I used all-purpose flour, but if you are a gluten-freegan, feel free to swap this out with your favorite gluten-free flour!
• Baking Soda and Baking Powder – I think these are must-haves if you want muffins with a nice fluffy texture (not using these could result in much more dense muffins).
• Cinnamon – adds a nice taste to these high protein almond chocolate chip muffins!
• Salt – adjust to taste.

• Vegan Greek Yogurt – I really like the Kite Hill brand, and use the vanilla flavor for this recipe. If you don’t have a vegan Greek yogurt handy, regular vegan yogurt will work great as well!
• Date Sugar – I used D’vash Organics Date Sugar in this recipe. My first time using date sugar! It turned out really great and not much different than normal sugar, just a few less calories. If you don’t have date sugar, brown sugar will work great here too (use a 1:1 swap)!
• Soy Milk – this is my go-to vegan milk! You could use another non-dairy milk since this is mostly just being used to add moisture to the TVP.
• Ground Flax Seed – this is what we’re using for our egg substitute. It’s super cheap, shelf stable, and easy to find at nearly any store! It’s easy to use too; we just add water and wait five minutes – instant vegan egg replacement!
• Vanilla – any good muffin must have vanilla extract!
• Baking Soda and Baking Powder – I think these are must-haves if you want muffins with a nice fluffy texture (not using these could result in much more dense muffins).
• Salt – adjust to taste.

Instructions

• Pre-heat oven to 350 F (177 C).
• In a small bowl, mix 2 tablespoons of ground flax seeds with 6 tablespoons of water. Let this sit for at least five minutes. Now we have flax goo!

• In a large bowl, mix together the vegan Greek yogurt, date sugar, soy milk, vanilla extract and the flax goo. These are our “wet” ingredients.
• In a separate bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients – flour, PB2 Almond Protein Powder, cinnamon, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Once well mixed, stir in the dry TVP. We do not re-hydrate the TVP in this recipe beforehand. The wet ingredients will moisten it in the batter. The reason we mix the dry ingredients separately is to ensure that the smaller amount ingredients like spices, baking soda and baking powder get well mixed throughout the muffin batter.
• Add the dry ingredients slowly to the wet ingredients, and mix well.
• Stir in the chocolate chips.

• Evenly distribute the batter across all 12 (lined) muffin cup things on your muffin tray. You could also use silicone muffin molds; they even make fun shaped ones like hearts!
• Bake for 12 – 15 minutes. These will come out slightly gooey – if you cook for too long to where you are passing the toothpick test, you will end up with dry muffins that I don’t think you’ll like very much.
• Let the muffins sit for 15 – 30 minutes and they will set up.

Silly Little Haiku

TVP Muffins

The greatest breakfast ever

Such tasty protein!