Maybe it's a school morning and the kids are struggling to get up and at 'em, or maybe you hit snooze one too many times—everyone has those days. But even a late or hectic start can turn into a successful morning with these whole grain, protein-rich pumpkin spice muffins for breakfast. They're made with egg whites, pumpkin purée, mini chocolate chips, and all your favorite cozy spices; the perfect balance of sweet, filling, and nutritious that your kids will love as much as you do.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners and lightly spray liners with oil for easy removal.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together flours, sugar, baking soda, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt until well combined. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, beat together pumpkin purée, oil, egg whites, and vanilla at medium speed until well combined.
4. Add flour mixture to wet mixture. Using an electric hand or stand mixer on low speed, mix until batter is smooth and uniform. Fold in 2/3 cup mini chocolate chips.
5. Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups, then sprinkle liberally with the remaining 1/3 cup mini chocolate chips. Bake on the center rack for 20-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
6. Let cool at least 15 minutes before serving.

Nellie's Notes

These muffins can be made in large batches and frozen for later. Perfect for popping into lunchboxes to be thawed by lunch!

Be sure to use pumpkin pie purée rather than pumpkin pie filling, which looks very similar, but has additional ingredients like sugar that might unbalance the recipe.

While you can use a number of different types of oil, we recommend olive oil or canola oil for best results.