Our Go-To Best Blueberry Muffins

Buttery, sweet, and bursting with blueberries.

Everyone should have a go-to, best blueberry muffin recipe. Blueberry muffins are an essential breakfast and brunch treat: homey, friendly, and beloved by all. A good blueberry muffin should be tender, sweet, and bursting with jammy blueberries. Extra points if they are still warm from the oven.

These muffins are based — and dare I say, improved — upon the New York Times’s famous recipe for “Jordan Marsh’s Blueberry Muffins.” The Jordan Marsh recipe calls for fork-mashing some of the blueberries, and does not use lemon zest. But we skip the fork-mashing to save time, and because the blueberries will cook and get jammy on their own. Lemon zest heightens the flavor of the batter just a bit, without tasting lemony.

You will also like: Really Good Banana Bread and Blueberry Hand Pies

Some Notes on This Best Blueberry Muffin Recipe:

I love wild Maine blueberries, but they do not make the best muffins. Wild blueberries taste sweet and have a beautiful, extra-dark purple juice. These little jewels are small compared to standard blueberries, and less common. They taste great, but tend to get lost in the blueberry muffin batter. Use standard blueberries for muffins to get nice, big bursts of jammy blueberry.

It is fine to use fresh or fresh-frozen blueberries. Do not defrost the blueberries before adding them to the batter. Just add them frozen. Note: frozen berries may take the muffins an extra minute or two to bake.

These, like other muffins, are at their very best right out of the oven, still warm. That said, they will be perfectly delicious for up to two days.

How to Freeze Your Blueberry Muffins in Advance

Freeze your muffins in advance! It’s a great trick. (Not everyone wants to roll out of bed and start baking, bleary-eyed, before the coffee is even made.) Make the muffin batter, portion the batter into muffin cups, and freeze the whole muffin tray before storing each frozen muffin in a large freezer bag.

You can pop the raw, frozen muffins into the oven as many as a time as you like, whenever you want. They will just take a few extra minutes to bake. (Oh–and be sure to put the frozen raw muffins back in a muffin tray to bake.)

Print Recipe

Our Best Easy Blueberry Muffins

A sweet, homey muffin bursting with blueberries.

Prep Time15 mins

Cook Time30 mins

Course: bread, Breakfast

Cuisine: American

Keywords:: banana bread, blueberries, blueberry, blueberry muffins, breakfast, brunch, muffins

Servings: 12 muffins

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• zest of one lemon, optional
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 cups blueberries, washed and picked over for stems
• 1 tablespoon demerara sugar, for dusting (optional)

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 375°F and line a 12 standard muffin tin.
• Cream the butter and sugar on medium-high mixer until light and fluffy. Scrape the bowl and add the eggs, lemon zest, and vanilla. Cream on medium-high again until very light and fluffy, scraping the bowl once or twice to make sure everything is fully and evenly incorporated.
• Add the flour, baking powder, and salt, alternating with the milk. Mix just until incorporated. Do not overmix.
• Fold in the berries by hand until evenly distributed. Divide the batter evenly among the lined muffin tin cups. If using, sprinkle the tops with the demerara sugar and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the tops feel springy and a cake tester comes out clean.
• Let cool for at least 10 minutes in the muffin tin before turning out onto a cooling rack. Serve with soft butter.