Miso Muffins with Kale, Carrot and Courgette

If you haven’t tried miso in savoury muffins before, you’re missing a trick. It gives a wonderful umami hit and added depth of flavour. These miso muffins are made with wholemeal spelt flour and loaded with extra veg. We added kale, carrot and courgette, but other veg would work well too. They’re ideal lunch box fair, but would also give an excellent morning boost if you had one for breakfast.

A Baking Challenge

If you’ve not come across the baking challenge Alpha Bakes, you may have had less of a headache than I did recently. A random letter is generated each month and we have to find something to bake where a main ingredient or name begins with that letter. When it happens to be C there is no problem for me – everything I bake has chocolate in it, but when it’s something a little more obscure such as Z, it becomes  difficult.

This month’s letter is K. Initially, kiwi fruit came to mind. When I looked in my recipe books, however, I found a few obscurely named recipes beginning with K, but nothing with kiwis.

Despite the damage done by pigeons, kale is one of the few crops we’ve managed to grow this year and having initially dismissed this as an ingredient, I decided I really wanted to use some in a bake. Once I’d decided that, it was easy. I resorted to my trusty savoury brunch muffin recipe and adapted it to suit.

How to Use Miso

It just so happens (and in a timely manner for #OrganicSeptember, that I was sent a jar of Yutaka organic classic miso paste to try out. Miso is no stranger in this household and we have been using it for more years than I care to remember.

We make miso soup, use it instead of stock in our other soups and sometimes just drink it with hot water in a mug. It’s meant to be incredibly good for you.

However, other than soup, I’ve not been very adventurous with it. So why not try it out in muffins I thought? As soon as the idea crossed my mind, I knew it was a good one and I was right. The umami flavour it gave to the muffins was perfect. Miso has this uncanny ability to bring out the flavours of other ingredients and that’s exactly what it did here.

For those not in the know, miso originates from Japan and is a paste made from fermented soy beans and grains. It’s full of umami flavours and is a fabulous ingredient for all, but especially vegetarians and vegans. It’s quite salty so a little goes a long way.

We always buy an unpasteurised version as we like to get a dose of beneficial enzymes which are destroyed by the pasteurisation process. We add it to soup after it has been taken off the heat and has stopped bubbling.

This jar of Yutaka organic miso paste has no information regarding pasteurisation, so I have to assume it has been treated. As I was baking with it, this didn’t really matter. The strap line on the jar reading “good food made Japan-easy” made me laugh.  It is available via Sainsbury’s and costs £2.99.

Do Miso Muffins Need Cheese?

The short answer is no, not really. Miso contains enough umami and goodness in its own right and doesn’t need cheese thrown in as an extra. But I had some goat’s cheese in the fridge which was crying out to be used.

So I sliced it on top to give a nice crusty surface and it did make for an extra level of yumminess. I probably didn’t need to add the cocoa either, but these just wouldn’t be my signature brunch muffins without it.

Miso Muffins. PIN IT.

Other Miso Recipes You Might Like

• Beetroot miso soup
• Miso butter noodles
• Miso marinated tofu
• Mushroom miso noodle soup with pak choi & crispy marmalade tofu
• Samphire noodles with miso marinated tofu
• Sweet potato mash with miso

Keep in Touch

Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make this easy recipe for miso muffins with extra veg, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do share photos on your preferred social media site and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.

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If you’d like to see more breakfast, brunch or lunch muffin recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious, of course.

Choclette x

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5 from 4 votes

Miso Muffins with Kale, Carrot and Courgette

Ideal for breakfast, brunch or lunch boxes these savoury muffins are very tasty and packed full of goodness. They’re also simple to make.

Cook ModeToggle to keep screen awake

Prep Time20 minutes mins

Cook Time35 minutes mins

Total Time55 minutes mins

Course: Breakfast, Brunch, Lunch

Cuisine: British

Keyword: buns, carrots, courgettes, kale, miso, muffins, savoury, vegetarian

Servings: 12 muffins

Calories: 204kcal

Author: Choclette @ Tin and Thyme

Ingredients

• 300 g flour (half wholemeal spelt, half white)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 4 kale finely chopped
• 1 medium carrot grated
• 1 medium courgette (zucchini) grated
• 1 clove garlic finely chopped
• 2 large eggs (I used duck eggs)
• 100 ml olive oil
• 100 ml natural yoghurt
• 80 ml milk
• 1 ½ tsp brown miso paste
• 100 g soft goat’s cheese

Metric – US Customary

Instructions

• Mix the miso with a little of the yogurt, then mix in the rest along with the oil and milk.
• Sieve the dry ingredients into a bowl and stir in the kale, carrot, courgette and garlic. Make a well in the centre.
• Break in the eggs and stir from the middle outwards, gradually adding in the yogurt and miso mixture until everything is just incorporated.
• Divide the mixture between 12 large silicone muffin moulds.
• Cut the cheese first into 12 and then each piece into three or four. Lay these pieces on top of the muffins.
• Bake at 180℃ (350℉, Gas 4) for 30 to 35 minutes when the muffins should be well risen and the cheese golden.
• Remove from the oven and turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

Notes

Please note: calories and other nutritional information are per serving. They’re approximate and will depend on exact ingredients used.

Nutrition Estimate

Calories: 204kcal | Carbohydrates: 19.1g | Protein: 7.2g | Fat: 11.5g | Saturated Fat: 2.9g | Cholesterol: 36mg | Sodium: 102mg | Potassium: 206mg | Fiber: 2.6g | Sugar: 2g | Calcium: 70mg | Iron: 0.5mg

Tried this recipe?Leave a comment below letting us know how you got on and do share a photo on Instagram. Tag @choclette8 or use hashtag #tinandthyme.

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Linkies

K is for Kale for Alpha Bakes over at The More Than Occasional Baker and Caroline Makes.

The goats cheese used in these miso muffins nearly ran out of the fridge, it was so desperate to be used. So I’m entering them into the No Food Waste challenge. This is a monthly event coordinated by Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary.

In addition to the ripe cheese, we grew the kale, carrot, courgette and garlic that went into these miso muffins. This made them even tastier as well as suitable for Credit Crunch Munch. Hosted this month over at Maison Cupcake.

I was sent a jar of miso paste to try. I was not required to right a positive review and as always, all opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands and organisations that keep Tin and Thyme blithe and blogging.