Tropical Banana Coconut Muffins (100% Whole Wheat)

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These naturally sweetened banana coconut muffins are a coconut lover’s dream. I bet you’d never guess they’re made with 100% whole wheat flour!

Updated by Kathryne Taylor on February 25, 2026

Coconut lovers, this double-coconut banana muffin recipe is for you! I’m confident you’ll fall hard for the sweet, bright flavors and the playful contrast of textures in these little treats.

These muffins feel familiar and comforting, with their fluffy, banana-infused crumb. They’re also fun and tropical, thanks to shredded coconut folded into the batter and scattered across the muffin tops. A whisper of lemon zest ties all the flavors together.

Like my healthy banana muffins, these are also made with whole wheat flour and naturally sweetened—this time, with honey.

These muffins are built on a different recipe, though, and yield smaller muffins that are just right for taming an afternoon sweet tooth. They’re even more of a treat with a slick of lemon curd.

You could also grab one for a quick on-the-go breakfast, or crumble one over a bowl of Greek yogurt for extra protein.

Curious how this recipe came to be? I can’t recall exactly how I first stumbled on Deb’s Double Coconut Muffins, but I was completely charmed by her coconut-topped beauties.

In the original recipe, Deb offers a long list of suggested substitutions, including swapping mashed banana for the yogurt. I happened to be out of my beloved Greek yogurt, so I reached for my stash of ripe, frozen banana chunks to thaw.

This turned out to be a serendipitous swap, because the banana brings the sweetness that unsweetened coconut flakes lack. In my second batch, I traded 1/4 cup of honey for Deb’s 1/3 cup of sugar, and discovered that the dry coconut drinks up the extra moisture in the honey.

I’m three batches deep into this recipe now, and I can say with certainty that these muffins shine brightest with banana, sweetened with honey, and crowned with a generous sprinkle of coconut and a glitter of raw sugar.

A word to the wise: with my changes, if you swap in yogurt instead of mashed banana, your muffins won’t be sweet enough to delight.

Please let me know how your muffins turn out in the comments! I hope they’re a big hit.

Craving more banana goodness? Here are a few more of my favorite banana recipes:

Tropical Banana Coconut Muffins (100% Whole Wheat)

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These naturally sweetened banana coconut muffins taste like a little tropical vacation. They’re so tender and flavorful, I bet you’d never guess they’re made with 100% whole wheat flour! Recipe yields 1 dozen muffins.

Ingredients

Instructions

Notes

Recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s Double Coconut Muffins.

Make it vegan: All you’ll need to do is swap the egg for a flax egg. I haven’t tried this substitution myself, but it should work nicely.

Make it gluten free: Based on similar recipes, Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free all-purpose blend should work beautifully.

Freeze it: These muffins freeze beautifully!

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