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These sourdough lemon muffins combine the delicious zingy tang of lemons with the goodness of sourdough to bring you a taste sensation. They bake up with a tender crumb and a bright lemon fragrance that fills the kitchen. They come together quickly with simple pantry ingredients and can be made with either active sourdough starter or discard.
If you’re new to sourdough baking, muffins are a wonderful place to start because they allow you to use your sourdough discard (unfed sourdough starter) in a meaningful way.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe!
Quick And Easy To Make – A batch of these sourdough lemon muffins come together in just a few minutes and bake in around 20 minutes, making them perfect when you want something homemade without spending a lot of time in the kitchen.
Bright Fresh Lemon Flavor – Fresh lemon zest and juice give these muffins their signature citrus flavor and a wonderful fragrance as they bake. Finished with an optional lemon glaze that soaks into the warm muffins, these are perfect for breakfast, afternoon tea, or an easy snack any time of day.
Use 200g of Sourdough Discard – this is one of those sourdough recipes that let’s you empty your discard jar! You can read more about why you must discard your starter. Once you start baking with discard, muffins quickly become a favorite.
This is one of the most popular sourdough discard recipes on The Pantry Mama site. It’s been baked thousands of times and has been loved by so many of our sourdough community!
A friend gifted me a very happy starter yesterday, and this was my first sourdough recipe ever! I had little hands helping so I believe it got a little over mixed, but they are still so delicious. This recipe was so easy too, I feel a lot less intimidated to venture into all that is sourdough. Looking forward to trying more!
Ingredients
- Sourdough Starter – This recipe uses 200g of sourdough starter. You can choose to make these sourdough muffins with fed, active starter or sourdough discard.
- All Purpose Flour
- Sugar – Granulated sugar sweetens the muffins and balances the brightness of the lemon. It also helps create that lightly golden top as the muffins bake.
- Eggs – I’ve used two large eggs to add structure and help give the muffins a light, fluffy texture.
- Baking Powder – just baking powder for these, no baking soda!
- Vegetable Oil – A light flavored oil keeps these muffins soft and adds moisture. You can use any neutral oil you have on hand, such as vegetable, avocado, or canola oil. Melted coconut oil works for these too if that’s what you prefer.
- Lemon Zest – Lemon zest is where most of the bright lemon flavor comes from, so don’t skip it. Use the freshest lemons possible. They’re best if you pick them from a tree to ensure the rind has no wax or chemicals added.
- Lemon Juice – Fresh lemon juice adds extra citrus flavor and helps give the muffins that lovely zingy lemon taste. You’ll also mix some of the juice with powdered sugar for the lemon glaze.
- Vanilla Extract
- Salt
- Powdered Sugar – Powdered sugar creates a smooth glaze that soaks into the warm muffins and adds a little extra sweetness. You can of course skip the glaze if you prefer or just give the muffins a light dusting of powdered sugar.
How To Make Sourdough Lemon Muffins
Preheat oven to 180ºC/350ºF and grease a 12 hole muffin tin with butter.
Mix the sourdough starter, eggs, lemon juice, vanilla extract and oil in a bowl. Whisk together until well combined. It’s ok if the oil sits on the top, it will combine once it is poured into the dry ingredients.
In a separate bowl mix together all purpose flour, salt, baking powder, lemon zest and sugar.
Now pour the liquid ingredient mixture into the dry ingredients. Gently fold together until just mixed – don’t over mix or the muffins will be tough.
Spoon the muffin batter into greased a muffin pan. This recipe will fill a 12 hole muffin pan (each hole around 3/4 full). You can use paper liners if you prefer (just spray them with a little oil first to stop the muffins sticking).
Bake at 180ºC/350ºF for approximately 20 minutes or until muffins are golden brown.
While the muffins are baking, mix together the powdered sugar and lemon juice.
Once the muffins are cooked, spoon the lemon glaze onto the muffins while they are still in the muffin tin. Let the lemon glaze soak into the muffins and cool slightly before removing them from the pan and allowing them to cool fully on a wire rack.
Kate’s RECIPE Tips
Using Sourdough Discard
- Don’t use sourdough discard that’s really old and sour – it will give you an unpleasant flavor in your muffins. I recommend using sourdough discard that’s not more than a few days old for this recipe.
- If you want to make these muffins, but don’t have 200g of discard, you can increase your amount of sourdough starter or just just active starter instead.
Flavor Variations for Sourdough Lemon Muffins
While these sourdough lemon muffins are perfect in their simplicity, you could also jazz them up with these flavor variations:
- Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins – Add a few teaspoons of poppy seeds to the dry ingredients before pouring in the wet ingredients to make sourdough lemon and poppyseed muffins.
- Almond Topped Muffins – Top the batter with some flaked almonds before you place them into the oven.
- Citrus Muffins – Adding orange zest as well as lemon zest will give you lovely citrus sourdough muffins.
- White Chocolate Lemon Muffins – Add 100g of white chocolate chips to the dry ingredients before pouring in the wet ingredients to make white chocolate and lemon sourdough muffins.
- Lemon Blueberry Muffins – Add some frozen or dried blueberries for a version of sourdough lemon and blueberry muffins.
- Pineapple Lemon Muffins – Add a few handfuls of tinned pineapple pieces to the dry ingredients before you pour the liquid ingredients in.
Along with these lemon muffins, readers also love orange cranberry sourdough muffins and these soft and fluffy overnight blueberry sourdough muffins. If you prefer something savory, these sourdough zucchini muffins with cheese and chives make a great lunchbox or snack option.
How to Store + Freeze
Store the muffins in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days.
If you want them to last longer, you can store them in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
They can be frozen for up to 3 months. Allow the muffins to cool completely, then place them in a freezer safe container or bag. To serve, allow them to thaw at room temperature or warm them slightly before eating.
Sourdough Lemon Muffins
Equipment
- Mixing Bowl
- Digital Scales
- 12 Hole Muffin Tin
Ingredients
- 200 g Sourdough Starter, (can be discard or active starter)
- 200 g All Purpose Flour
- 70 g Sugar
- 2 Eggs
- 6 g Baking Powder, (1 tsp)
- 100 g Vegetable Oil, (or light flavored oil)
- 20 g Lemon Zest, (zest of whole lemon)
- 20 g Lemon Juice
- 5 g Vanilla Extract
- 5 g Salt, (you can decrease this if you prefer)
Lemon Glaze
- 60 g Powdered Sugar
- 20 g Lemon Juice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180ºC/350ºF and grease a 12 hole muffin tin with butter.
- Mix the sourdough starter, eggs, lemon juice, vanilla extract and oil in a bowl. Whisk together until well combined. It's ok if the oil sits on the top, it will combine once it is poured into the dry ingredients.
- In a separate bowl mix together all purpose flour, salt, baking powder, lemon zest and sugar.
- Now pour the liquid ingredient mixture into the dry ingredients. Gently fold together until just mixed – don't over mix or the muffins will be tough.
- Spoon mixture into greased muffin tin. This recipe will fill a 12 hole muffin (each hole around 3/4 full).
- Bake at 180ºC/350ºF for approximately 20 minutes or until muffins are golden brown.
- While the muffins are baking, mix together the powdered sugar and lemon juice.
- Once the muffins are cooked, spoon the lemon glaze onto the muffins while they are still in the muffin tin. Let the lemon glaze soak into the muffins and cool slightly before removing them from the tin.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this? Rate and comment below!
This recipe calls for 20g lemon zest. Is this a misprint? I am using the zest from one lemon and hope that is correct.
Yes that’s correct. I use homegrown lemons and love a super lemony flavor so 20g is good 🙂 But just use what you have.
Do you have a gram conversion chart?
I have the same question..one lemon is about 5 grams of zest. I bought 2 lemons so I’ll only have about 10 grams..we’ll see what they are like.
I also think 20g lemon zest is rather a lot. I used 2g from one lemon 🤷😊
I baked these for 24 minutes and still not browned but look done. I used muffin paper cups instead of greasing the muffin tin. Could that be why? My oven is accurate. Thanks.. I want to try the addition if white chocolate chips and maybe cranberries next, do I need to adjust and amounts??
This recipe is really forgiving. I messed up completely by adding everything to one bowl (brain fog) and they still worked and were not tough at all. I also added fresh ginger/ orange puld because i had some to be used up. The only thing I would change next time is add more sugar, more lemon zest and even more ginger because they lacked in flavor.
Could you please include measurements in cups, tsp, tblp etc. the conversions are not exact. It would be so helpful for those of us in America
When I zested 1 lemon, it made 4 grams of zest. Since I only needed 1/2 the lemon to get the juice I needed, I’m glad I didn’t zest another…. But maybe make a distinction so people don’t thing they should be getting 20g of zest off of an average lemon? (Or your lemons are waaaaay bigger than mine!)
I added fresh wild blueberries and the muffins were delicious!
I was gifted some lemons, so decided to make these muffins. It’s the first time I’ve tried a Pantry Mama recipe. And, seriously, they were incredible!
Such a versatile recipe. I tried to make them healthier so I substituted in wholemeal flour and coconut sugar in the same quantities as the recipe. And I had half an orange in the fridge, so I added the zest and juice of that too. They were so perfect! It felt like the recipe was so robust I could have made so many tweaks and they still would have been incredible.
This recipe is AMAZING!! I didn’t have fresh lemons on hand but wanted to make these so I subbed organic bottled lemon juice, I added half the amount of zest because that’s what I had frozen already and added poopy seeds. Oooooh they were delicious! The lemon flavor was perfect and the texture was light and airy. I did use the lemon drizzle on top…made them so decadent!!
Have you added poppyseeds to this recipe? if so how much?
Can this recipe be made into a loaf instead of muffins?
Is it possible to substitue oil for melted butter if so how much butter.
Can you convert this recipe to TBSP tsp and cups please
I made these last night. Easy recipe and they turned out pretty tasty. My hub said they needed more lemon to keep them from being just ok. So I will up the juice and zest a bit next time if I’m just going for a stronger lemon taste. He thought the glaze really added a lot as far as taste goes.
I’m going to chop some mixed dried berries and toss those in next time. Or, if I had some strawberries I’d chop some up and throw those in for lemon/
strawberry muffins.
A versatile recipe that could be savory as well. Loved it! Thanks
Very easy and delicious! Pretty sure I over mixed as they are very dense but will try again as the flavor is amazing.
Thank you for this great discard recipe… These muffins are delicious!!! I added 2 tsp of poppy seeds… so delicious!
These muffins are soft and delicious! I used honey, olive oil, doubled the lemon juice and zested 5 lemons. I was not able to get a full 12. I measured everything in grams on my scale. Any suggestions? Also the recipe says 20g of zest- I had about 5 with the 5 lemons of zested. They’re a bright happy muffin for anytime of year! Have you ever added lavender?
Delicious. Very moist and fluffy. I substituted monk fruit sweeteners for the muffins and glaze plus added poppy seeds. This recipe is a keeper.
Mine turned out kind of dense and didn’t rise very much, but the muffins are tender and tasty. I used orange zest instead of lemon zest and added some poppy seeds to make them more fun. I didn’t bother with the icing but used butter on the inside as the finishing touch.
I tried this recipe today using my sourdough discard and it was easy to make! however, 5g of salt made the muffin rather salty so maybe might need to reduce to 3g. Thanks for this recipe! it’ll be my go-to next time when the family is sick of sourdough breads… 🙂
Can I use almond. Flour instead of regular flour ?
I had some sourdough discard I need to use and a lemon. Thought I would try these. Used a mini muffin tin and it made 30 small muffins. The glaze is a must. Cooked for approximately 12 min. These were fabulous.
A friend gifted me a very happy starter yesterday, and this was my first sourdough recipe ever!
I had little hands helping so I believe it got a little over mixed, but they are still so delicious. This recipe was so easy too, I feel a lot less intimidated to venture into all that is sourdough. Looking forward to trying more!
What a delicious muffin! The texture, taste and visual appeal are outstanding!
Thank you for sharing the recipe!
I substituted veg oil with coconut oil and they didn’t rise like they appear to have in yourpicture. They were so good regardless, just curious if it’s the oil that made them flat?
Hi thank you so much for the recipe. I was very excited but they came out super dense. Like can only eat it with a coffee or water. Did I do something wrong? I also feel like it could be more lemony. I followed the recipe exactly. Including measuring everything. Thank you.
Unfortunately this recipe was not a win for me. I made them as directed, but found that the muffins did not take on any colour in the oven, which made them look undercooked even though they were cooked through and left no residue when I inserted a toothpick. I usually don’t like muffins to be too sweet (and nearly always cut the sugar in baked goods recipes) but I feel these would have needed more sugar to be palatable. The taste of the oil was what came through most, which is obviously not what you want. Too bad.
This is an amazing recipe! I doubled it and baked it in a bread loaf pan. I added salted caramel macadamia nuts and used macadamia nut oil! WOW this was such a delicious loaf of lemony perfection!!!
This recipe is unbelievable! I subbed half of the oil (I used avocado oil) for 50g of cottage cheese to add protein, added almost double the zest which was a mix of orange and lemon and added blueberries and OMG! Will be in my regular rotation. Thank you!!
Have you tried freezing these? If not, do you think they would be good?
They freeze great! Freeze in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
Just made. Added 50 grams of fresh picked blueberries that I heated and mashed prior to letting cool and adding. The results are fantastic. Love this recipe.
Made these muffins this morning and they turned out sooo yummy! Will definitely be making this recipe again!
Just made these but unhappy with the turn out, they very bread/scone like muffins is this right they are not spongy
I’ve been looking for a discard recipe that doesn’t use loads of ingredients I don’t have, uses a decent amount of discard and is quick and easy. This was perfect and I’ll definitely be making them again.
I’ve made these once before and they were seriously amazing. The texture and flavor and the sauce topping😍🤌🏼 Ever since I’ve been craving them and so excited to make them again! I just need to be better at keeping lemons on hand so I can make these for my family for breakfast more often!
Not a terrible recipe! I do think 20g zest is wayyy too much, unless you LOVE lemon. Otherwise, it’s incredible dominating.