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Home Baked Lemon Pistachio Muffins

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Home Baked Lemon Pistachio Muffins are quick and easy to make. They are perfect for breakfast or with soup or salad at lunch or dinner.

Whole lemon pistachio muffin drizzled with lemon glaze with a plate of muffins and a bowl of lemons in the background

I’ve been on a serious homemade muffin kick lately. It’s no secret that I love making easy muffin recipes. One of the recipes that have just blown up the blog this year is my Homemade Basic Muffin Recipe. This Pistachio muffin has a fresh lemon essence that is fresh and delicious!

It seems like winter will never end. We’ve had 7 weeks of snow in a row and now it’s raining! Weather like that just makes me want to bake. Does it do that to you? What do you do to stay sane with weather like this?

Lemon just brightens anything up, including me! I especially like baked goods with lemon flavors such as these simple lemon muffins with glaze and pistachios! It reminds me of spring so I thought it was fitting when I decided we needed a new easy muffins recipe to go with the Thick Cheesy Baked Potato Soup that I made. Oh, the combination was GLORIOUS!

I totally understand how busy you are so if you don’t have time for my helpful tips and delicious recipe ideas, just scroll to the bottom of the page where you can find the printable recipe card.

Making homemade pistachio muffins from scratch isn’t difficult. If you think about it, store-bought muffin mixes are just the dry ingredients and YOU add the wet ingredients such as egg, milk, oil, and extracts. You are buying very basic ingredients that you may already have on-hand such as flour, sugar, salt and a leavener (baking soda and baking powder). I’m all for convenience so use what is right for you.

Soft and tender lemon pistachio muffin with a sweet lemon drizzle on a floral plate with whole lemons and pistacios in the background

What is the best kind of flour to use to make muffins?

All-purpose flour is perfectly fine for muffin recipes. The impact of the kind of flour that you use in some finer desserts or sturdier bread recipes is more measurable. It’s based on the protein content. The higher the protein content, the sturdier or stronger the flour. There are several references for explaining the differences in flour such as Fine Cooking.

What is the difference between muffins and cupcakes?

My first thought is it’s perfectly acceptable to eat them for breakfast! But in all seriousness this is what the differences generally are:

DifferenceMuffinCupcake
FlavorSweet or SavorySweet
Topping None, streusel, glaze Frosting
CrumbDenserLight, Soft
ServedBreakfast, with mealDessert
Lemon Pistachio Muffin sliced in half with a tender crumb and drizzled with lemon glaze

If you liked these easy Pistachio Muffins with Lemon, leave me a comment and a 5-star rating! Here are a few more recipes that I think you will like.

Here are a few things you may need

Some of the items below contain affiliate links; I am a participant in a variety of affiliate programs, including the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. However, I only promote things that I love and think you will love, too. For more information, please see our disclosure.

  • 12-cup Non-stick muffin pan – I love these muffin pans and have three of them so I can get them all filled and baked at once. They’re great for egg cups too!
  • Mini-Prep Food Processor – This little genius is a work-horse in my kitchen. I love that I don’t have to drag my big heavy one out when I want to chop nuts or veggies.
  • Scoops – Wonder how those cookies are the same size? Scoops and I use them for my cupcakes too!
Soft and tender lemon pistachio muffin with a sweet lemon drizzle on a floral plate with whole lemons and pistacios in the background
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5 from 18 votes

Home Baked Lemon Pistachio Muffins

Home Baked Lemon Pistachio Muffins have a soft and tender crumb and are drizzled with a sweet lemon drizzle are perfect for breakfast or with a cup of soup at lunch and dinner.
Prep Time 15 mins
Cook Time 15 mins
Total Time 30 mins
Servings 14
Author Julie Menghini

Ingredients

Muffin Batter

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 1/4 cups whole milk
  • 1 egg large
  • 1 lemon juice and zest
  • 1 tsp lemon extract
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup pistachios coarsely ground
  • 1 tbsp flour

Glaze

  • 1/4 cup whole milk
  • 1/2 tsp lemon extract
  • 1 cup powdered sugar

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350°F.  Grease or line 2 12-cup muffin tins with oil, butter, or a non-stick cooking spray or insert cupcake liners.

Muffins

  • Combine milk and the juice from one lemon together and set aside.  This will become buttermilk after about 5 minutes.
  • In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Whisk together and set aside.
  • In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, combine sugar, lemon juice-milk mixture, and egg.  Blend together and then add lemon zest and lemon extract.  Blend until smooth.  
  • Gradually add dry ingredients to wet ingredients.
  • Combine ground pistachios with 1 tablespoon of flour.  Fold this mixture into the batter.  The flour helps the pistachios to stay suspended throughout the batter.
  • Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Remove the muffins from the muffin pan and let them cool on a wire rack.

Glaze

  • Combine the glaze ingredients together.  The consistency should resemble maple syrup. If it’s too thick to drizzle add more milk.  If it’s too thin add powdered sugar.
  • Lightly shake a fork dipped in the glaze over the top of the muffins.
  • Store muffins in an airtight container.  They may also be frozen.

Notes

The flour in the pistachios will keep it suspended in the batter.  

Nutrition

Calories: 189kcal | Carbohydrates: 36g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 3g | Cholesterol: 14mg | Sodium: 189mg | Potassium: 158mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 20g | Vitamin A: 1.6% | Vitamin C: 5.3% | Calcium: 6% | Iron: 6.5%
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As crazy as I am for a good muffin, I’m always looking for new inspiration. Are you looking for a flavor you’d like developed into a muffin? Perhaps you have a memory of one that the recipe has disappeared? Let me know and I’ll do my best to make it and you’ll see it here!

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Comments

  1. Jennifer Stewart says

    March 26, 2019 at 1:11 pm

    Lemon just screams Spring to me. The addition of pistachios to these muffins just makes them that much better. My family is going to love these.

    Reply

  2. Debra says

    March 26, 2019 at 1:06 pm

    Nothing beats the smell of homemade muffins…any day, any season! It’s still cold here and I know everyone will love these straight from the oven. With the vibrant lemon taste I will make these all year round. How simple and delish!

    Reply

  3. Trish Bozeman says

    March 25, 2019 at 8:21 pm

    Girl, you are speakin my language with these! I’ll take a lemon muffin over chocolate any day of the week. Then you went and added pistachio. An must make recipe! Can’t wait to make these.

    Reply

  4. Marisa F. Stewart says

    March 25, 2019 at 11:54 am

    Spring is here but the weather is still terrible. We may get one sunshiny day and the rest of the days are rainy and cold. Sometimes snow. Now the idea of lemon and pistachio has me seeing some bright warm lights – sunshine. I do love anything with lemon and pistachios are my favorite nuts. Your explanation of cupcakes and muffins is right on the mark.

    Reply

  5. [email protected] says

    March 25, 2019 at 11:30 am

    Pistachios and lemon! What a great combination! I tend to use pistachios more often in savoury dishes, but I love them in all sorts of recipes. I’m totally with you when it comes to cake/muffin mix too. I call them ‘manufactured convenience’ – they give you the impression that you’re saving time, but when you factor in having to go out and buy them, you’re really not doing yourself any favours (plus I just think scratch tastes better). Once you try a good scratch recipe you realize that you’re not limited by box mixes, and that you can make any kind of cake/muffin base any time as long as you’ve got a well-stocked pantry. And hey, that’s my kind of power. Haha.

    I hope your winter woes pass soon enough – but if you keep turning out awesome recipes like this as a result, then it’s certainly not the worst thing in the world. Cheers.

    Reply

    • Julie Menghini says

      March 27, 2019 at 7:05 pm

      Ha! I like your superpower reference! I should be stocked for a month but I still find myself running to the store a couple of times a week. Thank you for stopping by Sean!

      Reply

  6. Annemarie says

    March 25, 2019 at 7:20 am

    While we’ve had a fairly mild winter here (nothing like the weekly blizzards we got a few years back), I’m still all about lemony spring recipes! There is nothing like a lemon muffin to wake up the taste buds as I watch the crocuses wake up too. And I love the addition of the pistachios. I don’t bake with them enough and this was a great place to start.

    Reply

  7. Sandra says

    March 24, 2019 at 11:02 pm

    Lemon puts me in a happy mood too! My mom just gave me a bunch of lemons from her tree, so I used fresh juice instead of the extract. These muffins are a keeper and I wll make again!

    Reply

  8. Charity says

    March 24, 2019 at 9:51 pm

    Oh my goodness! Seven weeks of snow sounds awful! We had what seemed like a lifetime of rain last year but cannot imagine what that much snow would be like. It certainly would call for a lot of baking to keep the cabin fever at bay!

    Reply

  9. Michaela Kenkel says

    March 24, 2019 at 9:01 pm

    I never used to use pistachios in anything. I feel like I wasted so many good years!! I LOVE baking with them, and I have been putting them in everything!! The addition to the lemon muffins is brilliant!

    Reply

  10. michele says

    March 24, 2019 at 8:46 pm

    Jeff is a huge fan of pistachios so when I read this recipe I knew he would love them! A lovely texture and the nuts were so so good in them! I used a little more drizzle on mine, but other than that followed your recipe to a perfect delicious muffin!

    Reply

  12. Daniela says

    March 24, 2019 at 4:05 pm

    It’s rainy and gloomy today where I live, and I was just thinking that I should bake something! 🙂 These muffins seem like just the perfect thing to drive away the winter/early spring blues; I love the combination of lemon and pistachio, and they are so easy to make.

    Reply

  13. Deb says

    March 23, 2019 at 10:04 pm

    You’ve combined two of my favorite flavors pistachio and lemon! These muffins look so savory and delicious I can’t wait to give them a try!

    Reply

  16. Diane Baker says

    March 23, 2019 at 9:02 am

    I love the addition of pistachios to this recipe! Plus, we love lemon
    here so, this is a winner! Cannot wait to make some of these! thanks for
    sharing your wonderful recipe 😉

    Reply

  18. Hadia says

    March 21, 2019 at 5:01 pm

    These muffins look great! I love both lemons and pistachios, but never thought of combining them together, the muffins look moist and enticing, on my to do list!

    Reply

  21. Gloria says

    March 20, 2019 at 1:55 pm

    Spring is FINALLY here…and means LEMON desserts and goodies. I would love one of these to start my day. I would love one of these with my afternoon latte. I would love to serve these on the weekend brunch. By now, I think you know how much I love lemons.

    Reply

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