Cheese and Red Onion Muffins – an easy and frugal snack!

Cheap and cheerful, yet ridiculously tasty! These Cheese and Red Onion Muffins are a great stand by for lunch boxes, morning coffee or after school snacks.

This post was last updated in April 2022

How to make Cheese and Red Onion Muffins

The key to making great muffins is to measure out the wet, and the dry ingredients separately. And only mix them together at the very last minute when your oven is at temperature and your muffin cases are all prepped and ready to go.

This is due to the baking powder becoming activated by the moisture in the wet ingredients. As soon as that reaction starts they need to be in the heat of the oven to rise and be the puffy, proud muffins we all know and love!

Here’s how I made these savoury muffins…

1/ prep

Get your oven on and heating and your muffin tray lined with paper or silicone cases before you start.

2/ measure out dry ingredients

Balance a sieve over a large mixing bowl, and add the flour, baking powder and salt.

Sift it all together.

Whilst not essential, the sieving not gets rid of any lumps in your flour or baking powder, but it also mixes the powders all together.

This will help the muffins to rise, so you won’t be able to taste individual ingredients in the muffins.

3/ measure out wet ingredients

Into a good sized jug, measure out the milk and oil.

I used soy milk and sunflower oil, but you could use whatever milk and oil your family has in. I would recommend using a light, neutral flavoured oil like vegetable, light olive oil or rapeseed oils.

I think that Extra Virgin Olive oil might be too strong in flavour and overpower the muffins.

Crack an egg into the jug.

And then add 3/4 of the grated cheese.

Keep the rest of the cheese to top the muffins with just before they go in the oven.

I also added in 3/4 of the chopped red onion at this point too.

Give this all a good mix together. be sure that the egg has been well beaten.

If you are using the optional spices you can add them here too.

If you’re making these muffins for adults I would definitely recommend adding them.

However, I wouldn’t rush out and buy them if you don’t already have them in your kitchen.

The muffins will still be really tasty without.

4/ mix the wet and dry ingredients together

When you’re ready to bake, simply pour the wet into the dry and gently fold together into a light batter.

Don’t over mix it, and you’ll likely still see lumps in the batter – that’s fine.

Once it’s mixed, divide the batter between your waiting muffin cases.

I like to use two soup spoons for this job as they hold just the right amount of batter.

Finally, sprinkle over the remaining onion pieces, then the leftover grated cheese.

5/ bake

Place the muffin tray into the hot oven and bake for 20 -25 minutes, or until the tops bounce back when pressed with a finger.

And that’s it!

This is such an easy yet delicious recipe. I do hope you give it a go!

As always, feel free to tag me in any pics you share online of your cheesy onion muffins. You can find me pretty much everywhere as @hedgecomber :)

Janie x

PS if making these gives you the the muffin bug, check out my monstrous muffin collection. I {heart} muffins!

5 from 10 votes

Print

Cheese and Red Onion Muffins

Prep Time

10 mins

Cook Time

25 mins

Total Time

35 mins

 

Course: Snack

Cuisine: British

Keyword: cheese and red onion muffins

Servings: 12

Calories: 134 kcal

Author: Jane Sarchet

Ingredients

• 255 g plain flour
• 3 tsp baking powder - level teaspoons
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 egg - well beaten
• 240 ml milk
• 90 ml vegetable oil - or sunflower, light olive or rapeseed oil
• 100 g cheese - grated. Any hard cheese will work well, the stronger or more mature it is, the better cheesy flavour you’ll get.
• 100 g red onion - about one medium sized onion, finely sliced

optional extras

• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

UK Measurements - USA Measurements

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 210C/190 fan (410F)

   Line a muffin tray with paper or silicone muffin cases. If you don’t have these, try spraying your muffin tin with some spray oil and they should just pop out of the tin once baked.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together into a large mixing bowl.

   If you’re using some, or all of the optional extras (the smoked paprika, garlic powder and black pepper), add them into the bowl with the other dry ingredients at this point.

3. In a jug measure out the milk, oil and crack in the egg.

   Add in 3/4 of the grated cheese and mix together well with a fork, ensuring the egg has been well combined.

4. Chop the onions, keeping 1/4 back for topping the muffins.

   Add the rest to the jug.

5. When you’re ready to bake, pour the contents of the jug into the mixing bowl.

   Use a wooden spoon to fold together gently until no dry ingredients are left showing. The mixture will look lumpy, and this is fine. Do not overmix.

6. Spoon the batter into the muffin cases, dividing equally between all 12 cases.

7. Top each muffin with a pinch of the chopped onion and a sprinkle of the leftover cheese.

8. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes, or until the muffin tops spring back when gently pressed.

9. Leave to fully cool on a cooling rack before storing in an air tight tub or in the freezer.

Nutrition Facts

Cheese and Red Onion Muffins

Amount Per Serving

Calories 134 Calories from Fat 36

% Daily Value*

Fat 4g6%

Saturated Fat 2g13%

Trans Fat 1g

Polyunsaturated Fat 1g

Monounsaturated Fat 1g

Cholesterol 24mg8%

Sodium 166mg7%

Potassium 182mg5%

Carbohydrates 19g6%

Fiber 1g4%

Sugar 1g1%

Protein 5g10%

Vitamin A 177IU4%

Vitamin C 1mg1%

Calcium 135mg14%

Iron 1mg6%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.