The Dude (aka my husband) has been getting Soylent for a while, but I didn’t get into it because I don’t like the idea of flavorless chalky drink. (Though admittedly, I do drink a lot of vegetarian and vegan protein shakes, and the same could be said of those….) I decided to see if there was a way to make it into muffins, and of course there is. There’s an entire DIY forum on how to make Soylent into muffins, quickbreads, and all sorts of other things to make it more portable and convenient. (Note: despite the name, the only real soy in Soylent is soy lecithin, but it does have Sucralose, so forewarning if you’re trying to avoid either of those.)
I started with this recipe (found on the Soylent DIY forums), but the muffins were too dense, even after adding eggs and more liquid. I had already modified the recipe to include 2 eggs and 2 cups of cashew/protein-nut milk, but they were still too dense. So today, I did some additional recipe adjustments and finally came up with a recipe I’m happy with.
SOYLENT MUFFINS
Recipe yields +/- 48 mini muffins or cookies.
Dry ingredients:
- 1 bag dry Soylent
- 1 cup plain dry oats
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp ground cardamom (or more)
- 1/2 cup dried fruit (such as raisins or cranberries)
- 1/2 cup chopped nuts
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
Wet ingredients:
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (helps the flavor)
- 2 cups water or non-dairy milk
- 2 large eggs
Instructions:
- Pre-heat oven to 325 degreess.
- Grease a non-stick muffin pan (or three). (Yes, really – grease the pan, and probably flour it too – the Soylent gets pretty sticky in batter form).
- Mix all ingredients together. You should end up with a thick batter.
- Spoon the batter into the muffin cups. (Alternatively, the batter is thick enough to make cookies with as well.)
- Bake at 325 F for 25 – 30 minutes.
- Let cool 5 minutes after removing from oven, then remove muffins from pan and cool on a wire rack.
So what do they taste like? Oatmeal muffins, mostly. There’s no real aftertaste like I expected – Soylent tastes pretty weird to me (largely due to the Sucralose), so I was worried that I’d bake a batch of muffins that had a weird taste and wouldn’t like. These are surprisingly good, and using the Soylent makes them more nutritious than an actual muffin. Of course, adding eggs, milk, nuts, and dried fruit will add calories, but if you’re eating only the muffins then it shouldn’t matter too much because the additional calories aren’t significant to the individual muffin.
The batch above is about a week’s worth of muffins for me (I have a tiny appetite and only eat them for breakfast or snacks), but a bag of Soylent is actually about a 1 – 2 day supply, so 5 – 10 would be a single serving depending on your caloric needs. What I care about most is that these muffins are easy on my stomach, which is nice when your meds and chronic illness are conspiring to kill your digestive system. (I’ve been living on brothy soups, smoothies, and these muffins for a few weeks now – everything else makes me sick. BOOOOOOO….)
Vegan Alternative: If you’re looking for a Vegan alternative to the eggs, used mashed bananas or a tapioca starch egg alternative or whatever other favorite egg alternative you have.
Savory Muffin: I have not yet tried a savory version of this, but I plan to do so by replacing the vanilla and spices with rosemary and garlic. If you try it, please let me know!
So there you have it. If you try this recipe, let me know. I’m curious to see how it turns out!