Zucchini Muffins (WFPB, Vegan, oil-free, gluten-free option)
We planted just one zucchini plant. We love it. And one was plenty.
We’ve picked 8 zucchini this week alone. I picked all there were on Sunday, then the next Sunday found 4 more the size of small basball bats. Where did they come from so fast?! I kind of want to set up a time lapse camera and just watch them grow.
So, we’ve been that family taking over-sized zucchini as “welcome to the neighborhood” gifts to the new move-ins in the subdivision being built by us. Sure is easier than baking cookies, and the zucchini actually have been very enthusiastically received.
With all the zucchini, we’ve been making Saucy Basil Zucchini Pasta, lasagna, lots of air-fried zucchini, and doing some experimenting. I’m going to be making zucchini fritters this week, which is going to be an adventure since most fritters depend on eggs to bind them and I’m not going to use eggs. #rebel
They are delicious with or without chocolate chips. Although, my husband and toddler leave all the chocolate chip-less ones for me.
What are your favorite zucchini recipes? I hope these mufins become one of your go-to’s. They are delicious, convenient, and check all the boxes for me.
–Use a significant amount of zucchini. What’s with these recipes using 1/4 cup of zucchini? Does that even count?
–Are whole grain. You can use whole wheat, spelt, oat flour, or probably any other flour. Let me know what you try!
–Lightly sweetened. Most zucchini bread recipes use CUPS of white sugar. This one uses 1/3-2/3 cup honey or maple syrup. You could try date paste, but it might make it too dry. You can adjust the amount of maple syrup you use depending on how sweet you want them. One third cup is barely sweet, and two-thirds cup is more traditional.
–No oil. No need for it. Zucchini and bananas make it plenty moist with no empty calories.
–Even though there are bananas in it, there aren’t very many so you can’t really taste them. It does not have a banana bread taste, but a zucchini bread taste.
–Lots of spices and flavor. Also omega-3’s from flaxseeds and optional walnuts. Full of fiber, too!
–Perfect texture! Oat flour makes them a little more dense, but whole wheat and spelt flour texture is perfect.
If you’re inundated with zucchini, batch bake these babies up and you’ll have a freezer full of convenient, yummy breakfasts and snacks.
If you like muffins, you’ll also like my popular Banana Muffins and these Healthy Pumpkin Muffins.
Delicious, nutritious, moist, and yet oil-free, packed with zucchini, and made of whoe grains with very little added sugar.
- 1 cup mashed banana (about 2 overripe bananas)
- 2 cups grated zucchini (not squeezed)
- 1/3-2/3 cup maple syrup or honey
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup ground flax seed
- 2 cups whole wheat, spelt, or oat flour*
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- 1 tsp allspice
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup walnuts, pecans, chocolate chips, chopped dates and/or raisins
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Preheat oven to 350 and prepare a muffin pan. I use a silicone muffin pan so there is no need to grease it.
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Mash the bananas in a large bowl. Add the remaining wet ingredients. There is no need to squeeze the water out of the zucchini.
Add maple syrup to taste. You'll need less if you're using very ripe bananas and chocolate chips, but may want more if you're used to sweeter muffins. Up to you! I wouldn't use less than 1/3 cup unless you need to for dietary reasons.
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In another bowl, mix the dry ingredients.
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Stir all together. Do not overmix.
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Spoon the batter into the muffin cups until all 12 are evenly filled. Bake for 25 minutes. Let cool at least 20 minutes before removing from the pan to enjoy.
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These keep well on the counter or the fridge for 2 days, or in the freezer for several months.
You can make this into one large loaf or three mini loaves, as well. Bake a large loaf for about 55 minutes, and small loaves for 30-35 minutes.
For gluten-free: use 1.25 cups oat flour, 1/2 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour, and 1/4 cup almond flour. SO GOOD.
Adapted from my Banana Muffins recipe and Debra Klein’s Healthy Zucchini Bread.
We had some friends give us about 15 HUGE zucchinis and so I immediately looked on your website in hopes for a good, healthy version of zucchini bread/muffins. You did not disappoint!!! This is a fabulous recipe, especially because I don’t have to squeeze the zucchini (seriously, I HATE doing that!) I was able to use half millet flour (1C=120 grams) and half a GF blend (1C=140 grams) I make. I also used about 1/2 C of honey and it was perfect.
Thank you so much for sharing the gluten-free version that is tried and true! Someone else told me a mix of brown rice flour and almond flour also worked well.
These are delicious! I used oat flour (for gluten free) and just 1/3 cup raw honey. They were plenty sweet, especially with the addition of raisins. This is going to become one of my go-to muffin recipes!
So glad they turned out well! I’m going to reduce the honey then, too!
Sorry, I meant to say I had a jumbo “Yellow Summer Squash” and wondered if I could substitute it for the zucchini in your recipe. Maybe the yellow ones have a bit more moisture? Any advice? Thanks!
I think the yellow squash would work just fine! If you think it’s more moist, maybe slightly squeeze some of the moisture. There isn’t much liquid in the recipe precisely because there is lots of moisture in the zucchuni though.
I made these tonight and I am not sure what I did wrong but the batter was a very thick consistency, i had to drop it in the muffin tin by globs. The flavor is good though. Any idea for a thinner batter?
Thick batter is typical! There is usually a lot of moisture in zucchini that comes out while it bakes. If your zucchini is dry, a little milk to thin it out just a bit would probably work. How did they turn out after baking?
Thanks for the reply! I made these today with my jumbo yellow squash and they came out fabulous!! I used only 1/3 cup maple syrup and added raisins and chopped pecans. The batter is thick yes, but they came out moist and tender. Really delicious and no one knew they have “healthy” squash in them! This recipe is a keeper.
I’d been meaning to try these for awhile and I’m so glad I did!! New go-to zucchini muffin recipe 👌👌. The ratio of produce to flour has always bugged me in most quick bread recipes, and I confess I still was a bit over generous with the zucchini (probably an extra 1/4-1/2 cup) and stingy with the honey in these as well. They still turned out beautifully! My 2yo and 4yo boys will go through a whole batch in a day by themselves if I’m not careful haha. I’ve found that with really low amounts of honey, a tiny sprinkle of coconut sugar on top really brings out the sweet and keeps the sugar content low. It’s like 1.5 tsp for 16-17 muffins. Anyway, I had to make two batches in one day to have any to freeze at all, and I might have to make another batch tomorrow because the three we have left won’t last the afternoon. 10/10!
Coconut sugar on top is a great idea, gives that bakery-touch. I’m so glad your kids liked them. 🙂
These were great! I didn’t have bananas, but I did have canned pumpkin and that substitute worked fine! I was looking for an easy recipe that didn’t require making a flax egg and was oil free. This one was simple and so tasty!
Thank you for another great recipe! I added a cup of chopped walnuts and 1/2 cup of chocolate chips which
bulked it up to make a pretty large and hardy muffin. I only had about 1/8 cup of ground flaxseed but the muffins still held together fine.
Sounds SO yummy with all those nuts and chocolate chips. 🙂
I made these with blueberries. Gluten free and sugar free. I used 1/3 cup butternut squash with 3T beet purée and used about a cup of oatmilk. Flours were 1 cup rice flour, 1/4 cup buckwheat, and blended to equal 3/4 cup millet flour, teff flour, arrowroot powder and oat flour. I used chia seeds instead of flax. And added 3T pumpkin seed protein powder. I have a lot of restrictions and was glad to have a recipe to create from. So thank you. That was fun. And they came out really good.