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Zucchini Muffins

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These easy zucchini muffins are a great recipe to use up extra zucchini! They’re a healthy(ish) zucchini muffin with no oil. The batter mixes up in minutes, and the baked muffins freeze very well.

zucchini muffins on a cooling rack with a light background

A sure sign of summer is a bounty of zucchini! As one of the easiest home garden crops to grow, gardeners often find themselves asking, “How am I going to use up all this zucchini?” Never fear, the answer is here! Side note – I totally sang superhero music right there. It’s good to make your own soundtrack sometimes. On a serious note, these zucchini muffins are a hit at our house, and a great new recipe you should definitely try soon!

What is zucchini?

Zucchini is a type of summer squash. Also called courgette, zucchini plants grow quickly and have a high yield. So they’re pretty popular with farmers and home gardeners alike! Funny story, I try just about every year to grow zucchini and haven’t had a successful plant yet. Y’all… it’s embarrassing. Maybe this will be my summer. Maybe I’ll just keep gladly accepting the neighbors’ extra and buying at the market like I did last year. We’ll find out!

split zucchini muffin to show texture

Zucchini are thin-skinned, so you typically don’t peel the fruit. The flavor is pretty mild, so it’s a great vegetable to use in both sweet and savory recipes. Last year. we were all about this fresh herb zucchini egg bake. And I probably should have shared these muffins too, but oh well. This year is the year of the muffin!

A few tips for baking these healthy(ish) zucchini muffins

I dub these my “healthy-ish” zucchini muffins because they don’t have any oil. Most recipes call for a little oil, but I swap plain Greek yogurt (usually nonfat, but lowfat and full fat work too) for the oil. Sometimes, I’ll even use up to a 50/50 mix of whole wheat flour and all-purpose flour. It just depends on what I have on hand. Nutritionally, there’s not a huge difference between the flours, so I don’t really worry about it. This is a muffin after all. Oh, and we add chocolate chips – sometimes.

My family is pretty evenly split on the plain zucchini muffin versus zucchini chocolate chip muffin debate. I’ve gotten to where I’ll fill half the wells in my muffin tin with plain batter, then add half the recipe amount for the chocolate chips to the remaining batter. Kidding… we know I don’t really measure chocolate chips. Eyeball that. Then half the muffins have chips and half don’t. It’s a choose your adventure kind of recipe!

Third, do you see those super cute liners on the muffins? Skip them unless you want to wait for the muffins to totally cool before eating. This is a recipe where I usually just spray my muffin pan with nonstick spray and bake directly in the wells. The muffins look all rustic and pretty, and I don’t have to peel anything before morning coffee.

I thought I’d make them look cute for you for pictures. That was a mistake, darlings. The muffins stuck to the liners g the because I am NOT the kind of person that waits for fresh muffins to be totally cool before digging in. So unless you have silicone liners, or aren’t planning on eating a muffin almost immediately, embrace the classic look.

top view of the zucchini muffins on the cooling rack

Finally, the baking times may look a little strange to you, but there’s a reason for starting the muffins at a higher temperature. If you want to encourage domes on your muffins, you want to start them at a higher heat. Then to keep them from burning, lower the temperature and allow them to finish cooking. Because of the high moisture content of these muffins – they are stuffed chock full of zucchini after all – you won’t get super high domes, but enough for them to look pretty.

And with that, and a bounty of zucchini, you are now fully armed to go forth and make your own extra-delicious zucchini muffins! Or zucchini chocolate chip muffins – whatever strikes your fancy. Happy baking, darlings!

zucchini muffins on a cooling rack with a light background

Zucchini Muffins

Yield: 12
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 25 minutes

These easy zucchini muffins are a great recipe to use up extra zucchini! They're a healthy(ish) zucchini muffin with no oil. The batter mixes up in minutes, and the baked muffins freeze very well.

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2/3 cup lightly packed brown sugar or coconut sugar
  • 1/3 cup Greek yogurt
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 cups shredded zucchini (about 1 large or 2 small/medium)
  • optional: 1 cup chocolate chips

Instructions

  1. Preheat your oven to 400 F and spray a 12-well muffin tin with nonstick spray or use liners. Set aside.
  2. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, cinnamon, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.
  3. In a large mixing bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, combine the sugar, eggs, Greek yogurt, and vanilla extract. Beat until combined. Stir in the shredded zucchini.
  4. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients in 2 batches, folding just to combine after each addition.
  5. Divide the batter evenly between the 12 muffins.
  6. Bake for 5 minutes at 400 F and then - without opening the oven door - reduce the temperature to 350 F and bake an additional 10-15 minutes until a tester inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
  7. Allow the muffins to rest in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.
  8. Cooled muffins may be stored up to 3 days at room temperature in an airtight container, one week in the refrigerator, or frozen up to 2 months.

Notes

  • I don't always measure the shredded zucchini. 2 cups is about 1 larger zucchini or 2 small/medium-small zucchini. Measure if you're using a huge zucchini so you don't add too much, or if you aren't sure if you have enough. A little over or a little under doesn't really affect the recipe.
  • The small and medium zucchinis are the most tender and provide the most flavor.
  • Use the coarse side of the box grater to shred your zucchini. The grater attachment of a KitchenAid mixer or a food processor also works nicely.

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