5 from 25 votes

Zucchini Bread

By Sam MerrittPublished Aug 27, 2020

84 Comments

Servings: 12 slices

1 hr 35 mins

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How to make a moist, flavorful, and easy Zucchini Bread from scratch! This recipe is beautifully flavored with brown sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla, and is a great way to use up any summer zucchini from your garden! Includes a how-to video!

sliced zucchini bread

The Best Recipe of Summer

If you’ve ever planted a garden, chances are you’ve probably grown zucchini.

It seems that no matter how bad you are at gardening, zucchini will still grow. And it’ll grow like a weed. We would grow them every year growing up, and every year we’d have more than we ever knew what to do with (and they were always gigantic! At least 5x larger than any zucchini I’ve ever seen in the store.).

The only problem with this is that once you’ve harvested all 15 billion of your gigantic zucchinis, you have to actually do something with them (and how many times can you really be expected to eat sautéed zucchini with dinner?). And that’s where this recipe comes in.

My mom’s been making this zucchini bread for well over a decade now. She found the original recipe in an old free cookbook (that doesn’t exist anywhere online or I would link to it) and made it her own. It yields a moist, soft, and flavorful zucchini bread that actually doesn’t taste anything like zucchini at all. Instead it’s delicately flavored with cinnamon and brown sugar and its texture is enhanced by this sneaky shredded veggie. It’s a fast and simple quick-bread (much like my banana bread) and I think you’re going to love this recipe, especially as you begin to find yourself buried in zucchini this season 😉

ingredients on wood board

What You Need

As always, this is just an overview of the ingredients used and why. For full amounts please scroll down to the recipe card.

Eggs. You’ll need 4 large or extra large (though I’ve made this recipe with jumbo as well and it’s still turned out).
Sugar. I use a mix of brown sugar and regular/granulated sugar. I prefer to use dark brown sugar because it gives the bread a richer flavor, but light brown will work instead.
Oil. Canola oil or vegetable oil will work, as will any neutral oil. I tried this recipe using melted butter instead and just did not enjoy it as much as I did when made with the oil (this is coming from a hardcore butter aficionado).
Flour. Use all-purpose (aka “plain” flour).
Baking powder and baking soda. To give the bread just the right lift.
Salt, Vanilla extract, and ground cinnamon. For flavor!
Zucchini. No, zucchini bread doesn’t actually taste like zucchini, instead the shredded veggie adds a lot of moisture to the bread for a wonderful texture!

batter with shredded zucchini in glass bowl

How to Make Zucchini Bread

The beauty of this recipe is that it’s so incredibly simple. As is often the case, the hardest part is just waiting for it to finish baking. And then to finish cooling. And then being mad at yourself for burning your tongue because you actually aren’t patient at all and couldn’t wait for it to finish cooling after all.

Anyway… Here’s how it’s done.

Whisk your eggs until they’re gently scrambled. Please note this means the uncooked eggs should just be lightly beaten before you add them to your batter. I used this phrasing in my cheesecake recipe and someone thought it meant they should cook their eggs and mix scrambled eggs into their cheesecake. Please don’t do that.
Add sugar, oil, and vanilla extract and stir until everything is nicely beaten together.
In a separate bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, ground cinnamon, and salt).
Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and gently stir the two together until completely combined. Don’t beat the mixture too vigorously. Over-mixing can leave you with a dry zucchini bread!
Fold in shredded zucchini.
Transfer the batter to a greased and floured bread pan and bake until cooked through (about 65 minutes).
Let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely. Then just try to wait for it to actually cool completely and don’t just dig in and burn your tongue.

overhead of loaf of zucchini bread in pan

Tips

Peeling the zucchini is not necessary. You can use a grater to shred your zucchini, but in my opinion the easiest way to shred zucchini is to use the “shred” setting on your food processor. Quick and easy!
You can add chocolate chips to this recipe for a chocolate chip zucchini bread. Toss in a heaping cup of chocolate chips after you stir in the zucchini.
Nuts also make a great addition! Stir in one cup of nuts (walnuts are my favorite to use) after the zucchini.
When testing that your zucchini bread is finished baking, make sure to insert a toothpick as far into the center of the bread as possible (or if you have a long wooden skewer, use that instead to make sure you’re getting a good core sample). Ideally your toothpick should come out with a few moist crumbs (not wet batter) but if it comes out clean that also means its finished baking and you should remove it from the oven immediately.
To make muffins: try my zucchini muffins recipe, which is based off of this bread!

two slices of zucchini bread on white plate

Storing

Store in an airtight container at room temperature. It will keep for 2-3 days this way. Zucchini bread can also be frozen! Allow it to cool completely, then wrap the loaf (or individual slices) tightly in plastic wrap or freezer-proof bags. When frozen it will keep for several months.