You’re going to love this simple vegan zucchini bread that’s moist and extremely flavourful. Loaded with spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom, and studded with rich chocolate and walnuts. Tender slices are hard to resist! It’s one of my favourite ways to use up the abundant summertime zucchini. I include a note to turn the simple batter into a batch of muffins as well! If you enjoy this, I also recommend checking out my chocolate zucchini muffin tops recipe.
Zucchini belongs in your bakes! It adds moisture and tenderness to a loaf cake like this one, and goes virtually undetected amidst spices, chocolate, and vanilla. Baking this vegan recipe is a great way to sneak in more vegetables.
The abundance of zucchini in the warm months always has me making this loaf, my wholesome zucchini baked oatmeal cups, plus plenty of salads and sides like my shaved zucchini salad, zucchini involtini, and as a secret ingredient in my vegan red pepper pasta.
Prepping the zucchini:
- You can peel the zucchini before shredding if you like, but I never do. I kind of like the little green flecks in the final result!
- I shred the zucchini with the larger holes of a box grater.
- Then, I gather all of the shreds in a clean kitchen towel and press out the excess water before incorporating into the batter.
- Of course we want moisture from the zucchini here, but too much in a vegan loaf often translates to crumbling and slices that fall apart. We want a clean, sliceable vegan zucchini bread.
You can absolutely use this recipe to make a batch of perfectly supple muffins. The recipe makes 9 standard sized muffins and you’ll bake them for 25-30 minutes at 350.
Hope you love this simple recipe! It’s great for beginner vegan bakers and just so nice to whip up for an indulgent breakfast.
Moist Vegan Zucchini Bread with Chocolate & Walnuts
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cups shredded zucchini (from roughly 1 medium zucchini)
- 1 ½ cups light spelt flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¾ cup coconut palm sugar
- ¾ cup unsweetened apple sauce
- ⅓ cup neutral-tasting oil of choice (avocado, sunflower, refined coconut etc)
- 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ cup walnut halves, chopped
- ½ cup dairy-free chocolate chunks or chips
Equipment
- 8×4 loaf pan
Notes
- You could easily substitute the following flours 1-to-1 for the light spelt: whole wheat pastry flour, white whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, and gluten-free all purpose flour (King Arthur makes a great one).
- Can you make this recipe into muffins? Yep! The recipe makes 9 standard sized muffins and you’ll bake them for 25-30 minutes.
- My favourite light spelt flour is this one from Flourist.
- You can substitute the coconut palm sugar with regular cane sugar or light brown sugar here. I don’t think maple syrup or agave nectar is a great idea as we really need the structure from a granulated sweetener. Since we have a lot of wet components in this loaf (apple sauce and the zucchini), the granulated sweetener helps us avoid a gummy texture.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 8×4 loaf pan and then line it with parchment paper. Lightly grease the parchment as well and set aside.
- Place the shredded zucchini in the center of a clean kitchen towel. Over the sink, gather up the edges of the towel and squeeze out as much moisture/water from the zucchini as you can. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the light spelt flour, baking powder, baking soda, sea salt, cinnamon, cardamom, and nutmeg.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the coconut palm sugar, apple sauce, oil, and vanilla extract. Add this wet mixture to the larger bowl with the flour mixture. Using a rubber spatula, mix until just combined with a few little streaks of flour.
- Add the shredded and wrung out zucchini to the batter along with the walnuts and chocolate chunks. Fold these items in until they are evenly distributed.
- Transfer the batter to the prepared loaf pan and flatten the top of the loaf. Bang the filled loaf tin on the counter a few times to fully settle the batter.
- Bake the vegan zucchini bread for 60-70 minutes, or until a toothpick/paring knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove the zucchini bread from the oven and let it cool in the loaf pan on a wire rack.
- Let the zucchini bread cool completely before removing from the pan and slicing.
Fantastic recipe! I made muffins and they turned out light, satisfying, and just the right amount of sweet. I used roasted (unsalted) walnuts and also added a tablespoon of ground flax to the dry ingredients. Very more-ish!
Love the chocolate!
Hi Laura,
The recipe states it makes a 9×5 loaf, but the instructions state to use 8×4. Assuming I should use 8×44 pan? Thx!
Hi Carol,
So sorry for the confusion. Either sized pan would honestly work here! My go-to is an 8×4 so will update the recipe card. Just keep an eye on the loaf either way and take it out when a toothpick inserted into the middle emerges clean.
-L
The best zucchini bread I’ve ever made! I doubled the recipe and used half the recommended spelt flour, and the other half I split between almond flour and gluten free 1:1 flour. So good!
my zucchini muffins are waiting to go in the oven when the sun goes down here in the desert. the mix though is much too sweet. i used 9 tablespoons of sugar and 3/4s cup of homemade applesauce. i think the applesauce is plenty and maybe the bread could use WAY less sugar. i also added 1/4 cup of einkorn. i’ll try this again cause i love zucchini bread and this recipe has all the goodies when it comes to spices.
Hi! This looks delicious! Sadly I can’t eat nuts or chocolate. Would the recipe work without them?
Hi Danielle!
The loaf will be a bit plainer, but it will totally work. If you like, you can substitute an equal amount of pumpkin/sunflower seeds, shredded coconut, or even dried fruit if you’re into that. I bet chopped up dates would be fabulous in this recipe.
-L
I always come back to makin this bread when I have zuchinni on hand such a great recipie
This is such a perfect zucchini recipe! I couldn’t find spelt flour at the store so I used whole wheat flour and it’s delicious. My loaf didn’t rise as much as the one pictured; it remained more flat and dense. I’m guessing this is because of the whole wheat flour? Either way, now I need to find spelt flour so I have an excuse to make this again!
Thanks so much for this recipe! I was looking for something reasonably healthy and easy to eat while breastfeeding, and this was a winner – delicious
Made this last night with gluten-free all purpose instead of spelt and omg omg omg this is so yum! Moist, not overly sweet, and the chocolate chunks are making my life.
This bread is absolutely delicious! I actually substituted the applesauce for two ripe bananas and 1/4 plant based buttermilk and it worked out great. Since bananas are pretty sweet I also only put 1/2 cup of sugar and it turned out perfect. Thank you Laura, our whole family loved it!
This bread is the best! Simple to make and my whole family loves it, even my kids. This recipe is now my go to zucchini bread.
Love this bread!!! Zucchini is in full force in the garden, so we whipped up this bread this week and it is delicious!!! Moist and flavourful from the warm spices and just sweet enough. It’s toddler approved too! I’ll be making this for the rest of the summer.
Can this recipe be used for muffins?
Hi Cherri,
I think this would work fine as muffins! I would start checking them for doneness around the 20-25 minute mark.
-L
This came out a bit mushy for my taste. I used coconut oil and doubled the recipe. It might be that my spelt flour has a different texture than the one you used. Im also not the most precise baker tbh! But my husband and toddler still gobbled them up!
I have made this, your pumpkin bread, and your banana bread and they are all amaaazing (in loaf and muffin forms!). They will be recipes that I revisit over and over again!
I just made this bread today but as muffins and with just 1/2 cup sugar and white whole wheat flour and they are sooooo good! Perfectly moist, sweet (even with less sugar!), and I love the spices. I will definitely be making it again!
I made a double batch of this last week- one loaf plus 12 muffins! It’s so good; the spices are perfect! We’ve been enjoying it for breakfast with a little almond butter on top. Thanks for another great recipe!
this is delicious zucchini bread!
The cardamom really adds a nice flavour combined with the cinnamon and nutmeg. The smell reminds me of fall and my favourite chai latte
This recipe is absolutely delicious!! So so glad I doubled the recipe. Thank you ☺️
This is the best zucchini bread I’ve ever had! The spices and spelt flour work so well together and give it just that little something extra. I subbed the coconut sugar for brown sugar but otherwise made as directed and it’s amazing! Thanks for this recipe!
Thank you, Laura!! I used up a half cup of “mature” plum jam instead of apple sauce and it worked so well!
Hello
Thank you for great recipes and beautiful pictures…
Is it advisable to use pumpkin purée, or evenly mashed cooked carrot instead of applesauce?
Thanx again
I think both of those would substitute fine and perform in the exact same way! They may not be as sweet as the applesauce, so that’s just something to consider with the taste of the final loaf!
-L