My dog, Cookie, is wild for zucchini. Also cauliflower, broccoli, kale, and cabbage. You could say that my pup has a healthy appetite. This morning, I left a slice of zucchini bread on my desk where I thought she couldn’t reach. Then I heard some scuffling, followed by some gobbling. She swiped that slice of bread and ate half before I could grab it.
This dog is my soulmate, I tell you. I captured it on video, if you’d like to see it. That was all to say that this zucchini bread recipe is Cookie and Kate approved. It’s fluffy and moist, lightly spiced, and full of confetti-like green flecks of zucchini.
If you’ve enjoyed zucchini bread before, let me point out a few differences between my recipe and the standard recipes. Here are five reasons to love this healthier zucchini bread:
- I used one-half cup honey (or maple syrup) instead a full cup of white sugar. It’s not overtly sweet, but you could add another drizzle of honey or maple sweetener to individual slices, if desired.
- I also used white whole wheat flour instead of refined flour, so this bread is made with 100 percent whole grains.
- I used coconut oil instead of butter, which means this bread is easily made without any dairy at all.
- Most zucchini bread recipes call for one cup of grated zucchini, but I liked mine better with one-and-a-half cups. Even then, I can’t say there’s a pronounced zucchini flavor to it, because zucchini doesn’t have a ton of flavor in itself.
- It’s easily made vegan and/or gluten-free, too—just check my recipe notes.
Please let me know how this recipe turns out for you in the comments! Your feedback is so important to me.
If you love this zucchini bread, you’ll also enjoy my banana bread, apple muffins, carrot muffins or banana muffins, you’re going to love this one. Don’t miss the maple-sweetened blueberry muffins in my cookbook!
Watch How to Make Zucchini Bread
Healthy Zucchini Bread
- Author:
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 55 mins
- Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- Yield: 1 loaf 1x
- Category: Baked good
- Method: By hand
- Cuisine: American
This fluffy zucchini bread recipe is made healthier with whole grains, honey (or maple syrup) and coconut oil instead of butter. It is easily made vegan and/or gluten free (see notes). Recipe yields 1 loaf.
Ingredients
- Optional: ¾ cup roughly chopped raw walnuts or pecans
- ⅓ cup melted coconut oil or extra-virgin olive oil*
- ½ cup honey or maple syrup
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup milk of choice or water
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon + more to swirl on top
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 ½ cups grated zucchini (you’ll need 1 small-to-medium zucchini, about 7 ounces—gently squeeze out excess moisture over the sink before stirring it into the batter)
- 1 ¾ cups white whole wheat flour or regular whole wheat flour
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease a 9” x 5” loaf pan to prevent the bread from sticking. If you’ll be toasting the nuts, line a small, rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper for easy cleanup.
- Toast the nuts: Once the oven has finished preheating, pour the chopped nuts onto your prepared baking sheet. Bake until the nuts are fragrant and toasted, about 5 minutes, stirring halfway.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the coconut oil and honey. Beat them with a whisk until they are combined. Add the eggs and beat well. (If your coconut oil solidifies on contact with cold ingredients, simply let the bowl rest in a warm place for a few minutes, like on top of your stove, or warm it for about 20 seconds in the microwave.)
- Add the milk, baking soda, cinnamon, vanilla, salt and nutmeg, and whisk to blend. Switch to a big spoon and stir in the zucchini (be sure to squeeze excess moisture out of the zucchini first). Add the flour and stir just until combined. Some lumps are ok! Gently fold in the toasted nuts now, if using.
- Pour the batter into your greased loaf pan and sprinkle lightly with additional cinnamon. If you’d like a pretty swirled effect, run the tip of a knife across the batter in a zig-zag pattern.
- Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the center of the loaf springs back to the touch. Let the bread cool in the pan on a wire rack. Use a serrated knife to cut individual slices.
- This bread is moist, so it will keep for just 2 to 3 days at room temperature. Store it in the refrigerator for 5 to 7 days, or in the freezer for up to 3 months or so. I like to slice the bread before freezing and defrost individual slices, either by lightly toasting them or defrosting them in the microwave.
Notes
Recipe adapted from my banana bread and carrot muffins, with reference to Once Upon a Chef and All Recipes.
*A note on oils: I love coconut oil here. I used unrefined coconut oil and can hardly taste it in the final product. Olive oil will lend an herbal note to the bread, if you’re into that. Vegetable oil has a neutral flavor, but the average vegetable/canola oil is highly processed, so I recommend using cold-pressed sunflower oil or grapeseed oil if possible.
Change it up: Use chocolate chips or small/chopped dried fruit instead of the nuts.
Make muffins: Follow this recipe!
Make it vegan: Use maple syrup instead of honey, replace the eggs with flax eggs and choose non-dairy milk (I used almond milk) or water.
Make it dairy free: Choose non-dairy milk (I used almond milk) or water.
Make it egg free: Replace the eggs with flax eggs.
Make it gluten free: I haven’t tried myself, but I have heard from a reader that Bob’s Red Mill’s all-purpose gluten-free mix worked well here.
Make it nut free: Just omit the nuts, and don’t use nut milk.
Make it lower in fat: I would argue that this bread contains a healthy amount of fat, but you can replace the oil with applesauce if you’re following a low-fat diet.
If you love this recipe: You will also love my pumpkin bread, banana muffins and pumpkin muffins and banana nut scones!
Recommended equipment: I am totally in love with my Fiesta Loaf Pan in turquoise (affiliate link).
▸ Nutrition Information
Vegetable enthusiast. Dog lover. I'm probably making a big mess in my Kansas City kitchen right now. 
vanessa
The loaf is delicious. I attempted to use GF flour mix. It either didn’t set or I didn’t cook it long enough. So it was a bit gooey.
I agree it was a bit bland but I like it like that. From reading the reviews I added a bit more maple syrup. And did a brown sugar / cinnamon topping with the nuts. Lightly storing in the mix as instructed. I serve slices with little drizzle of honey for the sweet tooth’s in the house. Thank you! Def make again.
Christina
Amazing! I made a double batch. Used honey, coconut oil, oat milk and swapped the nuts for chocolate chips. Delicious!
★★★★★
gotheglobals
Thanks a lot for sharing this great recipe.
Ava
Amazing. I finished the whole loaf in two days.
★★★★★
Kate
That’s great to hear, Ava!
BruceS
Truly remarkable recipe. I was looking for a bread of this kind that was low sugar—most of them pile on the sugar way too much. I had leftover cooked Delicata squash, not zucchini. Because I was a little short on the squash, I added some banana. Used a cup of white wheat flour and 3/4 AP, the oil of my choice, and added a half-teaspoon of baking powder. For sweetening, I did the 1/2 cup, consisting of maple syrup, honey, cane syrup, and sugar crystals. Baked at 350°F for 38 minutes. After all that, the bread came out looking a lot like the one pictured here. Tastes great and OMG NOT too sweet. Thanks much for that!
★★★★★
Kate
I’m so glad you loved it, Bruce! I appreciate you sharing.
Namita
Thanks for an amazing recipe. Would you have the nutrition value for this recipe as following a diet. Thanks for your help.
★★★★★
Kate
You’re welcome, Namita! I appreciate your review.
Anna
Super easy to make. My 2 year old loves it. (And so do I). Thanks for such a yummy, healthier alternative.
★★★★★
Valda Rubio
I did make this recipe and found that it was very bitter. We think 1 teaspoon of Baking Soda may be the cause. Normally it’s 1/2 teaspoon and 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder.
Srividya
Hi Kate I love your recipes,I seem to have trouble with cup sizes so when you say 1/3rd for example how many gms or ml do you mean. Is there any easy way of translating cup to exact numbers?
★★★★★
Kate
I don’t provide conversions, sorry! I know others use online conversions calculators.
Blair
This is so delicious and made my house smell amazing! I chose to use all purpose flour, honey and extra virgin olive oil. I substituted ground allspice for the nutmeg, since I did not have nutmeg. I also halved the salt.
★★★★★
Kate
I’m glad you enjoyed it, Blair!
Chloee Whyte
I’m shocked at how great this turned out!! My expectations were low going into it, being that there is no sugar or butter, but I was pleasantly surprised. Very moist and tasty, can barely tell that this is “healthy”. It’s great for breakfast as well as dessert (add butter and honey on top of you want to get decadent). In the recipe I went with honey, coconut oil, whole wheat flour and walnuts, I also doubled up on the zucchini. I will absolutely be making these again, 10/10.
★★★★★
Kate
I’m glad you enjoyed it, Chloee!
Gastritis Girl
This recipe was delicious! It’s even higher in fiber, and still tastes good, if you substitute bran for 1/4 of the flour.
★★★★★
Kristin
So good! I used maple syrup and flax eggs to make it vegan. And after grating my zucchini I found I only had 3/4 cup, so I added in 3/4 cup grated carrot. It was excellent! This’ll be my go-to zucchini (or zucchini and carrot) bread from now on. Thank you for the great recipe!
★★★★★
Kate
You’re welcome, Kristin! Thank you for your review.
Sylvia
I made it. All I will say is the nutrition evaluation is completely deceitful. It says there are 10 servings. Absolutely NOT! There’s no way I’d plan to share this with 9 other people. :-) It was delicious! And no need to refrigerate it. It will be GONE way before it spoils!
★★★★★
Nancy
I love this recipe. Its hard to make it last because I keep wanting to eat more of it.
★★★★★
ELEISE
Excellent recipe! I added crushed peanuts and dark chocolate chips, mostly because I didn’t have walnuts… and who doesn’t like peanut butter and chocolate?
★★★★★
Kate
Thank you for sharing, Eleise!
Kelly
A warning – make sure not to get overly ambitious in overly squeezing the water out of your zucchini shreds / trying to pack into to much veg … After 35 minutes of extra oven time, it’s still coming out mushy and underbaked! I opted for maple syrup, gluten free flour, plain water, walnuts. The gluten free flour also doesn’t seem to be helping the underbaked situation. Next time I’ll squeeze less strenuously.
Nancy
Just sliced up some of this bread. Delicious as directed. Second loaf with chocolate chips instead of nuts. Not as healthy but a big hit.
Courtney
I may have doubled this recipe with a giant zucchini and added a little extra zucchini because of the copious amount I had (I also made egg bites with zucchini and kale but this was a ginormous zucchini so even that wasnt enough). I also added a lot of chocolate chips. I think that was my mistake as well as just squeazing the zucchini out minimally. I recommend following this recipe exact and not make the mistakes I made. The middle was a bit gooey but the taste was phenomenal. Used maple syrup, bobs red mill flour, whole milk, and vegetable oil I had on hand already.
★★★★★
Kate
I’m glad you were able to make it work, Courtney! I appreciate your review.
Karen
Your site has changed somehow. The recipe won’t stay in place on the screen due to the pop-up advertising. Too frustrating. Thank you
Tara
Hi Kate. I have an abundance of both zucchini and blackberries and would like to fold some blackberries into this recipe. Do you think that will make it too wet?
Kate
I’m not sure without trying it, Tara. Sorry!
TZ
Hi Kate – love this recipe, have made it many times (mostly with watered-down plain yogurt instead of buttermilk since it’s on hand). Would it be possible to add about 1/3 cup of oats here, like in your muffin recipes (which I also love!)?
★★★★★
carrie romano
Could you please post the nutrition facts? If you want to call it healthy, we want to see the numbers, please… I have to watch my macros and calories these days :)
Kate
Hi Carrie, the nutritional information is below the notes section of the recipe.
Maria
Hands down the best zucchini bread. I doubled this recipe and did a combo of maple syrup and honey. We also added some golden raisins and pecans. It’s absolutely perfect and isn’t overly sweet! The golden raisins add a tiny bit of extra sweetness that’s delicious! Will be my go to recipe, glad I doubled it! One for now and one sliced for the freezer!
★★★★★
Kate
Great to hear, Maria!
Linnia
It’s a keeper! I made 3 mini loaves and used 3/4 cup maple syrup and white whole wheat flour. Moist and firm and it even tastes healthy but sinfully delicious!
★★★★★
Grace Osmond
Wow! I just made this and am eating it hot out of the oven. I’m not one to usually make comments, but I had to today. My zucchini plants are producing like crazy so I thought I better find some good recipes on line to use them up, however, my husband has high blood sugar so I googled “healthy zucchini bread” for the first time and this recipe came up right away. Am I ever glad I did. I will never make zucchini bread another way again. This recipe is amazing. I love the coconut flavour, I made it with maple syrup and not honey, and I doubled the batch so I used 1 3/4 cups organic white flour and 1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour (made it half and half). I used 2% milk (we’re not vegan) and this has come out moist and delicious. I’m not a nut fan so I didn’t use any nuts, but next time I may add the chocolate chips in one loaf for an extra treat, but this is definitely my go to recipe from now on! Thanks for sharing!
★★★★★
Kate
Thank you for sharing! I’m happy you were able to enjoy it.
Christine Takacs
The recipe was an easy step-by-step process … so I made two! I used walnuts and half honey/fresh maple syrup and enjoying this for breakfast. My husband loves it and he hates zucchini. The cinnamon swirl on top is a fantastic touch.
★★★★★
Kate
Thank you for your review, Christine!
Susan
Can I make these as muffins and how long to bake them?
Kate
Hi Susan! I recommend my Healthy Zucchini Muffins
Sally Mathews
Hi, I made this and it turned out good, but didn’t rise to a peak like a normal quick bread. The batter was quite wet and I wonder if the 1/2 c. of milk here should be 1/4 c. as in the pumpkin and banana bread recipes? I did squeeze a bit of liquid out of the zucchini but was not obsessive about it – perhaps that would help.
In general, C&K is one of my go-to sites when I’m looking for a healthy-ish, well-tested recipe for just about anything, thank you!
Kate
It could have been due to more liquid from your zucchini. Thank you for your feedback, Sally!
Yvonne
I was so happy to find a recipe with honey rather than loads of sugar. I made this bread, and baked it in for small loaves. I made just a few modifications. Instead of the wheat flour, are used 2 cups of unbleached, all purpose flour. I added one cup of dried cranberries, rather than having nuts. It is delicious!
★★★★★
Kate
Thank you for sharing, Yvonne!
Jennifer Ann G
You know it’s healthy because it tastes very bland, needs either a glaze or chocolate. Cooked very nicely. I used the honey and coconut oil.
Cathy
Love this recipe. I used coconut oil, coconut milk and pure maple syrup option for my sweetener. Delicious bread. Perfect to serve with a cup of tea or coffee. My guests loved it.
★★★★★
Kate
Great to hear, Cathy! I appreciate your review.
NorCal Ellen
Just made two loaves and have to say my house smells delicious and they both look picture perfect. Toothpick came out clean, and just waiting until I can slide them out of their pans.
A little slice from one of the hot loaves proves this is one great recipe! Family is coming to visit and this will be perfect to serve in the morning with coffee!
★★★★★
Kristi
This is such an easy, healthier zucchini bread and it tastes perfect! Just the right amount of sweetness. I used blue agave instead of maple syrup/honey. I made this 3 times in the past month, That’s how good it is! :)
★★★★★
Kate
Wonderful to hear, Kristi!
Chris Bradley
This is a great natural recipe! We loved it. I made muffins and doubled the recipe. Cooked them for 28 minutes and they were perfect. Used coconut oil, honey, and GF Flour (Bobs Red Mill). I did add an extra 1/4 cup of flour since I live at high altitude. Will definitely make again.
STEVE
ZUCCHINI BREAD WITH WHOLE WHEAT FLOWER IS A REAL GOOD RECIPE. NUT FREE WITH COLD FIRST PRESS OLIVE OIL.
I’M HAVING A SLICE THIS MORNING FROM WHEN I MADE THIS A MONTH AGO. I BELIEVE IT IS BETTER NOW OR JUST AS GOOD AS THE DAY I MADE IT. I CUT SOME INCH THICK PIECES, WRAPPED IN FOIL, INTO FREEZER. I THINK THIS ONE SLICE WOULD COST ME $4.50 AT A STARBUCKS AND NOT BE AS GOOD.
BOTTOM LINE, I WILL BE MAKING THIS RECIPE AGAIN.
STEVE