Zucchini Muffins

By jeaninemg

Ingredients

• 3 cups grated fresh zucchini
• 2/3 cup melted unsalted butter
• 1 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• Pinch salt
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 cup walnuts (optional)
• 1 cup raisins or dried cranberries (optional)

Details

Servings 12
Adapted from simplyrecipes.com

Preparation

Step 1

Makes 12-14 muffins.

2 eggs, beaten

You don't need a mixer for this recipe.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). In a large bowl combine the sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in the grated zucchini and then the melted butter. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt. Stir these dry ingredients into the zucchini mixture. Stir in walnuts, raisins or cranberries if using.

Coat each muffin cup in your muffin pan with a little butter or vegetable oil spray. Use a spoon to distribute the muffin dough equally among the cups, filling the cups up completely. Bake on the middle rack until muffins are golden brown, and the top of the muffins bounce back when you press on them, about 25 to 30 minutes. Test with a long toothpick or a thin bamboo skewer to make sure the center of the muffins are done. Set on wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Remove muffins from the tin let cool another 20 minutes.

Those look delicious and I’ve been staring at my enormous zucchini from my organic farm (CSA). Would it taste much different to use whole wheat flour? (trying to keep the Hubby healthy!)

I have been using whole wheat pastry flour and the texture is wonderful. My kids and granddaughter love them.

I have a question: Approximately how many medium-sized zucchinis would make 3 cups shredded? And could I make this in a loaf pan instead of muffins?

Really hard to tell how big is a “medium-sized” zucchini. Maybe one zucchini will make one cup? maybe 1 1/2? For this recipe I used half of a very large garden zucchini, usually the kind so big that you end up stuffing it. ~Elise

Can you tell us what the butter measurement is in cups? We don’t have sticks over here and I can’t bear the thought of scraping out 10 T worth into a cup and hoping it all made it in. But thanks for including the oil replacement. And do you know if I could use applesauce as a 1 to 1 replacement for the oil.

I like making a variation of zucchini muffins by omitting the cinnamon and nutmeg spices and adding dried apricots, golden raisins and sunflower seeds.

Someone asked about using whole wheat flour. This recipe works, or you can use half and half whole wheat and regular all purpose flous. I use the half and half myself.

Stir together the flour and spices, baking powder and baking soda. Separately blend the eggs in a blender with the honey, oil and vanilla.

Combine the two mixtures and mix well. Then add the zucchini, carrots, orange juice and walnuts. Stir just until ingredients are evenly distributed. Spoon into greased muffin tins until nearly full.

Makes 16 to 18 large sized muffins or 24 regular sized muffins.

Ophelia, my experience has been that substituting applesauce for HALF the oil in a recipe works fine. Total substitution makes the muffins way too dense & small.

I think that there was a fourth, but we are talking 15 years ago. I think I threw away that notebook 8 yrs ago, when I got married. However, what I firmly remember is: KEEP THE EGGS!! Substituting the applesauce (or plumsauce) for the oil or butter was okay, but I think voce above got it right, only substitute half the fat for the applesauce. Don’t try to do both, the muffins are like little hockey pucks. Substituting the sauce for the oil was okay, but for the eggs was not. Of the experiment, I know we didnt do half oil (there were no second stage experiments), just subst. the sauce for the oil was the best. You really need the lecithin from the eggs, and other egg-leavening properties to get a decent muffin, and don’t over stir!

Robin, Whenever you use whole wheat flour ALWAYS separate your eggs and beat the whites till stiff and fold in. You will be very surprised by the results. Works everytime!!

These are really good! I made them last night and my four year old son snuck a half muffin this morning before I left for work and polished off the other half when his dad was not looking! I added pecans cause we are pecan lovers and went with cranberries AND golden raisins which I think added a nice “zing.” Thank you Elise for always delivering!

I have one finicky eater who can spot the slightest bit of green from a mile away. I tried grating the zucchini on the fine side of the grater to eliminate the strand look and added a few mini chocolate chips instead of nuts. I called them chocolate chip muffins. All 3 of my boys gobbled them up and asked me when I’m going to make more! Also one other thing to try from my grandmother: she added a can of crushed pineapple drained of juice and cut the sugar to 1 cup to compensate for the sweetness of the fruit. Oh, yummy!! It was such a delicious and unexpected combination.

I haven’t yet tried Heidi’s recipe, but given how great everything Heidi makes is, I’m sure it’s fabulous. ~Elise

Does anyone know if you can use other types of squash in this recipe? Or does zucchini have a special quality that makes it ideal for breads and muffins? Sometimes we have an abundance of yellow squash.

I made these last weekend. They were good but not great- more my fault than the recipe. I like a very moist muffin and mine were more on the dry side. I want to attempt making these one more time; any suggestions on how to make my muffins more moist?

These are delicious. I doubled the recipe and it turned out quite well. I used 6 small zucchinis to make 6 cups of shredded zucchini. I was short two tbsp of butter, but it didn’t seem to matter. Great with coffee!

I tried this recipe yesterday. It made one pan of 6 jumbo muffins and one pan of 12 regular size muffins. I used golden raisins in the recipe and they turned out great. I used butter and I agree that using butter gives a great flavor. I will definitely make this recipe often. Thanks!

I tried this recipe a week ago and they turned out pretty good. Even with all of that sugar, they didn’t taste too sweet. Though while they tasted good, they turned out pretty dense. I wonder if it was because I forgot to add in the melted butter until after I stirred everything all together? Regardless, these were good enough to try again.

You are so right, these are extremely easy to make. I’ve never really baked before, or cooked much at all. I accidentally even bought cucumbers instead of zucchinis and had to run back to the grocery store for the correct ingredient! The muffins were so moist and delicious, thanks for the recipe!

Great question. I’ll try to remember to weigh the zucchini the next time I make it. We just pick the zukes from our garden, so it’s never an issue. In the meantime, perhaps someone else making this has access to a kitchen scale and can leave a comment with the weight. ~Elise

I found that a cup of carrots weighed approx 90 grams. I estimated the zucchini at 50% more than that, due to the additional moisture content, so settled on 150 grams per cup of finely grated zucchini.

I got up this morning and discovered a huge zucchini on my counter (A friend of my husband gave it to him at work) and found this recipe when looking for ideas on what to do with it. These muffins are so delish! I just made them with my two girls (age 5 and 2) and we all enjoyed one warm out of the oven. We strive to eat healthier every day so I made the following changes with perfect results. I used Sucanat as a replacement for the sugar and used one cup all-purpose flour and 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour. We also put in pecans because that’s what we had along with the dried cranberries. We will make these again soon with the summers bounty of zucchini. The best discovery by far is your website. I added it to my favs and will use it over and over, as well as the muffin recipe. Thank you!

Sigh. There are so many factors that go into baking that are beyond the reach of the recipe. If they were dry, then they were probably in the oven too long, given your particular oven and your particular muffin pan. If they weren’t flavorful enough for you, I suggest upping the spice amounts, also checking the age of your spices. Basically if a ground spice is more than a year old, it should be replaced. Using brown sugar is a great idea. You can also achieve the same effect by adding a teaspoon of molasses to the mix. ~Elise

This recipe is another beautiful example of why I love Simply Recipes. Zucchini bread lends itself to endless variations, all of which are considered and honored. You’ve presented a strong base and said “go for it”. Thank you!

I used what I had on hand–a zucchini that grated to about 2 cups, an added carrot and banana to make it about 3. Reduced sugar to about 2/3 cup (the amount in Chick in the Kitchen’s recipe). Some of that was brown, some white. Same with the flour–used up the bag of whole wheat pastry flour and added white to make three cups. Tossed a bit of orange rind in because it was there. Used butter, about a stick (less what I scraped off for something else over the weekend).

This is a great recipe and I like that it has less sugar than many others. I made it today, with lots of modifications, and it still came out fabulously. I substituted a gluten-free flour mix for the flour, used a combo of yellow squash, banana, carrot and apple for the fruit, part coconut oil part butter, and chocolate chips instead of nuts. (I added 1/2 tsp of baking powder to balance the banana, though I’m not sure I needed it). Because of the gluten-free flour I made them in muffin papers (otherwise I find muffins fall apart when I take them out) and somehow I ended up with 2 dozen, but I’m sure they’ll freeze well.

These muffins are delicious! Not too sweet, and I made an orange juice glaze to drizzle on top. I also used a combination of grated carrot in addition to zucchini and some raisins. I will certainly be making these again, just deliciously moist.

Thanks for the recipe! I just made it (added a little bit of apple) and it’s great!

Made these today. I have no sweet tooth, so I cut down to 1/2 cup brown sugar. I think I may have twelve muffins all to myself, since they’re VERY unsweetened, but the zucchini went in perfectly. I only wish I’d had nutmeg on hand, but I didn’t and had to skip it. Next time… and there will be a next time. I used a bit more than half wheat flour and part oil, part butter… the fluffiness definitely suffered, which is fine by me, but I’d probably up it back to what you recommended if I was cooking for anyone other than my chewy-unsweet-muffin-loving self.

If you are allergic to nutmeg, I suggest leaving it out of this recipe if you make it again. ~Elise

Today I’ve cut the zucchinis down to 2 cups and added half a cup each of grated carrot and beets. I also cut the sugar down to 3/4 cup and added flax meal and 1 cup whole oats. Verdict: Less decadently amazing, but still surprisingly tasty and very moist!

Also, how hard do we have to beat the eggs? (stiffness-wise…)

Basically, never substitute baking powder for baking soda in a recipe, or vice versa, unless you make some other calculated adjustments. First, baking soda is a pure base. It combines with an acid to bubble up (try sprinkling a little baking soda on vinegar). Baking powder is just a combination of baking soda and a dry acid, such as cream of tartar. For this reason baking soda goes old quickly, and loses its rising power. The leavening in a baking recipe comes from using eggs, and/or baking powder (base and acid together), and/or baking soda (a base which reacts with the acid in a recipe such as buttermilk). This is all to say that you cannot substitute one for the other without consequences, often negative. Regarding the beating of the eggs, just beat them as if you were going to make them into scrambled eggs, so that the yolk and the whites are completely mixed. ~Elise

with the “correct” ingredients. I’m adding cranberries and walnuts to it – I’ll let you know how it turns out!!

Made this just now with an intimidatingly huge zucc. Very easy to make! I threw in some ground ginger. Delicious. Next I will try some savory zucc muffins with the other half of the squash.

A tip for those with dry muffins: When you go to preheat the oven, put an baking dish of water on the lowest rack. Then put the muffins in when ready on the middle rack. Do not take out the water dish. The water will warm and boil but the condensation and moisture will stay in your baked dish. Wait until the oven is cool after baking to remove the water dish.

From a novice gardener and baker, this recipe was a success! I made a double batch of the original recipe, and added cocoa to the second half. Beautiful muffins!

These muffins came out beautifully! Only problem is, the nutmeg was somewhat overpowering, but maybe I am just sensitive? I am not sure. I think I will try to make these again tomorrow with a little less spice. Thank you for the great recipe!

Tried these tonight with 100% whole wheat flour(soft white wheat)and I whipped the egg whites before adding, as per suggestion, and they turned out AWESOME! My picky kiddos even thanked me for making them after devouring without complaint. Will definitely be making these again. Thanks a million!

Just made these with a giant zucchini from my CSA bag. I made the recipe as written, except subbed whole wheat pastry flour for one cup of the all-purpose flour, and subbed Penzey’s ‘cake spice’ mix for some of the cinnamon, omitted the nutmeg. Very, very moist and delicious–my 7 year old son also loved them! I plan to make them again (as the zuccs keep rolling in) and may add blueberries next time, maybe some lemon zest? Thank you for sharing your wonderful recipe.

Tried this recipe because of all the raves. Personally, I thought they tasted very plain with an overpowering taste of baking soda. Kept checking to see if I forgot to add an ingredient. Well, I guess you can’t win them all.

Elise, this recipe has become a favorite of my 18-month old — as well as my husband and I. Since I have a wheat allergy, I modified it just a bit so that it was wheat/gluten free. I just substituted 3 cups Pamela’s Wheat Free Baking mix for the flour and only added 1 tsp baking soda.

With nuts being a choking hazard for young children, I just finely ground the pecans in my food processor (a couple of good pulses does the trick), and added it to the batter.

Adding 2 tablespoons of ground flax meal ups the fiber content and complements the taste of the muffins.

I also added an additional 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice just for the allspice and ginger (and I love our fresh spices here).

I took the suggestions of another and beat the egg whites first to soft peaks as I was using 2 cups whole wheat flour and 1 cup white. This helped offset the heaviness of the wheat flour.

These are SOOOOOOO delicious – and you’re right the make a bit more than the dozen, even without the cranberries or raisins.

If they taste as good as the batter they will be fantastic. I used dried cranberries, and had no nuts. Though I did not use applesauce, I have used it instead of eggs to reduce cholesterol in other recipes…not to replace oil…at least not in ones I have read.

I adjusted this great recipie, by using 2cups organic whole wheat, 1/2cup organic stone ground flour and 1/2 cup organic quick cooking oats. I also added 4 tablespoons of organic milled flax for an omega boost. I substituted 1/2 cup of grapeseed oil, for the butter, to boost “good” fats.I added an extra tsp of dried ginger for its great digestive properties. I only used 1/2 cup organic white granulated sugar and a dropperful full of stevia to cut down on processed sugar. I added extra dried blue berries, cherries and cranberries (mixed equally) 1/2 cup and 1/2 cup rasins and 1 cup dark chocolate chips (as many schools no longer allow nuts of anykind- which sucks in my book because they are soooo good for you). These muffins worked out great and tasty!!! The whole family loved them!!! I’m thinking I’ll also add some pumpkin seeds next time (I’ll have to check with the school I guess =)

I made these today and they turned out awesome. For those of you wondering about whole wheat flour, I used half whole wheat and half white flour and it turned out fine. I used the recommended amount of butter, but I think it could have used a little more… maybe it was because I made my muffins smaller, but for the next batch though, I will probably use close to a cup of butter instead. I also would recommend some orange zest because even with the dried cranberries, there was something fruity missing still. Overall thumbs up!

I made these last night. I used whole wheat flour and reduced the amount of cranberries and walnuts to 1/2 cup each. They taste great. This was my first ever attempt at baking something entirely from scratch and now I feel I have the confidence to try more things. Thanks for the awesome recipe.

I just made these last night. They came out beautifully and are delicious! Since discovering your blog, I have become a food blog addict! I have found a few other blogs that I like such as white on rice couple, savory sweet life, and steamy kitchen, but yours is my favorite!

I have made these using all whole wheat flour, and they were fantastic! The dried cranberries and walnuts really complimented the zucchini as well. The recipe as it is slightly overfills 12 muffin cups, but they bake up very nicely. 1 muffin makes a wholesome and filling breakfast.

I can’t wait to make these muffins! I only have salted butter – could I use that and omit the pinch of salt.

Yes, you can use salted butter if you omit the added salt. ~Elise

I just made these and added white chocolate chips. So delicious! Plus, my kitchen smells fabulous. We have about a half dozen huge zukes, so I will definitely be making more. I’ll have to go pick blueberries tomorrow and make muffins with them as well.

Elise, my daughter has an egg and zucchini allergy (amongst others). I think I saw in a previous post that squash can be substituted for zucchini. Do you have any idea how the powder egg substitute works for the egg in this recipe? The egg substitute does not work for any boxed cake/cookie/brownie mixes, but I have successfully used it in other mixes I make from scratch, although not so well for cut-out cookies=:(

Holy holy, these are good. We only had one zucchini, so I used 1 cup shredded zucchini and about 2 cups shredded carrots; used half-and-half all-purpose and whole wheat flour; and added the raisins. Delicious! Thanks!

These muffins are delicious! Yesterday I made a version with cranberries and today there is no trace of them :) Next time I will add less sugar, because they are a little bit too sweet for me. My version of these muffins you can see on my blog. Thank you for the recipe.

Or you could add a little more salt to the batter. ~Elise

I added raisins,walnuts and a handful of chocolate chips (for the kids).

I made this recipe with whole wheat pastry flour and a little less sugar. It was wonderful!

I made these and they were amazing. Then later I found the melted butter in the microwave. Yes, I forgot the butter and didn’t substitute anything for it and they were still incredible! I have made them a few times since then, but I am now leaving out the butter on purpose to make them lower fat. Try it because these are seriously great muffins even with no butter!

Mmmm… I made these last night and have been enjoying the results. I added a few chocolate chips for a little pizzaz – yum. To compensate, I replaced half the butter with unsweetened applesauce, so hopefully that evened things out a bit. I halved the recipe, and it made exactly 24 mini muffins with not a bit of batter to spare. Thanks for a great recipe!

This recipe is great. I just made them. I used whole wheat all purpose flour. I ran out of Vanilla extract and substituted with Almond Extract. The muffins turned out great!! Thanks for the recipe.

Really really great muffins! Tonight I am trying to make it as a bread in a 13 x 9 pan, (no cupcake holders) so we will see what happens, you really can’t mess this one up! I snuck flaxseed and wheat germ in also! I have to use egg replacer due to allergy and still comes out great everytime!

Were really tasty – I added walnuts and cranberries. Only trouble, the first batch overflowed into my oven and filled the house with smoke due to filling the cupcake tin up to the top like the recipe said to do. The next batch did fine with filling the usual 2/3 of the way.

I also was worried about the thick dough, at first, but not after they turned out perfectly! This recipe was easy, wholesome, and was the first muffing recipe that I feel turned out like the picture! I had half a zucchini left from dinner that I wanted to use up, so I found your recipe. I added two shredded carrots to the zucchini to make the 3 cups…and I love them!! Your site is my favorite for healthy, all natural recipes. Thanks!

Recipes call for unsalted butter so you can exactly measure how much salt to add to a recipe. If you use salted butter, you don’t know how much salt you are using. ~Elise

Great recipe! I made a few modifications to make it a little healthier and they turned out airy and delicious:

– replace half the flour with whole wheat

– separate eggs and beat whites until frothy

I also added dark chocolate chunks instead of cranberries.

P.S. I believe I did substitute white whole-wheat flour for half of the flour, and it worked great!

So tasty & yummy, they are addicting.

Made double batch of these tonight to use up the scads of zuccini coming from the garden. They’re really good. Perfect muffin texture, not too heavy, nor too light. Great shape too. I used 1/2 butter, 1/2 oil, and added a mix of pumpkin seeds, raisins, salted peanuts, hazlenuts, and chunks of good dark chocolate (cuz that’s healthy too, right?) My sons asked twice if they really had zuccini in them!

What a fabulous recipe! The muffins come together so easily and they look great. More importantly they are moist and delicious!! I’ve made them twice now, both times I used 2c white flour and 1c whole wheat flour. You can’t even taste the w.w. The second time I made the muffins I added a streusal topping…yummo!

This has become my go-to zucchini muffin recipe! I like mixing green and yellow zucchinis, it adds a nice color to the muffins.

I made these today for me and my infant twins (who have inherited my love of baked goods!) I used 1 c. whole wheat white flour and 2 cups all-purpose flour. Turned out great! I also snuck some chocolate chips into my muffins. What a treat for mommy!

I loved this recipe, although I did make some substitutions not because I felt it needed a change but rather just because of what I had on hand when I decided to make them!

I didn’t have nutmeg, so I used ground cloves instead – it was fantastic! (Especially because I added 1/3 cup of cocoa and some chocolate chips to make them chocolatey…the cinnamon, cloves and chocolate together were fantastic.)

I also used all 3 cups whole wheat flour and they were delicious. With this and the walnuts, they are really substantial.

I made this for my son’s preschool class as “mini muffins” and everyone LOVED them. I was worried that 4 year old would balk at “zucchini” but everyone ate and loved them. I left out the nuts (for allergy reasons) and cranberries (I didn’t have any!) I also substituted some whole wheat flour. I used 1 1/2 cups whole wheat and 1/2 cup white flour, but didn’t end up adding all of it because the batter was already getting too thick! I’ve had many requests for this recipe and added the link on my blog.

I made these this morning and they were fantastic. They were super-moist and I like the butter for the flavor it adds instead of the oil. Folks, try this recipe exactly as it is before you start changing anything. Its perfect the way it is!

I’m wondering what, if any, changes need to be made for high altitude. Also I’m worried that the batter is too dense–more like cookie dough. I did use 1 cup of whole wheat flour and 2 cups all purpose. These are for my son’s snack day tomorrow and I’m worried they’ll turn out hard and dry.

Don’t know about the high altitude, I don’t do high altitude baking. As for the whole wheat flour, it should make much of a difference. The zucchini itself will make the dough much thicker than you would expect. Though zucchini (in season) is very moist. Out of season, well, you might want to add a little water to the batter. ~Elise

So, I made these last night and they turned out great. I didn’t add the optional nuts and fruit, and *still* got 18 muffins out of it. Maybe my tins are smaller than the author’s?

Delicious! I didn’t have quite enough zucchini so I used some grated apple to make up the difference and they are yummy. Thank you!

I made this for my picky three year old, omitting rasins and nuts. I doubled the amount of zucchini by chopping 6 small zucchinis very fine in my food processor and kept all the liquid. The added liquid made for a very moist batter – not dough-like at all – more like cake. I baked for 20 mintues at 350 in a convection oven. The muffins are super-delicious and a huge hit with our family and our son’s best friend’s family. I will make them again the same way.

I tried this recipe and tried to make it vegan. I made the following substitutions-

3 tablespoons flackseed meal w/ 6 tablespoons warm water mixture instead of eggs

Also instead of regular sugar I used 1 cup of splenda baking mix and 1/3 cup brown sugar. Then I use a mixture of 1/2 whole wheat and 1/2 white flour. I found the mixture to be a bit dry so I ended up adding a cup of unsweetened coconut milk.

These muffins were awesome! I used 1cup of sugar instead of 1 1/3c, I used 1/3cup melted butter and 1/3cup applesauce for the 2/3c butter, and I used 1/2 cup rolled oats, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour mixed with 2 cups of white flour (to equal 3 cups of flour) to include a little more fiber. They turned out perfect!!! They were moist and flavorful and fantastic. I will definitely make them again and again.

This is a terrific recipe!! we make them in our mini muffin tin and my children devour them.