Paleo Zucchini Bread – moist, tender, and naturally sweetened. Enjoy along side a cup of coffee or as a light snack any time of day! Gluten Free + Dairy Free
I learned to bake a young age. I don’t remember how old exactly, just that it was sometime in elementary school. My mom used it as a way to teach me fractions – 3/4 cup white sugar + 1/4 cup brown sugar equals one whole cup. Pretty basic, but extremely helpful since I’ve always been more of a kinesthetic learner.
What started off as a math lesson quickly became a lifelong passion. ‘Life long passion’ may sound a little cliché but, I mean, there are cookies involved so it’s pretty true. Once I realized that I could actually make chocolate chip cookies at home in less than 45 minutes I was sold. What can I say? It doesn’t take much to convince me.
Lucky for me my mom has always had decent sized collection of cook books. Before long I was pouring over pages of all the different Taste of Home cookbooks looking for different ways to satisfy my cravings. One of my favorite recipes that I would always go back to was a recipe for zucchini muffins. They were moist, spicy, and soooo delicious. Just thinking back on them makes my mouth water. Those muffins were my first introduction to baking with zucchini – something I’ve grown to love even more over time.
So far I’ve shared cakes, cookies, and muffins – we’re just scratching the surface here. Now it’s time to add a paleo zucchini bread to our collection.
Paleo Zucchini Bread
The base for this particular recipe comes from the banana bread that I shared ages ago. Essentially I just swapped the bananas for zucchini and increased the sweetener to make up for it. The end result leaves you with a moist and tender loaf. It’s sweet, but not overly so. Zucchini bread and coffee is one of my favorite ways to start the day. As is mentioned in the title this is a paleo zucchini bread which means that it’s free from grains, refined sugar, and dairy. However, if you want, feel free to use a good quality butter. Depending on my mood and how much I want to taste coconut I’ll make this with either coconut oil or butter. Both are delicious, but it’s up to you which you’d like.
So in case you’ve got any extra zucchini hanging around (as we all do this time of year) here’s a little something you can try for yourself!
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Paleo Zucchini Bread
Paleo Zucchini Bread - moist, tender, and naturally sweetened. Enjoy along side a cup of coffee or as a light snack any time of day!
Ingredients
- 4 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 6 tablespoons honey or maple syrup
- 1/2 cup | 105 grams coconut oil , melted
- 1 1/2 cup shredded zucchini, squeeze out as much of the liquid as you can before adding to the mix
- 1/2 cup | 48 grams almond flour
- 1/2 cup | 56 grams coconut flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F/178°C. Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan, or line with parchment. Set aside.
- Beat the eggs in a medium sized bowl. Add the vanilla, the maple syrup, and the oil to the eggs, mixing thoroughly.
- Mix in the shredded zucchini.
- Mix the dry ingredients together in a small bowl, remove any clumps. Pour the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until smooth. You can do this by hand, but I find it easier using an electric mixer.
- Scoop your batter into the pan and smooth over the top and sides.
- Place in the oven and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a knife going into the center comes out clean.
- Place in the oven and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a knife going into the center comes out clean.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
10Amount Per Serving: Calories: 219Saturated Fat: 11gCholesterol: 65mgSodium: 207mgCarbohydrates: 15gFiber: 3gSugar: 11gProtein: 4g
Can I substitue almond or olive oil for the coconut oil? And can I substitute tapioca flour for the coconut flour?
Hi Elliot! Sorry It’s taken me a few days to get back to you – your comment got stuck in my spam filter.
I’m not sure about almond oil but if you’re interested in trying this with olive oil you can check out my recipe for lemon olive oil bread (you don’t have to add the lemon zest). It’s based on this recipe but with olive oil in mind. Essentially you’ll want to cut the amount of oil in half if you’re using olive oil, but other than that it’s not too different.
When it comes to swapping out the coconut flour for tapioca that’s a little trickier. Coconut flour isn’t an easy ingredient to substitute 1:1 because it’s extremely absorbent. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to confidently give you any recommendations without trying this using almond flour/tapioca flour myself first
Hey thanks for the recipe! I loved it- I substituted zucchini for carrot pulp and seemed to work great. I made mine in a normal standard bread pan. The top 2/3 cooked REALLY nice, the bottom third was a bit soggy and kind of eggy…what could account for this? Looking forward to your reply and thank you!
Hi Emily! Did you make sure to squeeze out all the excess water from the carrot pulp before adding it? That can make a huge difference in recipe like this.
Coconut flour baked goods do have a reputation for being very moist and are often described as ‘eggy’. Since it’s such an absorbent flour you need to use a lot of moisture rich ingredients (like eggs) to keep it from feeling too dry. One thing I often do with my coconut flour baked goods – after it’s done baking, turn the oven off, open the door and let the bread sit and cool down in the oven. This helps take away some extra moisture without overcooking and drying out the top.
Hope that helps!
Hi Sarah! I am allergic to both almonds and tapioca. Is there any way I could use cassava flour?
Hi Alyssa! I wish I could help here but without trying it out myself I’m just not sure about using cassava in place of almond and tapioca
Hey!!! I finally found the perfect GF/Vegetarian recipe!!! Thank you! Lol I’m deleting the others that I saved. Anyways question! Am I able to use an egg substitute like flax egg? I’m vegetarian but I don’t eat eggs (lacto-vegetarian). Thanks!
Hi Kishawnie! I’m afraid I’m not too sure about egg substitutes here. Without testing it myself first I couldn’t really say how well egg substitutes would work. Coconut flour is a tricky one to work with without using eggs as it can be a very drying flour if not enough moisture is used. If you end up trying this with a substitute could you let me know how it goes?
hey,
can i just use almond flour. i dont have coconut flour
Hi Toby! I’m not too sure how well using all almond flour would work, but I do think it might work. You’d need to swap out the coconut for more almond flour here but I think you’d probably need to double the amount of flour you’d need though. Instead of 1/2 cup coconut you’d need at least 1 cup almond (plus the 1/2 cup almond flour that the recipe already calls for). Coconut flour is a much more absorbent flour than almond which can make subs like this difficult without tweaking the amounts of flour.
Thanks for sharing! Does it keep long?
Thanks Vanessa! This should keep about 4-5 days stored at room temp
This looks so good! what a great way to use up some zucchini and bring a treat to friends!
This looks so great and I can’t wait to make it!!
I was keen to make one for morning tea – with cinnamon apples or raisins…and maybe some nuts.
Wondering if you or anyone else had any advice about quantities / results!
Thanks again !!!
Hi Mary! I’d be weary about adding apples to this as it’s already a very moisture rich cake – more apples might throw off the balance of ingredients a bit too much without adjusting the amounts of other ingredients. That being said – adding nuts/raisins is easy to do. You can add about 1/2-1 cup nuts/raisins to the batter just before baking and you should be good to go!
Made this yesterday. Super yummy! I used 3 eggs and a half eaten banana I didn’t want to waste. Also used 5 tbsp rapadura instead of honey. It’s a bit loose and crumbly but tastes amazing especially with some butter and whipped raw cream! Baked it for 55 min in a stone loaf pan and it got nicely golden, not burnt looking at all. I’m wondering how the recipe would turn out if I double it and bake it in my bar pan… thank you for this recipe, I’ll definitely be making it again!
Love that! I somehow always end up with half eaten bananas that I don’t know what to do with 😀 So glad it all worked out! Thanks so much for letting me know what you thought!
My fiance is allergic to almonds is there a way to substitute the almond flour?
Hi Stephanie! I haven’t done it with this recipe specifically, but I have been able to sub out almonds for tapioca flour in a few other recipes that are very similar to this one. I do think that should work here!
Question – I want to make this lovely recipe. In your ingredients list, it mentions squeezing out the liquid from the zucchini. But I need to know for sure – do I measure 1.5 cups of grated zucchini and then squeeze out liquid? Or do I grate a bunch of zucchini, squeeze out liquid, then measure 1.5 cups? Thanks. Also apparently someone made it without squeezing any liquid out (using small zucchini?) I really need some good direction on this.
Hi Betsy! I measuring out 1.5 cups and then squeezing out the extra moisture to be on the safe side
Made the bread – so great! I would upload a photo but I didn’t see a way to do that in comments. I stuffed as much grated zuch as I could get into a 1.5 cup measure, then squeezed the liquid out twice with absorbent cotton dishtowels (both were rather wet when squeezing was done). Again it was so delicious – but I felt it could use a little something. I made it with honey so it definitely has that flavor. I’m guessing the maple syrup would give a stronger flavor? And I can’t taste the 1/4 tsp cinnamon much, have you ever tried adding more cinnamon, or another spice perhaps? Have you ever added a pinch of salt to bring out flavor (don’t know if this is Paleo approved…) Any thoughts or suggestions? Maybe my zucchini method resulted in more zucchini than usual going into the recipe, muting the flavors a bit. It is good with subtle flavor but I wondered whether you experimented with spices or salt? Thanks! Betsy
Ooh I’m glad you liked it! I definitely recommend playing around with the spices if you like – as is this bread has a pretty subtle flavour as far as sweetness goes. I do think maple makes it taste a little sweeter than honey. I like adding A LOT of cinnamon when I make this – I’ll add a whole tablespoon in because I love it
I made this today and followed the directions exactly. My bread is only 1” high. Still super moist and yummy, but what could it be? I live in Utah so could my problem be a altitude issue?
Hi Jennifer! Weird! It could have something to do the different altitudes. If you tend to have high altitude baking issues I’d lean towards that. What size loaf tin did you use? Typically a 9x5inch works/looks the best with this. I do occasionally use a 9 1/2 x 6 1/2 and it definitely doesn’t look as tall
Mine was terrible :/ like a weird greasy omelette. I just threw it out. But this is coming from a non-paleo person. Is all paleo baking like this?
Hi Erika! Sorry to hear that!
While this is very moist it shouldn’t feel greasy. That being said if you’re not someone who does a lot of paleo baking it might not be what you expect. If you are interested in paleo baking I’d recommend starting off with using recipes that are more almond flour based without any (or just very little) coconut flour. Almond flour baked goods are a lot more like traditional baked goods where as coconut flour really does take some getting used. I go into more detail about it more in this post here. It’s a really absorbent flour that needs moisture which is why it’s often used with a lot of eggs.
I made this quick before I left for vacation and brought it with me. Everyone LOVED it.
It’s so delicious!!
It was pretty soft. So not sure why. But so good!
So glad everyone liked it! Thanks so much for coming back to let me know what you thought!
I made this today and my boyfriend called it “cocaine bread” because he can’t stop eating it. He asked if I would make another tomorrow “in case there’s none left”. Lol so clearly we are both a fan. We like how moist and delicately sweet it is. I like how it gets a nice golden edge. Truly isn’t far off from the “real thing”. Thanks so much!
Ha! I love that! SO glad you guys both liked it – thanks so much for coming back to let me know what you thought!
I made it and the flavor was good but I guess the oil made the texture weird, it reminded me of wet meatloaf
Hi Rachel! Glad you liked the flavour at least! I’m wondering – have you done much baking with coconut flour before? Usually textural things like that have more to do with coconut flour than oil
I have an allergy to nuts. Can I use buckwheat flour or increase the coconut flour instead? Love the blog – your photos are brilliant.
Hi Caroline! Thank you so much 🙂 I’ve actually just been playing around with this recipe today trying to make a nut free version. So far I’ve just swapped out the almond flour for tapioca and it’s worked perfectly. I’m pretty sure buckwheat would also work here as a 1:1 sub for the almond flour. Hope you like it!
The texture of this bread is amazing. But I worried because the exterior darkened in the oven quite a bit — to almost black, yet it didn’t taste burned at all. It’s only my second Paleo bread. Does almond flour or coconut flour tend to burn real easily?
Hi Carol! So glad you liked it! Thanks for coming back to let me know what you thought! As for the browning – coconut flour does tend to darken quicker than other flours. It’s usually not an issue when baking cookies or muffins since it doesn’t need to bake as long but can be tricky with breads that are in the oven for awhile. In the future you can always cover baked coconut flour breads with aluminium foil to keep it from going too dark
This is one of my favorite new things! It turned out super yummy! Thank you so much for sharing. I’m obsessed!
I had to modify a bit based on what I had on hand – used almond meal instead of almond flour, so my bread was a little more dense and didn’t rise as much. I used 4 tablespoons of honey instead of 6, and added a scoop of collagen peptides. Still turned out great!
Hi Madeleine! So glad you liked it! Thanks so much too for coming back to share what you did differently! I really like the idea of adding collagen peptides to this – such a great idea!
Ello Sarah
Can this bread
Be made without any sugar?
I haven’t personally tried this without adding any sweetener yet but I have actually seen a lot of people sharing their savoury versions on instagram – from what I can gather it does seem like they just do it by not adding any sugar
The video says to use baking powder and the recipe says baking soda, I did not see this until my loaf was in the oven and used basking soda 🙁
Would it make a big difference in taste and texture?
Oops! My mistake – must have been on auto pilot when editing the video. Baking soda is the one you need so you did it right!
Thanks!
I wish you’d corrected the recipe and had put baking soda. I just wasted almond flour and good zuchini. Please correct this as this is ruining your recipe
Hi Monica – I’m sorry about the confusion but I do list baking soda in the written instructions where all the amounts are written. That being said I’m wondering if something else went wrong in the recipe because using baking powder vs baking soda shouldn’t be enough to ruin the bread. I’d expect if anything it might cause it to rise up too much and then fall after baking but not so much that it’s ruined
My boyfriend and I made this last night! He’s a trooper when it comes to my crazy diet and offered up to help me make this! It was fantastic, our oven is a bit of a nightmare so I think next time I will have to try it in a larger pan and it will be more like brownies! Also I added chocolate chips!
Ooh love the addition of chocolate chips! So glad you guys both enjoyed it! Thanks so much for coming back to let me know what you thought 🙂
I used butter and it came out really buttery. Everyone has better luck with coconut oil? I liked it besides being greasy and to much butter tasting.
I think for the most part everyone I’ve seen make it on here and commenting on instagram has made it with coconut oil – if you wanted to try it again you might like it better that way
This as amazing, I read some reviews about it being undone in the middle so I doubled the batch and baked it in a 9×12 glass pan. I added 1 TBLS pumpkin pie spice from Trader Joe’s in addition to the cinnamon. We loved it.
Ooh I love the idea of adding pumpkin spice for an autumnal twist! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for sharing about the pumpkin spice, I’m going to try that! Betsy
What a fun recipe! I just made this this morning. It’s easy to make and tasty. I found that the bottom half of the loaf didn’t cook nearly as fast as the top half. The top got really brown after 55 mins of baking, so I didn’t want to bake it much longer and burn it. Is there something I should have done differently?
Hi Justine! Glad you liked it! A few things that might help troubleshoot the issue: How deep was your loaf pan? I’ve got a couple of loaf pans that are technically the same size, but one if deeper and one is wider so sometimes my baked goods bake at slightly different times. I’m wondering if that might be a possible problem. Another thing – the oven temperature itself could be a little bit off. Over time ovens need to be checked and recalibrated because they’ll begin to run too high or too low. Regardless – if you bake this again I’d recommend lowering the temperature slightly and baking for longer. Hope that helps!
Just had my first taste of this bread and it was perfect!! In fact, I have a big bowl of shredded zucchini and I’m going to freeze it in 1 1/2 cup amounts so I can make it make this recipe many more times! Thanks!
That’s awesome! So glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for coming back to leave a comment/review letting me know how it went 🙂
Do you think using Sugar Free syrup would work?? I need to drop the sugar content. And where are all the carbs coming from?? Just the zucchini and almond and coconut flours?? Seems high to me…
I’ve never tried this with sugar free syrup before, but I’m pretty sure that it would still work here. As for the carbs – there are still 32 grams in 1/2 cup of coconut flour & 12 grams from almond flour. Those with the honey/maple will add up. If you’re using a sugar free syrup though that will take down the carb count quite a bit. If you’re interested I use MyFitnessPal to calculate the nutrition info so you can add in the recipe with your sweetener to find out the new carb total
When you use maple syrup do you just mean the one we use for pancakes? Or do you mean the pure maple syrup? Or can you use monkfruit instead?
I’m not sure about monkfruit because that’s not something I’ve ever been able to play around with but as for the maple syrup either will work! I use pure maple syrup but you could use use pancake syrup if you need
Just pulled this out of the oven and it is AMAZING! I did use 1/4 c applesauce with 1/4 c butter and I used 4 TBS maple syrup and 2 TBS honey. I also baked in a 7X3 pan. It was very moist and delicate and got 2 thumbs up from the husband. Next time, I will double the recipe to use a standard loaf pan.
Yay! Thanks for sharing your adaptations! I find it really helpful to know what does/doesn’t work in case I get asked about it later. So glad you liked it and thanks for coming back to leave a comment/ review!
Have you tried freezing it?
I haven’t, no! I did find this article about freezing zucchini bread – it might be helpful! http://www.lodinews.com/lodi_living/food_and_wine/columnists/barbara_spitzer/article_78452780-eafd-11e2-b339-0019bb2963f4.html
This sounds so yummy. I Was wondering, can I use xylitol sweetener instead of honey? And how can I substitute it for honey?
Hi Jovie! I’m sorry but I’ve never used xylitol so I’m not sure what it changes in baking exactly. I don’t recommend changing to a dry granulated sweetener though because coconut flour is very absorbent. The honey adds moisture to the batter so it doesn’t get too dry
Just pulled this out of the oven. I doubled the batch and did one loaf and a tray of muffins. They both turned out awesome, soft, fluffy, lightly sweet, and wonderfully buttery. The only change I made was to salt the grated zucchini first and let it sit in a mesh strainer for about 10-15 minutes while I prepared the rest of the ingredients and mixed them, then wrapped it in a clean dish towel and squeezed all the water out before I added it to the batter. Even though I used probably a tablespoon of salt, it did not make the bread too salty, as most of it went with the liquid down the drain and I skipped the extra 1/4 tsp salt the recipe called for. Delicious recipe, and I’ll probably be making it a lot this summer at the rate I’ve been harvesting zucchini from my garden!
So glad you liked it! That’s a great tip with the zucchini too – very helpful! Thanks for coming back to let me know how it went! 🙂
I did what she recommended and feel that my loaves turned out dry and dense
Sorry you thought they were dry! I hope they still tasted good despite that!
Can I use my stand mixer?
Absolutely!
Mine, separated: like half moist bread half egg… it’s yummy but I don’t know why it happened or how to fix it. I had to grind my own coconut flour. Maybe that is the issue? Any tips?
Hi Adrienne! That sounds strange! I actually remade this/filmed it today because I’m making a video to go along with the recipe. I’m not sure exactly what went wrong here, but it’s very possible that the homemade coconut flour could have been the source – especially since coconut flour is something that can cause varied results from brand to brand. I’m personally always wary of using homemade nut flours myself when it comes to sharing recipes on here because I worry my results might not be reliable enough. Sorry again about the bread! I’m glad it still tasted nice at least!
Looks super yum! How long would you bake for muffins & how many do you think it would make?
Thanks😊
I make variations of these as muffins every so often and I’m usually able to get 8-9 of them. Bake at the same temperature for about 25-30 minutes and that should do it!
I got 11 muffins and the 25 minutes was perfect!
Ooh excellent! That’s good to know in case anyone else wants to try making muffins with these! Thanks for coming back to leave a comment/review!
I used parchment cupcake holders and your recipe made 18 muffins and they were done in 20 minutes. Absolutely delicious!!
Thanks Sandy! You’v’e just reminded me that I wanted to make zucchini muffins 😀 So glad you enjoyed them!
What would be a good substitute for almond flour?
If you’re okay with other nuts you could always use another nut flour in its place. I’ve recently started baking with sunflower seed flour (made by grinding up whole, unshelled sunflower seeds in a blender) and I’ve found that you can use in place of almond flour in most cases. If you do go that route with sunflower seeds just keep in mind that they turn baked goods green because of the naturally occurring chlorophyll. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about – the fourth picture shows the green in the cookie. https://www.asaucykitchen.com/sunflower-seed-paleo-chocolate-chip-cookies/
Another possible flour that might work is gram/chickpea flour. I’ve also had a lot of success using chickpea flour in place of almond flour, but I’ve never tried it with this recipe so I can’t say for sure.
Hope that helps!
I don’t see anything about butter/oil in the recipe! Is the that a mistake? Or am I just being blind? Also, would these work as muffins? The cook time would be less, of course.
I’m excited to make this! It looks delicious!
My mistake! I was updating something in the recipe recently and accidentally deleted that line. Oops! It’s there now – sorry about that.
Thank you!
This sounds great, but before I make it just wanted to ask if the butter/coconut oil is 1/2 cup or 55 grams? (I thought 1/2 cup butter is around 112 grams).
Oops! You’re so right! It’s definitely 1/2 cup which as you said is 112 grams. I’ll go fix that now- thanks for pointing that out to me Chantelle!
The recipe says nothing about butter. I’m glad I read the comments!
These are delicious! It is the only Paleo recipe I could find that didn’t require a banana. Such a treat! To reduce carbs I used less honey, doubled the cinnamon and added some stevia. The batter was super thick (maybe my eggs were too small?) but it baked beautifully! I got 14 muffins.
I’m so glad you liked it! Thanks for coming back to leave a comment letting me know how it went! 🙂
How shredded does the zucchini need to be?
Think like shredded cheese – using a standard box grated should do the trick!
This bread is AMAZING! I could not have asked for a more moist, delicious and overall perfect zucchini bread with no white sugar or flour! I will DEFINITELY be making this again! I used maple syrup and melted butter in mine and OH MY! It. Is. Delicious!!
Yay! So glad you liked it! Thanks for coming back to leave a comment telling me how it went – ones like this make my day! 🙂
I made this yesterday and it was waaaaay too soggy. I made it again and put the zucchini in a cheesecloth and squeezed out all the excess liquid and then it turned out perfect!
Thanks for coming back and leaving a comment! I’m guessing the zucchini I use isn’t quite as watery, but I’ll make a note in the recipe in case that happens to anyone else.
I find that the bigger the zucchini the more soggy. If you pick them small they are more flavorful and less soggy.
Now that you mention it I can definitely see what you mean! Whenever I get the zucchini from our local grocery they tend to be small but always perfect for what I need. The larger ones from the super market though aren’t as consistency reliable – going to keep that in mind for future baking! Thanks Theresa!
Did you strain your zucchini to remove any excess liquid prior to mixing or did you bake it as is?
Nope! Since coconut flour is so absorbent we can get away with not needing to worry about the extra liquid from the zucchini
Look forward to trying this bread soon. My dad taught my sister and I to cook as an exercise in maths too, though in the UK so no cups!! We had an old fashioned balance scale (100g and 50g weight for 150g of flour etc)
That’s so sweet! I’d probably be better at math if I had to add up all the grams and various weights 🙂 Hope you like the bread!
This looks amazing! Any ideas perhaps on swapping the coconut flour?
Thanks Chiara! You could try using all almond flour if you like. Since coconut flour is more absorbent than almond you’ll probably need to use more almond flour to make up for it. I would try 1 1/4 – 1 1/2 cups almond flour altogether. Hope that helps!
This looks a very good reason to hop on the bus and go to Bude ,North Cornwall (that’s 34 miles) to get extra honey and courgettes to try and turn out something after your mouthwatering photo .thabk you !! Lydia
Haha I love it! Hope you like it as much as we do :)Thanks Lydia!
Oh my. I need to get myself some zucchini asap.
Haha yes!! Can’t live without it 🙂
We love zucchini bread around here. Your photos are gorgeous!
Thanks Ally!