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 powder
- 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.
toby says
hey,
can i just use almond flour. i dont have coconut flour
Sarah Nevins says
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.
Vanessa says
Thanks for sharing! Does it keep long?
Sarah Nevins says
Thanks Vanessa! This should keep about 4-5 days stored at room temp
Suzanne says
This looks so good! what a great way to use up some zucchini and bring a treat to friends!
Mary says
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 !!!
Sarah says
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!
Jericca says
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!
Sarah says
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!
Stephanie says
My fiance is allergic to almonds is there a way to substitute the almond flour?
Sarah says
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!
Betsy says
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.
Sarah says
Hi Betsy! I measuring out 1.5 cups and then squeezing out the extra moisture to be on the safe side
Betsy says
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
Sarah says
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
Anna Ames says
I did the opposite! I squeezed out the liquid and then counted 1.5 cups. It took very long which I was going to comment about the 10 minute prep time but maybe I grated too much! Regardless, it was delicious!
Sarah Nevins says
Glad you still enjoyed it even with the grating!
Jennifer Norman says
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?
Sarah says
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
Erika says
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?
Sarah says
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.
Samantha says
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!
Sarah says
So glad everyone liked it! Thanks so much for coming back to let me know what you thought!
Laura says
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!
Sarah says
Ha! I love that! SO glad you guys both liked it – thanks so much for coming back to let me know what you thought!