If you’re looking for a light and fluffy zucchini muffin recipe, look no further! These vegan muffins are super easy to make and are wonderfully soft. This recipe uses simple pantry ingredients that you probably already have on hand.
I remember the first summer we ever had a serious vegetable garden. And by serious, I guess I mean that we were serious about not letting it get taken over by weeds. We only planted tomatoes (cherry, heirloom, roma and beefsteak), tomatillos, peppers and zucchini.
We had SO MANY zucchini! Zucchini has a tendency to really multiply. Which can be a good thing, especially if you are in the market for some vegan zucchini muffins.
These easy muffins have a traditional zucchini bread flavor, and are light and tender. These are just right for breakfast, a snack, or dessert. You could even serve them with a scoop of ice cream if you wanted to.
The zucchini and the applesauce keep these muffins very moist, even over a few days. Of course, they’re so good, they usually don’t last very long! I’ve made them many times now, and this is a favorite breakfast muffin in our house.
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Ingredient Notes
- Zucchini – You will need to shred the zucchini, and I recommend using a hand grater for best results. You could use a food processor, but a hand grater makes smaller shreds which blend into the muffin batter more easily. You can also use frozen shredded zucchini. Just make sure to squeeze out all the excess water.
- White Spelt Flour – I prefer to use spelt flour, but you could definitely use regular all-purpose flour or even whole wheat flour in this recipe.
- Oil – You can use organic canola oil, coconut oil, or even melted vegan buttery spread in this recipe.
- Applesauce – Applesauce acts as an egg replacer here – it adds moisture to the recipe, and helps bind the ingredients together.
Variations
- Try adding some dairy free chocolate chips or dairy free white chocolate chips to the batter.
- You can also add dried fruit like raisins or dried cranberries to the batter.
- If you want a little different flavor, use â…“ cup mashed banana instead of applesauce in this recipe.
- You could also add some sunflower seeds or nuts (if you can have them) to these muffins. Add to the batter, or sprinkle on top of each muffin before baking.
- You can make these into mini muffins if you like! Just watch the baking time, it will be less. Try baking in a mini muffin pan for about 15 minutes and then add time if needed.
Step by Step Instructions
- Grate the zucchini. You can use a grater or a food processor for this step.
- Squeeze out the excess liquid from the shredded zucchini.
- Whisk together the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.
- Add the oil, applesauce, non-dairy milk, and shredded zucchini.
- Stir well to combine.
- Spoon into a muffin tin that has been lined with paper liners.
- Bake at 350 degrees F for about 20 minutes.
FAQs
You could use up to ¾ cup of almond flour if you wish. I haven’t tried these with coconut flour, but grain free flours tend to make muffins and cakes heavier and more dense. I don’t recommend coconut flour for this recipe.
No, this batter should be mixed right before you are ready to bake the muffins. You can bake the muffins and store in an airtight container or freeze the finished muffins if you want to prepare ahead of time.
Baking Tips
- For fluffy muffins, make sure your baking soda and baking powder are fresh, and not expired. Expired leavening agents don’t work very well to give muffins and cakes a light and fluffy texture.
- Line the muffin pan with parchment paper liners so that the muffins don’t stick to the pan.
- Be sure to squeeze out the extra water from the shredded zucchini before adding it to the bowl, that way you won’t have soggy muffins.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
Recipe
Easy Vegan Zucchini Muffins.
Ingredients
- 2 ¼ cups white spelt flour you can use all purpose flour, spelt is what works for our family
- ½ cup brown sugar lightly packed
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¼ cup canola oil or melted vegan buttery spread, or coconut oil
- 1 ½ cups shredded zucchini squeeze out the excess liquid after shredding
- â…“ cup unsweetened applesauce
- ¾ cup non-dairy milk or water
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with paper liners.
- Whisk together all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
- Add the oil, shredded zucchini, applesauce, and non-dairy milk to the bowl, and mix together. Be careful not to overmix.
- Spoon the batter into the muffin pan, filling the muffin cups ¾ of the way full. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 20 minutes, until muffin tops are golden brown.
- Repeat step 4 with remaining batter. Allow the muffins to cool for at least 15 minutes before removing from the pan.
Notes
Nutrition
Marijana
Great recipe, grandkids loved it. Thank you!
Kelly Roenicke
So glad they liked it!
Sharon
These are wonderful!
Martha
Thank you very much. This is information that I was looking for.
Bethany
Made them tonight and these are delicious! Hoping to make more before I lose my summer zucchini & freeze muffins for later. Great recipe!
Alexa R.
What a wonderful recipe! It worked great and was delicious. My 3 yo son loved these. He has eczema and tons of food allergies so finding yummy things for him is so fun!
Mindy L.
This recipe was simple and straightforward! I absolutely loved it and plan to bake more in the near future. Thank you!
Kelly Roenicke
So glad to hear this, thanks for letting me know!
isis
Holy Cow!
Such a great recipe!
Wish I had started out here instead of buying muffin mixes at health food stores and substituting different ingredients for eggs and milk. Everything I made tasted pretty, well, disappointing…if disappointing could be considered a flavor. you have given me my confidence back in baking. I have been eating only plant-based foods for 3 months now and always worried about tackling baking.
thanks a million!
p.s. i have a mini muffin tin that I would like to use with this recipe. what are the adjustments in temp or time, if any?
isis
Holy Cow!
Such a great recipe!
Wish I had started out here instead of buying muffin mixes at health food stores and substituting different ingredients for eggs and milk. Everything I made tasted pretty, well, disappointing…if disappointing could be considered a flavor. you have given me my confidence back in baking. I have been eating only plant-based foods for 3 months now and always worried about tackling baking.
thanks a million!
Kelly Roenicke
Yay! So glad you liked this recipe! I’m glad you have your confidence back! Well done! :)
isis
I have everything in my pantry right now, except for almond meal. Is there a substitute for it? Would really like to make these Right NOW!!
Kelly Roenicke
Sure, just use more spelt flour, all-purpose flour, or oat flour in place of the almond meal. :)
Jacki
Can I substitute spelt flour with white or whole wheat (or a mix)?
Kelly Roenicke
Yes, that’s fine!
Isabel
how many muffins does this recipe yield?
Lisa
These were awesome! Since I try to avoid refined sugars, I left out the granulated sugar and brown sugar and instead used 1/2 C honey & 1/4 C molasses, cut the almond milk to 1/4 C and added about 1/2 C raisins (because raisins make everything taste better!) These were delicious and sooo much more moist than my old, non-vegan zucchini muffins!
peteandbuzz
This is a perfect recipe!!!! Just what I want to try. Thank you for posting it! :) I plan to grow some zucchini next year….usually we have friends trying to give them away, but not this year!