These Vegan Zucchini Muffins are moist, fluffy, healthy muffins with a lovely blend of spices. This easy zucchini muffin recipe is a delicious way to use up the zucchini from your summer garden. It's a great option for a grab-and-go breakfast or snack!
Zucchini is such a versatile vegetable. Every year during zucchini season, I often get asked for zucchini recipes to help readers use up their garden zucchini.
Including zucchini in muffins is one of my personal favorite ways of enjoying summer's most prolific veggie. We've been including grated zucchini and carrots in our Apple Cinnamon Streusel Muffins since the kids were toddlers. Even picky eaters tend to love muffins!
This Vegan Zucchini Muffin recipe is one that's loved by my entire family. I'm excited to share it with you!
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🌟 Why this recipe works
These healthy zucchini muffins are some of my family's favorite, especially in the summertime.
- They are vegan. No eggs, no butter, no milk. I do include non-vegan substitution ideas down below in the baking tips and substitutions section.
- This is a basic muffin recipe that is easy to follow. I've also got a visual step-by-step baking guide with photos to help you every step of the way.
- The recipe calls for simple ingredients that are easy to find in your local grocery store.
- The muffins are delicious! They turn out moist, fluffy, and so flavorful. The spice blend adds a depth of flavor that take these muffins to the next level.
🛒 Ingredient notes
These vegan muffins call for simple ingredients.
- Flour - Use all-purpose flour. I haven't tested this recipe using any other type of flour, but if you do use whole wheat flour, bread flour, gluten-free flour, please leave a comment and let us know how the muffins turned out!
- Zucchini - You'll want about 1 cup of grated fresh zucchini, which is approximately one medium zucchini. I don't peel the zucchini beforehand, I simply chop off the ends. But you can peel the zucchini first if you prefer.
- Applesauce - Unsweetened applesauce acts as the egg replacement in this vegan muffin recipe. See the baking tips and substitutions section below for substitution options.
- Sugar - The recipe calls for granulated sugar. You can use a mix of brown sugar and white sugar, or coconut sugar, if you want to add some richness to the flavor and texture of the muffins.
- Spices - I use a blend of ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, and ground all spice.
- Baking powder - To help the muffins rise.
- Vegetable oil - This helps make the muffins moist. You can substitute canola oil if you wish.
- Vanilla - Use pure vanilla extract for the best flavor.
- Salt - A little kosher salt always helps balance out the flavors of baked goods.
✅ Step-by-step instructions
The full list of ingredients and detailed instructions are in the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post. Here's a visual step-by-step photo guide to refer to as you bake these delicious muffins!
First, preheat the oven to 425°F.
Line a muffin tin with muffin liners. If you have two, use a second muffin pan, as this recipe can make up to 15 muffins, depending on how much muffin batter you put in each of the muffin cups.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients (including the white sugar).
3. Combine the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients until a clumpy batter forms (see pic 3C).
4. Fold in the applesauce and the shredded zucchini until well incorporated. Be careful not to overmix in this step.
5. Scoop the muffin batter into each lined muffin cup, filling each cup just about ¾ of the way.
6. Bake at 425°F for 5 minutes. Then lower the heat to 375°F and bake for an additional 15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out mostly clean.
Allow the cupcakes to cool on a cooling rack at room temperature for 5-10 minutes before serving.
👩🏻🍳 Baking tips, substitutions, and recipe FAQs
Baking tips:
- Be careful not to over mix the batter. If your muffins turn out dense, chances are it's because of over-mixed batter. Watch your batter carefully when mixing and only mix ingredients just until they are well incorporated.
- Use a fine/small grate for the zucchini. Unless you want larger chunks of zucchini in your muffins, I find that using a grater with small/medium holes yields grated zucchini that mixes well into the batter and results in a fluffier muffin.
- Do not drain the zucchini after grating. In my recipe testing, I found that leaving the zucchini grated and undrained yielded the best results. The muffins always come out moist and tender this way.
Substitutions:
- You can substitute mashed banana in a 1:1 ratio for the applesauce.
- You can also substitute two flax eggs for the applesauce. Or try a mixture of 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed in 6 tablespoons of water. Note that I have not personally tested out this substitution in this particular recipe. But I have used it in other baking recipes to replace eggs, and it has worked well. If you try this with these zucchini muffins, leave a comment and let us know how it turned out!
- If you do not need/want this recipe to be vegan, you can substitute two large eggs for the applesauce.
Baking muffins (and cupcakes!) at a higher temperature for the first 5 minutes helps them rise quickly. This creates the beloved bakery "dome" effect at the top of muffins. Be sure you do lower the temperature after 5 minutes, otherwise the muffins won't bake evenly and may burn or turn out dense.
Allow the cupcakes to cool completely, then store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days. Or you can store in the refrigerator for up to one week.
Absolutely! Yes, you can definitely freeze these healthy zucchini muffins. Allow them to cool completely, then store in freezer bags or in a freezer safe container in a single layer. Freeze for up to 2 months.
🍽 Serving ideas
These wholesome vegan zucchini muffins are a delicious and healthy treat for breakfast, brunch, or snack.
They are also great to tuck into school lunch boxes.
And they make great road trip snacks!
If you're making this healthy muffin recipe for breakfast or brunch, consider serving them alongside these breakfast recipes:
🍳 Kitchen tools and equipment
Ready to make this recipe? Here are the kitchen tools and equipment you'll need:
- A muffin tin/muffin pan or two
- Muffin/cupcake liners
- Ice cream scoop/cookie scoop - this helps make it easy to scoop out the right amount of batter into each muffin cup.
- Box grater to grate the fresh zucchini.
- Mixing bowls
- Whisk
- Silicone spatula or wooden spoon
More muffin recipes
We also use hidden zucchini - and carrots! - in these Apple Streusel Muffins. My kids have loved these muffins since they were toddlers!
Here are more muffin recipes to try.
Did you make this recipe? Don't forget to leave a 5-Star 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 rating in the recipe card, and if you really loved it, please leave a comment further down on the page. Thank you!
Vegan Zucchini Muffins
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2¼ cup all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon ground all spice
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ¾ cup applesauce
- 1 cup grated zucchini about 1 medium zucchini
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line two 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake liners (this recipe makes 14-15 muffins).
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, sugar, and all spice.
- In a separate large bowl, whisk together the sugar, vegetable oil, and vanilla.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix together with a wooden spoon or spatula just until incorporated.
- Fold the applesauce and grated zucchini into the batter until fully incorporated.
- Use a cookie, ice cream scoop, or spoon to scoop batter into each lined muffin cup, filling about ¾ of the way full.
- Bake at 425°F for 5 minutes, then lower the heat to 375°F and bake for an additional 15 minutes.
- Allow the muffins to cool in the muffin tin for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to continue cooling.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is a general estimate. Actual nutrition details may vary depending on the exact foods & brands you use to make this recipe. It does not take into account any substitutions, toppings, or optional ingredients.
Holley says
My household really enjoy these muffins! They usually don't last more than 2 days because everyone gobbles them up :)
Biana says
These muffins look amazing! Perfect for when you have some leftover zucchini.
dina and bruce miller says
Wow! The flavors were amazing! And we got some kids to eat veggies! Winning!
Kushigalu says
Love these moist zucchini muffins. So delicious. Thanks for sharing.
Lana says
These were amazing. I still have so much zucchini to use so will be making it again. I really should have doubled the batch. Thank you!
Kathleen says
I am loving the spices used in these moist and fabulous zucchini muffins. They are a perfect treat to start the day with.