Vegan Zucchini Muffins
Wholesome vegan zucchini muffins that are moist, fluffy and easy to make! These muffins come together in one bowl using common pantry ingredients.
Why you’ll love these muffins
EASY TO MAKE: Like all my muffin recipes, this is a great beginner recipe that comes together in one bowl! You’ll have this easy snack in no time.
TASTE/TEXTURE: Less dense than banana bread but denser than a typical cake, for example my vegan lemon cake.
The recipe has been adapted from my popular vegan carrot muffins and vegan zucchini bread recipes.
Ingredients you’ll need
The full list of ingredient quantities and instructions are in the recipe card at the bottom of this post.
Notes about the ingredients
Grated zucchini. You don’t need to squeeze the zucchini and waste any precious vegetable juice in this recipe! The zucchini’s moisture is balanced with a smaller amount of dairy-free milk in the recipe. I grated my zucchini in a food processor but a box grater will work fine.
Brown sugar for moisture and depth of flavor. Alternatively, you can use granulated sugar, coconut sugar, or a combination of them. But I’m going to keep it simple!
Spices that are similar to those used in carrot muffins and carrot cake. Zucchini muffins are similar to carrot muffins but with a different vegetable :).
Even though these muffins are eggless, they work wonderfully without any special egg replacers (such as a flax egg)!
Making the zucchini muffin batter
The best thing about this recipe is that it can be prepared in one large bowl!
Simply whisk all the dry ingredients, add the wet ingredients and stir until combined.
The consistency of your muffin batter will depend on how you measured your flour and how you grated your zucchini. If your batter is a little thick, walk away for 5 minutes. Shortly, the sugar will dissolve and the zucchini will seep liquid, and make a looser batter.
Like all my quick bread recipes, my top tip is to avoid overmixing your batter. Some lumps are fine, as long as they aren’t lumps of flour!
Topping suggestions
These muffins are delicious with no toppings. However, I included an optional crumble topping that’s super easy to make!
Alternatively, you can top your muffins with:
- Chopped walnuts or pecans
- Demerara sugar, just like my blueberry muffins or apple muffins
- Vegan chocolate chips
Tips for baking the muffins
These vegan zucchini muffins are straightforward to bake!
For large muffins (pictured), fill each muffin cup to almost the top (pictured). Or to make smaller kid-friendly muffins, fill the muffin cups by two-thirds (you’ll get many more muffins).
For extra-high muffin tops, space the muffins apart in your muffin tin (as pictured). If you have only 1 muffin tin, you’ll need to bake 6 muffins at a time and in 2 lots (it’s worth it, I promise)! Baking the muffins spaced apart encourages more oven heat to circulate each muffin so they rise more.
Expert Tips
My team and I have tested and recommend these muffins with King Arthur’s measure for measure flour! The batter is significantly thicker and it’s best to bake them for around 27-32 minutes.
There are a few ways to customize the recipe:
– Replace all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour or spelt flour. Those flours are more absorbent so I suggest adding an extra dash of milk.
– Replace brown sugar with coconut sugar. I don’t recommend using maple syrup as it’ll be too heavy for these muffins. You can also reduce the sugar to 3/4 cup (150g).
Keep in mind that these substitutions will make your muffins denser and rise less! You can also replace the oil with unsweetened applesauce, mashed banana or nut butter but your muffins will have a chewier texture.
I recommend making my vegan savory muffins instead. You can use just shredded zucchini or combine it with shredded carrot.
Optional add-ins
If you’d like some extra texture or fun, you can also add:
- dairy-free dark chocolate chips
- chopped pecans or walnuts
- dried cranberries or raisins
I recommend adding them at the same time as the wet ingredients.
To make a chocolate version of these muffins, check out my vegan chocolate zucchini muffin recipe. The chocolate muffins are slightly smaller than these ones because the chocolate chips and cocoa powder makes the muffins rise differently.
More vegan muffins
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Vegan Zucchini Muffins
Ingredients
Dry ingredients
- 3 cups (375g) all-purpose plain flour, spoon and leveled (notes 2 & 3)
- 1 ¼ cup (240g) packed brown sugar, granulated sugar or coconut sugar
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ⅛ teaspoon salt, optional
Wet ingredients
- 2 cups (250g) coarsely grated zucchini, (around 1 medium large zucchini)
- 1 cup (250g) dairy-free milk
- ½ cup (125g) neutral flavored oil
- ¾ cup (85g) chopped walnuts, or vegan chocolate chips, optional
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar, or lemon juice, optional
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, optional
Crumb Topping
- ½ cup (65g) all-purpose plain flour
- 3 tablespoons (35g) granulated sugar, brown sugar or coconut sugar
- 2 ½ tablespoons (35g) vegan butter, margarine or coconut oil, melted and cooled
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.
To make the muffins:
- Add all the dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl and mix until there are no more lumps. Add all the wet ingredients (including the zucchini) and mix until just combined. If you're using nuts or chocolate chips, add them at the same time as the wet ingredients.
- Use an ice cream scoop or a spoon to divide the batter into your muffin pan. The muffin batter should be close to the top of each cup (check the step-by-step images above, note 3).
Make the crumb topping (optional):
- Using the same bowl, add all ingredients for your crumb topping. Mix with a spoon or your fingertips until combined and the mixture is flaky and crumbly.
- Generously sprinkle the crumb topping onto your muffins.
Baking and storing the muffins (note 3 for taller muffin tops):
- Bake the muffins for 23-28 minutes or until you can insert a toothpick in a muffin and it comes out clean. These muffins are very moist so a few crumbs on your toothpick are fine.
- Allow the muffins to cool in the muffin pan for 15 minutes (or until they aren't too hot) then place them on a wire rack.
- Enjoy the vegan zucchini muffins warm or at room temperature. They're perfect by themselves or with some vegan butter.
- Store any leftover muffins in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, in the fridge for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 1 month. If the crumb topping softens over time, you can reheat them in the oven for 10 minutes at 160°C (320°F) or until heated through.
Notes
- For the best results, use the spoon and level method to measure your flour. This is where you fluff up the flour in the bag, use a spoon to add flour to a measuring cup, then level it off with a knife. If you use a measuring cup to scoop flour out of your container, it will pack in too much flour and result in dry and dense muffins. It’s also difficult to measure zucchini accurately using a cup. For the best results, use the grams measurements.
- Gluten-free version: These muffins work well with King Arthur’s gluten-free measure for measure flour! The batter is significantly thicker and it’s best to bake them for around 27-32 minutes. Other gluten-free flour blends may produce different results.
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For the highest muffin tops, I recommend baking 6 muffins at a time in a 12-cup muffin tray. Spacing apart the muffins allows the hot oven air to bake them faster, resulting in higher tops. This means you’ll need to bake the muffins in 2 lots.
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Hi! Looking for feedback before attempting to recreate this recipe. My son requested that I bake zucchini muffins. He purchased a zucchini as big as his arm from the farmers market, so I plan to make multiple recipes, including a chocolate zucchini option.
I avoid sugar and oil in recipes as much as possible and also willing to try the recipe as is. What would you consider a good option for a neutral oil to bake with? I’ve used olive oil in the past and depending on the recipe, I find that it takes over the flavor in the recipe. Second, if I decide to substitute the oil for applesauce or a banana, will that change the density or the ability for the batter to rise tall as described?
Third, I plan to freeze the majority of what I bake. Would you change anything about the recipe to maintain the consistency after freezing and thawing out?
Thank you in advance.
Wow, that sounds like a huge zucchini! If a light olive oil is too strong, you could try a vegetable oil. Substituting with applesauce or banana will definitely change the texture and make it a little denser. It might also affect the flavor a little, though this is not necessarily a bad thing! If you plan to freeze them, just keep in mind the crumble topping will soften, but you can always pop them in the oven for 5 minutes to bring back some crunch. Hope this helps and hope you enjoy the muffins!
Recipe yielded 14 large muffins. I used a mixture of APF & wheat flour, brown sugar & coconut sugar. Yummy & good texture
So glad the muffins turned out well with your flour and sugar mix. Sounds like a delicious batch 😍 Thank you for sharing with us!
I tried Zucchini Muffins for the first time while traveling when I was a child, and have always raved about them ever since! Your Zucchini Muffins brought me right back to my childhood sitting on a lakefront dock with the cool breeze in the air and a scrumptious muffin to keep me warm. I love these so much!!! Thank you! You don’t just create great recipes, you create memories… and revive old ones 🙂
Hi Harmony, aw that’s sooo lovely to hear! Nostalgic desserts are just the best and I’m honored that these brought back such fond memories for you. Thank you so much for your kind words and support, I appreciate it a lot!
The flavors were spectacular! The only thing was that my muffins fell. lol next time I’ll try the exact gluten free flour and space method next time. lol
We’re so glad you loved the flavours! GF baking can be tricky sometimes so hopefully using the exact flour and spacing will help! We also recommend weighing ingredients in grams for accuracy which helps to get that perfect rise 🙌
These are excellent! I am not vegan but had a zucchini ready for muffin making, but was out of eggs- so I found this lovely recipe. It made about 18 for me. Would make again!
Thank you so much for your review! We’re thrilled you enjoyed the muffins and so happy to hear you’ll be making them again!
Hi! I have made this recipe many times and I’m OBSESSED!! I do want to make mini muffins and I was wondering what the bake time would be for mini muffins?
Sometimes, the large muffins are too much to eat and I’d love to make mini ones but the recipes online all have much less four and I really don’t want to mess these up!
Hi Danielle! Thank you so much for your lovely feedback, we are so happy to hear you love the recipe! Yes, this would work in a mini muffin pan. We haven’t tested the timing but would try 15-20 minutes and check using a toothpick to see if it has baked in the middle. Hope this helps!
They are very good, also once I did apple+carrot instead of zucchini (less sugar then!) and it was yummy! I’m thinking about a vegan mini cake for my son and this muffins are the only ones he likes – can I use this recipe for cake form 16cm diameter? Or better to use other recipes like carrot cake one?
Your apple and carrot combination sounds lovely and I’m so glad you enjoyed them! This cake bakes differently in a large pan, so I would definitely use my zucchini bread recipe or my carrot cake. If you tap on the number next to ‘Yield’, you can scale down the recipe for a 16cm cake pan. Hope that helps!
Accidentally left out the oil and they are absolutely delicious and not too dense. Great recipe, will try with oil next time just to compare!
Oh it’s great that you still enjoyed them without the oil! Thanks so much for your feedback, Donna!
Used chocolate chips as I have an allergy to walnuts and they look DELICIOUS!!! Can’t wait to try
Aw that’s wonderful!! I hope you enjoyed them!
My batter was very dry and there was no way to fit it into 12 muffin cups….I had to use 3 more to make the total 18 muffins. They are cooling so we’ll see about taste and texture.
If your batter was very dry and you had too much of it, it’s very likely that you overmeasured the flour or your muffin tin was just smaller than mine. As mentioned in the recipe card and the blog post, packing too much flour into your cups will throw off the consistency of your batter. How did the muffins go?
So good made some with and without walnuts, the perfect start to my day!!
I’m so thrilled that you enjoyed them!
We ate the entire batch in two days. Sooo so good.
Aw that’s amazing to hear!! Thanks sooo much for letting me know 🙂
Mine didn’t quite work unfortunately. They did rise nicely, and I left them in the oven for a bit over 30 minutes, but they went back down slightly when out of the oven and the middle got a bit too moist.
I used only 150g of sugar as suggested in one of the points, should I have been using more flour to keep the amount of dry ingredients?
I also used spelt flour, could that have been the cause?
Thanks!
Hi Sara, it sounds like your oven runs a little cool and didn’t bake these muffins through. It’s normal for muffins or cake to sink a little when they come out of the oven. But when it sinks and the middle is still moist, it means the muffins weren’t totally cooked through. Reducing the sugar and using spelt flour are fine. Even though we add sugar with the dry ingredients in this recipe, technically its a wet ingredient because it adds moisture to a recipe, rather than dries it out. So, you don’t need to add more flour to compensate for the sugar. I hope that helps!
Great recipe like all of hers it was well tested and the tips she puts inside the post are very helpful. I was skeptical because the ingredient list is so simple. Made these for multiple people and the LOVED them. I used an extra large muffin tin with plenty of space between muffins to get that height and it worked great. Oil over butter is the way to go in these muffins.
Hi Serena, I’m so thrilled that you and everyone else loved these muffins!! I’m glad that they worked well in an extra large muffin tin too. Thanks for the kind and thoughtful feedback!
I baked these muffins for my non-vegan family and they loved them! I add chocolate chips, highly reccommend.
Aw, that’s wonderful to hear, Maite! Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a review!
Thanks for this simple and delicious recipe! I love your recipes for that reason. I made half the recipe this batch and added some oats to the crumb topping for extra yum. People loved them!
I love that you added oats to the topping! Thanks so much for your support and your kind feedback, I appreciate it a lot!
These are so great!!! I made them for my work mates & they were gobbled up. I made them with less sugar (200g) and they were delicious.
Oh that’s music to my ears!! I’m so happy that you and your work mates loved these! Thanks Miriam 🙂
Maybe I missed it, but can these be made gluten free? We have celiac disease.