You'll love this chocolate zucchini bread recipe! Packed with shredded zucchini and gooey chocolate chips, it's moist, fudgy, and delicious.
This double chocolate zucchini bread is moist, fudgy, and delicious. In the summertime, it’s my favorite way to satisfy a chocolate craving. It tastes just as decadent as a rich chocolate cake, but it’s made with healthier ingredients like whole wheat flour, maple syrup, and zucchini. Eating your vegetables has never tasted so good!
Like my classic zucchini bread recipe, this recipe makes two loaves. They disappear pretty quickly in our house, but if you have extra, pop one loaf in the freezer for another day, or share it with a friend! They (and you) will love this chocolate zucchini bread.
Chocolate Zucchini Bread Ingredients
Here’s what you’ll need to make this double chocolate zucchini bread:
- Flour – I use a mix of all-purpose flour and whole wheat flour. They give the bread a perfect moist crumb, plus a little whole grain power.
- Unsweetened cocoa powder – It adds rich chocolate flavor to the batter.
- Baking powder, baking soda, and eggs – They help the bread puff up as it bakes.
- Maple syrup – Many chocolate zucchini bread recipes call for granulated sugar or brown sugar. I sweeten mine with maple syrup instead. It adds a subtle caramel-like flavor that I love.
- Almond milk – For moisture. Oat milk, regular milk, and soy milk would all work well here too.
- Vegetable oil or coconut oil – For moisture and richness.
- Cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla extract – For warm depth of flavor.
- Zucchini – I grate mine on the largest holes of a box grater to get the best moist, zucchini-flecked texture!
- Chocolate chips – You’ll fold some into the batter to add fudginess to the inside of the loaf. Then, you’ll sprinkle more on top.
- And sea salt – To make all the flavors pop!
Find the complete recipe with measurements below.
How to Make Chocolate Zucchini Bread
This double chocolate zucchini bread recipe couldn’t be simpler to make! Here’s how it goes:
First, whisk together the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet ingredients in another. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and gently stir to combine.
Fold in the chocolate chips. Look how chocolatey that batter is!!
Pour the batter into two greased loaf pans. Bake at 350°F until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaves comes out clean.
Place the pans on a wire rack, and allow the loaves to cool in the pan before digging in. So easy!
Chocolate Zucchini Bread Recipe Tips
- Be careful not to overmix! As with all baking recipes that use wheat flour, overmixing the batter will make the bread dense. Stir until everything is just combined to get soft, moist, and puffy loaves.
- Bake once, eat twice. This recipe makes two loaves of quick bread. They’ll keep well in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, but they also freeze perfectly. I like to enjoy one right away and slice and freeze the other. To thaw a slice, let it sit out at room temperature for an hour or so, or pop it in the microwave for around 30 seconds.
- Try changing it up! Swap half the chocolate chips for chopped walnuts, pecans, or dried tart cherries. Or, if you have it on hand, use yellow squash in place of the zucchini. Let me know what variations you try!
FAQs
Should you leave the skin on the zucchini when you make this chocolate zucchini bread?
I never peel zucchini when I make zucchini bread. The skin doesn’t affect the bread’s flavor, so I see peeling the zucchini as an unnecessary extra step.
Do you squeeze out the liquid from zucchini for bread?
Nope! While some zucchini bread recipes might ask you to squeeze out the zucchini’s excess moisture, I never will. Zucchini’s magic is that it makes baked goods super moist. We want all the moisture inside it to go into the bread! Simply grate the zucchini on the large holes of a box grater and add it straight to the batter.
More Zucchini Recipes to Try
If you love this chocolate zucchini bread, try one of these delicious zucchini recipes next:
- Zucchini Bread
- Chocolate Zucchini Cake
- Zucchini Muffins
- Zucchini Brownies
- Or any of these 30 Best Zucchini Recipes!
Chocolate Zucchini Bread
Ingredients
- 1¾ cups all-purpose flour
- ¾ cup whole wheat flour
- ⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg
- 3 large eggs
- 1½ cups almond milk, at room temperature
- ¼ cup vegetable oil, or melted coconut oil
- ⅔ cup maple syrup
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups shredded zucchini
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips, plus more for sprinkling
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and lightly spray two 8x4” loaf pans with nonstick spray.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the all-purpose and whole wheat flours, the cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, almond milk, oil, maple syrup, and vanilla. Stir in the zucchini. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Don’t overmix. Fold in the chocolate chips.
- Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pans. Sprinkle with more chocolate chips and bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the tops spring back to the touch. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
At this point in my young childs life, this is the only way I can get her to enjoy zucchini. So all the zuchini recipes are welcome…chocolate really helps too!
I made the zucchini chocolate bread. I did make a few changes but the results were fenomenal! For example, only used 1/3 c. maple syrup, I had about 1/2 c. dark chocolate chips, and added 1/2 c. walnut pieces. Didn’t have much nutmeg, so I used mace instead. I was reluctant to use coconut oil, years ago a friend nutritionist had negative issues with it. But, I used it anyway for the first time.
My overall rating is DELICIOUS, ADDICTIVE!!! The sweetness is just RIGHT for my taste. I’ve tried it with cottage cheese topped with kiwis and raspberries, also with plain yogurt, a tiny bit of honey with the fruit as well.
I’m so glad you loved it!
Hello!
Can I use chestnut flour?
Thanks 😉
Hi Esther, no but you can use it in place of any recipe that uses almond flour, there are a bunch listed in this post: https://www.loveandlemons.com/almond-flour/
I am amazed. I used full cream milk and it is just beautiful. Light and fluffy and chocolatey but not too sweet. It is the best, easiest recipe…
I’m so glad you loved it!
Love this recipe! Made it in a Bundt pan instead of two loaves and it came out perfect and baked the exact same amount of time. This allows it to double as a dessert! I’ve made this 4 times now just wrung out the zucchini for the first time to see if it makes it a little less dense. Will report back! Thank you for an amazing & healthy recipe!!
Any idea the calorie and other macro count roughly?
Hi Meredith, I’m sorry we don’t calculate nutrition facts, but you can plug the ingredients into sites like my fitness pal for the info.
Hi, my maths could be wrong but if you cut each loaf into 7 slices, it works out around 260 calories a piece.
I worked out how many calories each measured ingredient was, and added it all together to get 3,620 with some rounding. If you wanted more or less slices just divide that by how many across the two loaves. I’m not sure about macros though sorry! 🙂
This looks delicious – I’m gf, what tweaks would you suggest to make the consistency right when using gluten free flour? Thank you!
Hi Mary, we haven’t made this with GF flour, so I’m not quite sure.
Can you substitute honey for the maple syrup? I’m out of maple syrup and want to make it before I will be going to the store again. 🙂
Hi Judy, I think it might work but I haven’t tried. It’s thicker and stickier than maple so it might make a difference in the batters consistency, but I’m not sure.
I used honey in place of maple syrup. It took longer to bake and even after baking for about an hour, it was still kind of doughy or wet in the middle. It tastes great but I’m storing it in the fridge just because of the consistency of the bread. Next time I’ll try using maple syrup and see if I get a different result.
Thank you!
Can you use all purpose flour instead of whole wheat
Hi Jane, I think that would be fine.
Can you use yellow zucchini instead of green?
yep!
This sounds delicious! My question is do you have to take the moisture out of the zucchini? I didn’t see that in directions or comments?
Hi Tracey, nope, not in this recipe, the extra moisture can be included.
woah, i love this. I work at a farm and we have a bit of a zucchini situation at the moment. 🙂 I made some small tweaks, and the loaf still worked really well. I…
– used only whole wheat flour
– used the tiniest 3 eggs you’ve ever seen (basically only 2 eggs)
– halved the amount of maple syrup… the loaf is still sweet enough to my tastes, because i like to eat it for breakfast or snacks. no baking powder or soda taste which sometimes happens if i take out too much sugar.
– i also reserved the cocoa until last and mixed it only into 1/2 the batter so i could make it a swirl cake. I couldn’t decide if i wanted chocolate or plain zucchini bread so this appeased me!
i really like this recipe and will keep it for sure.
thanks!
I’m so glad you enjoyed the bread!
The Chocolate Zucchini Bread was so delicious, I made it for when my grandchildren were visiting for a week, they are not too keen on vegetables. They enjoyed it so much. They ATE VEGGIES in a very yummy way. I will definitely make this recipe over and over again.
I’m glad everyone enjoyed it!
I have the same question as Melissa. Can I make it eggless? I want to make it and share but one of my friend’s kid is allergic to eggs.
Hi Chaitali, it might work with flax and water as a replacement, but I haven’t tried it so I’m not sure.
Do you have the nutritional value of this very yummy bread?
When I entered it in, it cane out to about 2 calories per gram or 1831 caloriea per loaf
Has anyone used a flax egg instead of a real egg and did it turn out?
Sheer magic. Incredible. Hits ever note….Healthy, delicious, moist and easy. 🥰❤️
Do happen to have the nutritional information for any of the recipes?
The problem with this recipe is… it totally tests my willpower! My husband and I devoured the first loaf and now I keep thinking about that second loaf stashed in the freezer. Absolutely delicious and will be a repeater for sure! We ate it as dessert last night— topped with some vegan cream cheese, fresh strawberries and raspberries, and toasted pecans. My husband said as we were going to bed that he couldn’t wait to have it for breakfast the next day. And as far as treats go, I feel like this one is pretty virtuous. 😀
I made this chocolate zucchini loaves and they turned out perfect. I used 2 c of flour & 1\2 c of ground flax seed 1/3 c coconut flakes unsweetened. I added chocolate chunks and walnuts too. I used 3 zucchini.