Enjoy these rich chocolate vegan zucchini muffins whenever you need a tasty chocolate fix. These muffins are packed with coco powder and chocolate chips along with other delicious vegan ingredients. The final product is an extremely moist, brownie-like muffin that is easy to make!
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How to Make Vegan Zucchini Muffins
These vegan zucchini muffins are simple to make. Start preparing a flax “egg” by mixing ground flaxseed with water. Set this aside while you prepare everything else.
Whisk together the wet ingredients (flax egg, shredded zucchini, oil, apple sauce, brown sugar, plant milk and vanilla), then add the dry ingredients (whole wheat flour, coco powder, baking powder and chocolate chips) and stir to combine.
That’s it! Into a prepared muffin tin then the oven. About 22 minutes later, you’ll have some chocolatey goodness heading to your mouth!
Feel free to use paper or silicone muffin cups.
Tips to Prepare Zucchini for Vegan Muffins
The hardest step is shredding zucchini. Since only ~1 zucchini is needed, using a box grater is the easiest option. For larger amounts of shredding, I like to use a food processor, but zucchini grates easily and a box grater option is more than adequate.
Many recipes require zucchini to be strained by placing shredded pieces into a towel and removing extra liquid. For this vegan zucchini muffin recipe, it’s not required.
The moisture in the zucchini, along with the whole wheat flour, creates a super moist, gooey and brownie-like muffin. If you want your zucchini muffins to be a “normal” muffin texture, feel free to strain extra liquid from the zucchini!
Can this Recipe be Made Gluten-Free?
I haven’t tested this recipe without gluten yet. Since it uses whole wheat flour exclusively, replacing it with a gluten-free all-purpose flour blend may not work as intended. Whole wheat flour provides these muffins with the right texture.
Oat flour may be a closer replacement option to whole wheat flour, but I’ve not tested this either so can’t confirm it works.
Muffins are a simple recipe, so there’s not much to say! If you have any questions, I’m always happy to answer. If you make this vegan zucchini muffin recipe and share to social media, please tag me @lettucevegout so I can see your creation!!
You may also be interested in:
- Vegan blueberry lemon muffins
- Vegan carrot cake with cream cheese frosting
- Classic banana bread (veganized!)
Vegan Zucchini Muffins with Coco Powder and Chocolate Chips
Equipment
- Large bowl
- Box grater
- Muffin tin
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp ground flaxseed
- ¼ C water
- 1 C zucchini
- ½ C apple sauce (unsweetened)
- ½ C brown sugar
- 1/3 C plant-based milk
- ¼ C vegetable oil (I use avocado)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 ½ C whole wheat flour
- 1/3 C coco powder
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ C chocolate chips (I used semi sweet; dark is also delicious)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 °F.
- Prepare a muffin tin by lining it with paper or silicone muffin liners. If the muffin liners aren’t non-stick, coat them with a quick spray of oil. This recipe makes 12 muffins.
- Make a flaxseed “egg” by mixing together ground flaxseed (3 tbsp) with water (1/4 C). Set aside until the water is absorbed and the flaxseed “egg” has gelled.
- Shred the zucchini; you need 1 C of shredded zucchini. Lightly pack the zucchini into the measuring cup, but don't overly pack it down.
- Add the shredded zucchini, flaxseed “egg”, apple sauce (1/2 C), brown sugar (1/2 C), plant-based milk (1/3 C), vegetable oil (1/4 C) and vanilla extract (1 tsp) to a large mixing bowl. Stir or whisk together.
- Add the whole wheat flour (1 ½ C), coco powder (1/3 C), baking powder (1 ½ tsp) and chocolate chips (1/2 C) to the bowl. Stir together. The batter will be fairly thick (easy to scoop, not able to pour).
- Scoop the muffin batter evenly into 12 prepared muffin liners.
- Bake for 22 - 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let cool for a few minutes in the muffin tin before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely. This is a moist muffin, so they need time to cool completely before eating.
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Can gluten free flour be used instead of whole wheat flour?
I’ve never tested this recipe with gluten free flour so can’t say for sure. Regular gluten free flour blend is usually fine in place of all-purpose flour but whole wheat flour has a bit more texture to it. My best guess would be to mix some oat flour with regular gluten free flour blend (but won’t make any guarantees that would work out; sorry).