These vegan zucchini muffins are quick and easy to make without any fancy ingredients or time-consuming techniques! This double chocolate muffin recipe is soft and brownie-like with an almost fudgy texture.
It’s a delicious snack that freezes easily, making it perfect for meal prep. They pack easily to take on the go and are egg, dairy and nut free!
Skill: Easy | Time: 40 min | Servings: 12
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Are Zucchini Muffins Vegan?
Most zucchini muffin recipes are not vegan because of eggs and/ or dairy. Fortunately, it’s easy to make vegan muffins or veganize non-vegan recipes with a few simple ingredient swaps.
This recipe uses basic ingredients that are a staple in my vegan kitchen and easy to find at typical grocery stores! With double chocolate flavor, these delicious muffins are the ultimate snack.
Ingredients to Make Zucchini Chocolate Muffins
Making vegan muffins is easy especially with the use of a flax “egg” and a couple other simple ingredient swaps! The ingredients you’ll need include:
- Flaxseed: Eggless zucchini muffins require structure from a flax “egg”. Create this by mixing ground flaxseed with water. Set aside for a few minutes and it will form a gel that easily replaces eggs – this trick works for most baking recipes!
- Zucchini: The star ingredient, zucchini, needs to be shredded (but you’ll save time by not pressing out its water content).
- Apple sauce: This is one of my favorite baking ingredients because it’s slightly sweet and very moist, helping add liquid while providing some fruity flavor!
- Brown sugar: For a perfectly sweetened double chocolate muffin I like to use brown sugar.
- Plant-based milk: To easily replace dairy, select a plant-based milk instead. I use unsweetened soy milk, but any plant milk should work.
- Oil: Oil is an essential ingredient to keep the muffins soft and moist.
- Vanilla extract: To round off the liquid ingredients and boost flavor, some vanilla extract is perfect! While these are double chocolate muffins, you’d be surprised how much vanilla boosts the flavor of chocolate!
- Whole wheat flour: I use 100% whole wheat flour for this recipe. This adds fiber to the muffin but also creates a denser texture with a “nutty” flavor.
- Cocoa powder: The first layer of chocolate flavor is from cocoa powder.
- Baking powder: For a fluffier muffin that rises nicely, use some baking powder.
- Chocolate chips: You can’t make double chocolate zucchini muffins without a second source of chocolate! I use mini, semi-sweet chocolate chips for this recipe but any type of vegan chocolate chip should work.
How to Make Eggless Zucchini Muffins: Instructions and Video Tutorial
This recipe is very simple to make. Many zucchini muffin recipes require squeezing liquid from the shredded zucchini, but I skip that step entirely. The result is a slightly denser muffin but one that’s soft and brownie-like in texture!
Step 1: Make Flax “Egg”
The first step is quick and easy, just mix ground flaxseed with water and set aside. This forms a gel that’s nutritious and replaces eggs.
Step 2: Mix Liquid Ingredients
Wash your zucchini and slice off its ends. Using the large grating side of a box grater, shred the zucchini until you have one lightly packed cup.
Grab a large mixing bowl and add apple sauce, brown sugar, plant-based milk, oil and vanilla. Whisk this mixture together until well combined.
Then, whisk in the grated zucchini and flaxseed “egg” until combined.
Step 3: Stir in Dry Ingredients
Switch from your whisk to a large spoon and stir in whole wheat flour, cocoa powder and baking powder.
Once you’ve almost fully mixed the dry ingredients, add in the chocolate chips!
Stir until the chocolate chips are evenly distributed and there’s no dry clumps of flour or cocoa powder. At this point, stop stirring so you don’t overmix the muffin batter.
Step 4: Bake, Cool and Serve
Preheat the oven to 350 °F. Prep a 12-slot muffin pan (or 2 6-slot pans) by lining them with paper or silicone muffin liners.
Scoop an even amount of batter into each of the 12 muffin liners. I use a cookie scoop to keep the muffins evenly sized, but you can use a spoon.
Bake the muffins for 22-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Keep in mind that melted chocolate chips will stick to the toothpick. The muffins should bounce back into their original shape when lightly pressed if cooked. You can also open one to make sure its center is cooked.
Once out of the oven, let sit for a minute or two before transferring to a wire cooling rack. Let cool to room temperature.
If using silicone muffin liners, you may want to carefully remove muffins from their liners when transferring to the cooling rack. Silicone can create condensation and the edges of the muffin may become soggy. Once cooled you can store in the silicone liners if you like.
See below for storing directions!
How to Serve these Muffins a Balanced Vegan Snack
This chocolate zucchini muffin recipe creates a delicious vegan snack, great for packing on the go!
The recipe makes fairly small muffins, perfect to pair with something else to make a balanced snack. When I say “balanced snack” I mean something that provides lasting energy and keeps you feeling full and satisfied.
Energy comes from carbohydrates which you’ll get plenty of from flour and other muffin ingredients. To make this energy last longer, protein, fiber and/ or fat are helpful to pair with something higher in carbohydrates.
These muffins offer some healthy fats from the oil along with fiber from the whole wheat flour. Together, the carbs, fat and fiber create a snack that is satisfying and filling!
If you want a larger snack, you can certainly eat more than one muffin or pair it with a piece of fruit or handful of nuts and seeds. Fruit adds extra healthy carbs and fiber while nuts and seeds provide healthy fats and some plant-based protein!
Tips and Variations for Double Chocolate Muffins
This recipe is quite easy to make. The biggest “tip” for making muffins is to not overmix the batter. This is a thick batter that relies on zucchini releasing liquid as it cooks.
As for variations, use any type of chocolate chip you like. You could also add some nuts or seeds to the muffins to add a nice crunch and boost of nutrition.
I love this recipe as-is and haven’t yet tested any other variations or substitutions.
How to Store this Recipe
Allow muffins to cool completely before refrigerating leftovers in an airtight container for up to a week.
You can also freeze these muffins in a freezer-safe bag for up to 3 months. To thaw, place in the fridge overnight (or allow to thaw at room temperature for a couple hours).
I hope you enjoy this recipe! If you make it, please rate and comment below so others benefit from your experience.
More Deliciously Vegan Snack Recipes
Vegan Zucchini Muffins (Double Chocolate)
Equipment
- Box grater
- Large mixing bowl
- Muffin tray
- Muffin liners (paper or silicone)
- Cooling rack
- Whisk
- Cookie scoop (optional)
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp ground flaxseed
- ¼ C water
- 1 C zucchini , shredded and lightly packed
- ½ C apple sauce
- ½ C brown sugar
- ⅓ C plant-based milk
- ¼ C vegetable oil (I use avocado)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 ½ C whole wheat flour
- ⅓ C cocoa powder
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ C chocolate chips (I use semi sweet; dark is also delicious)
Instructions
Step 1: Make Flax “Egg”
- Mix 3 tbsp ground flaxseed with ¼ C water and set aside.
Step 2: Mix Liquid Ingredients
- Next, grate zucchini on the large side of a box grater, until you have 1 C lightly packed.
- In a large bowl, whisk together ½ C apple sauce, ½ C brown sugar, ⅓ C plant-based milk, ¼ C vegetable oil and 1 tsp vanilla extract until well combined.
- Then, whisk in the flaxseed “egg” and the grated zucchini.
Step 3: Stir in Dry Ingredients
- Switch from a whisk to a large mixing spoon.
- Stir in 1 ½ C whole wheat flour, ⅓ C cocoa powder and 1 ½ tsp baking powder.
- When the flour is almost completely mixed in, add the ½ C chocolate chips. Finish mixing until the chocolate chips are evenly distributed through the batter and there are no clumps of dry ingredients. Don’t overmix so stop stirring as soon as everything is combined.
Step 4: Bake, Cool and Serve
- Preheat the oven to 350 °F.
- Prepare a 12-slot muffin tray (or 2 6-slot muffin trays) by lining them with paper or silicone liners. Grease if needed.
- Evenly scoop muffin batter into each muffin cup. I use a cookie scoop to make this easy and even, but a spoon works fine.
- Bake the muffins for 22-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (keep in mind that melted chocolate chips stick to the toothpick so it may be helpful to open a muffin to check).
- Let the muffins sit for a couple of minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack to finish cooling. If using silicone muffin liners, the edges of the muffins may become soggy if you don’t remove the silicone soon after baking (this isn’t an issue for me, but you may want to remove the silicone when you transfer to a wire rack; be careful as the silicone will be hot).
Vegan Italian Dressing Recipe | Dairy Free, Gluten Free
This recipe is absolutely perfect! I love chocolate and I love a muffin, brownie, or cake with perfect texture and these muffins have the PERFECT texture.
We’ve made two batches in the past week.
Hi Katie! So glad you enjoyed the muffins 🙂
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).