Zucchini Banana Bread is an easy quick bread to make with your extra summer zucchini and ripe bananas. This bread is soft, tender, and moist, and makes a fantastic breakfast, snack, or light dessert.
Summer harvest often brings an excess of produce like summer squash and zucchini. If you've never had it before, zucchini bread and muffins are a great way to use up that extra zucchini.
I've combined zucchini with my favorite Banana Nut Bread to bring you this amazingly moist and flavorful zucchini banana bread.
Unsure about putting vegetables into your baked goods? Trust me, you really cannot taste the zucchini baked into this bread. It's simply along for the ride, bringing tons of moisture, and pretty flecks of green, to this flavorful bread.
Grating zucchini
I used the small side of my box grater to shred the zucchini into small pieces. Because of this, it baked right into my bread without adding texture.
If you prefer, you can use the larger side of a box grater to grate your zucchini into large pieces, giving your bread more texture. This is all personal preference, and either method will work.
The flavor of this bread mainly comes from the bananas and cinnamon. Honestly, it just tastes like banana bread. So why add zucchini in the first place? Moisture, among other things.
Zucchini benefits
Zucchini benefitsZucchini provides extra moisture, so I was able to omit one of the eggs and some of the sugar. I also lightened up on the flour, since the natural fiber in zucchini helps bind the bread together.
No, you're not going to be getting a full serving of vegetables from eating a slice of zucchini bread. But, you'll be getting a few more vitamins and minerals, which is always a good thing.
After making this bread, I welcome zucchini to all of my future banana breads. It helped add moisture, fiber, vitamins, minerals, and I was able to cut back on some of the other (less healthy) ingredients. Why not add zucchini?
Zucchini Banana Bread
Ingredients
- 2 very ripe bananas
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup shredded zucchini squeezed to remove excess moisture
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9x5 loaf pan with parchment paper (or grease and flour bottom and sides) and set aside.
- In a large bowl, add bananas (mash with a fork), granulated sugar, brown sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla extract. Stir until well combined. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl, whisk (or sift) together the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Make a well in the middle and pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Stir until just combined.
- Add zucchini (make sure to squeeze and remove excess moisture from shredded zucchini before adding to batter), stir until just combined.
- Pour batter into loaf pan. Cover loaf pan lightly with foil (remove foil halfway through baking. This ensures that the top of your bread doesn't burn.) Bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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