Zucchini Lemon Bread (Whole Grain, Dairy Free, Lower Sugar)
Bake up this delicious zucchini lemon bread in less than an hour when you’d like a dairy free treat for breakfast, snack time, or dessert. This moist, tender loaf boasts the tangy kick of fresh lemon zest, the subtle sweetness of zucchini, and an irresistible glaze for a melt-in-your-mouth bread that everyone will love. Up your zucchini bread game with tangy lemon, whole wheat, and less sugar – you may never look at it the same way again!
✩ What readers are saying…
“My 7 year old granddaughter made your Moist Zucchini Lemon Bread. She had such a great time learning how to read a recipe with her mom and me. The recipe was absolutely wonderful and easy for her to read.” -Nikki
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When you grow zucchini there’s always that time of the harvest where you are wondering what else you can make with it. You’ve sautéed it (like this yummy zucchini, corn and tomatoes), made fritters with it, probably grilled and zoodled it, and maybe even made an amazing white zucchini cake with it.
To help you in your quest of using it up, I present you with this unique zucchini lemon bread recipe as another delicious way to use your zucchini that you can eat right away or freeze for later.
Because zucchini + lemon? That may just be a match made in heaven. It’s a little different with its light and lemony flavor, and kind of like a tea cake with it’s tender crumb and drizzle of glaze, which makes it just as good for an afternoon snack as for a dessert.
But whether it’s called a bread, cake, or even loaf – what it boils down to is this:
It is GOOD. Like, so good you won’t believe it. Trust me.
Recipe Ingredients
This simple recipe takes just 15-20 minutes of hands-on time and uses basic pantry ingredients. Here are a few with substitution suggestions:
- Whole wheat pastry flour: This is my preferred flour for these loaves as the whole grain provides more flavor, in my opinion, as well as more fiber. However, it’s becoming harder to find (stores with bulk bins are still the best bet), so feel free to substitute with unbleached all purpose flour, white whole wheat, or even a mixture of half all-purpose and half whole wheat.
- Sugar: I give a range of 3/4 cup to 1 cup in the recipe so you can decide how sweet you’d like it.
- Oil: Use a neutral oil like avocado, high oleic sunflower, or refined coconut.
- Zucchini: You can use either freshly grated or shredded frozen zucchini. If using frozen, thaw it overnight in the refrigerator and only drain some of the juice if there is a lot – we want the moisture. You DO have to use a measurement BEFORE freezing, though, since it shrinks after thawing – hopefully your containers of frozen zucchini have the volume measurement listed!
Supplies Needed:
- 8.5 x 4.5 inch loaf pans (glass pans are nice to monitor browning, but metal loaf pans work, too) AND/OR a mini loaf pan like this to make the size loaves pictured (one recipe makes 2 loaves or 1 regular loaf and 8 mini-loaf pan size). You can also make this into 24 muffins (or one loaf and 12 muffins), baking the muffins just 15-18 minutes.
- Food processor for grating zucchini (or hand-held grater).
- Microplane for zesting lemon
- Measuring cups, spoons, etc. – you can see all my favorite tools for baking here.
Let’s Make Zucchini Lemon Bread
Step 1: Heat the oven, prepare the loaf pans, and mix dry ingredients together.
Step 2: Mix wet ingredients in a large bowl.
Step 3: Fold in the zucchini.
Step 4: Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix just until the flour is incorporated. Pour immediately into prepared pans.
Jami’s Biggest Tip
The recipe calls for both baking powder and soda – when they are mixed together they start reacting right away (it’s one of the reasons the texture is so light).
This means, however, that you need to have the pans buttered and the wet and dry ingredients all measured and ready to go before mixing so that you can mix, pour, and get them into the oven as soon as possible.
Step 5: Bake, add glaze, and cool.
Glazing Tips
Tip #1: Add the glaze while the loaves are still warm. I like to keep the glaze thin so that the lemon juice flavor shines through and the bread is just lightly coated.
Tip #2: If you’d like to have even less white sugar, you can make your glaze with 1/4 cup honey and 1 tablespoon lemon juice (adjusting as needed to your preferred thickness) and brush this over the warmed loaves.
Tip #3: Since the tops of the loaves don’t raise much, I left them upside down to glaze for the even, level look. It’s totally up to you if you want to glaze the tops or bottoms.
Can you freeze lemon zucchini bread?
Yes! Stored in an airtight ziplock baggie, this bread freezes just as well as all zucchini bread recipes.
You can also store this at room temperature for a couple days or up to a week in the refrigerator.
Freezing Tip: I use to grate and freeze zucchini to make bread in winter, but I found I just didn’t use it much. Plus, there’s the whole “do you drain or not?” when baking with it. When I found that zucchini bread froze beautifully for at least six months, I started tripling the recipes we wanted to have enough to freeze. Now we love having loaves waiting for us in the freezer!
Everyone who tried this lemon zucchini bread loves it – and I’m sure you will too! So get your hands on some zucchini and make these soon – I know you won’t be sorry.
Oh, and be sure to leave a recipe and star rating so I know how you liked it!
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Zucchini Lemon Bread (Whole Grain, Dairy Free, Lower Sugar)
Equipment
- 2 8.5"x4.5" loaf pans OR 1 loaf pan plus an 8 mini loaf pan (see note below)
- Food Processor or hand grater
Ingredients
- 3 ¼ cups whole wheat pastry flour (or white whole wheat flour or half all-purpose flour and half whole wheat flour or all unbleached all-purpose)
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 to 4 teaspoons lemon zest or zest from 1 large lemon
- 4 eggs
- ¾ to 1 cup cane sugar*
- 3/4 cup high oleic sunflower oil, refined coconut oil, melted or avocado oil
- 2/3 cup lemon juice
- 2 cups shredded zucchini fresh or frozen (see note)
Glaze:
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 cup powdered sugar**
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350 degrees; butter and flour two 8.5 x 4.5 inch loaf pans (see note for options).
- In a medium bowl mix together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, soda, salt, and zest.
- In a large mixing bowl beat the eggs and sugar for about 2 minutes, then add the oil, lemon juice and zucchini and mix well.
- Mix the dry ingredients into the egg mixture and stir just until all the flour is incorporated. Do not over mix.
- Immediately pour the batter into the prepared pans, dividing evenly.
- Bake for 35 to 40 minutes for loaf pans (18-22 minutes if using an 8-loaf pan) or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Cool 10 minutes in pans before turning out onto a cooling rack set over a baking sheet or waxed paper (to catch glaze drips).
Make Glaze:
- Whisk 2 tablespoons of lemon juice with a cup of powdered sugar (or as much needed to get a light glaze) until smooth.
- Drizzle over the warm loaves, spreading as needed to drip down sides.
- Serve warm or let cool completely before storing in airtight containers 1-2 days at room temperature or freezing for up to six months.
Notes
Nutrition
More Delicious Zucchini Breads
- When we want a really good regular zucchini bread, I make my tried-and-true basic no-fail zucchini bread.
- When we’d like something a little more decadent, it’s all about this dark chocolate zucchini bread (sweetened only with honey!).
- And for another citrus flavored option this good-for-you orange zucchini bread is a great recipe, too.
This recipe has been updated – it was originally published November 2012.
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