The Best Classic Zucchini Bread – This easy zucchini bread recipe is sweet & incredibly moist.
This is the best zucchini bread recipe ever! It’s got more zucchini and more sugar than most recipes so it tastes amazing. And, applesauce makes this homemade zucchini bread super moist.
One of the reasons this is such an easy zucchini bread recipe, is because there’s not much prep work for the zucchini, like in many other recipes.
How to grate zucchini for zucchini bread:
- Do not peel the zucchini before grating, leave the skin on.
- Do not salt, drain out, or squeeze out any of the liquid from the zucchini.
- Use the large grate of a box grater to grate 2 small (or 1 large) zucchini for 1 ½ cups lightly packed grated zucchini.
How to make The Best Zucchini Bread Recipe:
- Add grated zucchini, sugar, and brown sugar to a large bowl.
- Add vegetable oil, eggs and vanilla.
- Whisk the wet ingredients together.
- Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
- Stir just until combined.
- Pour batter into a loaf pan.
- Bake.
- Refrigerate.
You may also like these other great quick bread recipes.
- My Best Buttermilk Banana Bread
- Cranberry Orange Pumpkin Bread from Peas & Crayons
- Blueberry Muffin Bread from My Sequined Life
Watch the step by step recipe video for The Best Zucchini Bread below:
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The Best Classic Zucchini Bread Recipe
The Best Classic Zucchini Bread - This easy zucchini bread recipe is sweet & incredibly moist because it's made with applesauce & more zucchini & sugar than most recipes.
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 50 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 5 minutes
Video
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups grated zucchini - lightly packed -do not drain liquid
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil -or your preferred cooking oil
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9x5 inch loaf pan with cooking spray.
- In a large bowl, add the grated zucchini, sugar, brown sugar, applesauce, oil, eggs, and vanilla. Whisk until well combined.
- Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Stir just until no dry flour remains, trying not to over mix.
- Pour the batter into the loaf pan. Bake for 50 to 54 minutes. A toothpick inserted into the center of the bread should come out with moist crumbs on it.
- Cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove from the pan and transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely before slicing.
- Store covered in the refrigerator. *This bread is best served after it has been refrigerated for at least 12 hours.
Nutrition
Serving: 1/12th of the bread | Calories: 213kcal | Carbohydrates: 35g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 7g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Cholesterol: 31mg | Sodium: 158mg | Potassium: 135mg | Sugar: 22g | Vitamin A: 105IU | Vitamin C: 5.4mg | Calcium: 23mg | Iron: 1mg
for a smaller loaf pan 8″ x 3″ x 2″, same amount of time?
Easy and excellent! No need to look for another.
Love this recipe . I added grated peeled apple instead of applesauce . Bread it’s delicious and moist !
Can you use all purpose flour???
yes you can use all purpose flour
You absolutely can use all purpose flour! 🙂
I substituted applesauce for banana purée. So simple and my family loved it! Thanks for sharing
I had trouble getting the flour to mix in; it clumped in the batter. Any clues?
I was gifted a giant zucchini as big as my arm. I knew it was too big for grilling so I looked for a zucchine bread recipe. I’m so glad I found this one. It appealed to me because the zucchini is not drained. I doubled the recipe and had enough batter for 2 loaf pans and 1 mini loaf pan. I pretty much stuck with the recipe except I added chocolate chips, just because, and I put half the cinnamon because the applesauce I had on hand was cinnamon flavored. Oh. My. Gosh. This bread is delicious! Almost like cake. I will definitely make it again. ( I yielded 7 1/2 cups of grated zucchini from that massive squash!) I will not put chocolate chips- they all sank to the bottom- and I will sift the flour, baking soda, and baking powder because I did bite into a lump of baking powder. Otherwise I will make it exactly as posted. I am tempted to try it in a bundt pan, because it could pass for cake. Thank you for the great recipe!
I halved the granulated sugar and added nutmeg as others suggested – delicious!
Just took a loaf out of oven. Wish I had seen the sugar comments earlier. Also, mine took forever to get done in the middle. Edges e extremely brown but well see!
Absolutely easy recipe, turns out beautifully and freezes and thaws well.
It was a big hit. Thank you for sharing!!
Delicious!!! I made three loaves of the bread today and added toasted walnuts to one of them. I’ll definitely use this recipe again and again.
Very moist and delicious. Thank you for sharing.
The best zucchini bread I’ve made! Thank u! Making 2 more loaves today is it the same bake time for 2?
This bread was perfect! I did modify it slightly, however, so I thought I would share :). First, I found all the batter in one pan to be too much for my liking. It left only about 1/4 of the pan open, and I felt that would take too long to bake and could end up soggy in the middle and overdone on the outside. So, I split it in two, Then, they were a little too small for my liking (I’m starting to sound like Goldilocks…) but I put them in anyways, trying to split the batter are evenly as I could without wasting any during the transfer. Finally, I only baked them for 35 minutes. I wasn’t sure if this would be too little, but figured I could check it and always add ore time if needed. You can always bake more, but you can’t “un-bake”… This was perfect! The toothpicks came out clean as a whistle and the loaves themselves were perfectly risen, moist, and delectable. One other thing I didn’t mention is that I am at about 5,000 feet above sea level and sometimes bake times can differ, so that may be one reason the 35 minutes was enough 🙂 Thanks so much for the recipe, Amanda!
Absolutely saving this recipe my family loves them so much since I’m not a good baker this make me like a pro. They even got me a bag of flour and sugar to bake more
This recipe was so delicious! I used the exact recipe, except I made muffins instead of a loaf (just easier for the kids!) and it took about 20 minutes in the oven. Keeping this one – thanks!
I found multiple recipes for zucchini bread- all of them had good reviews and one even had thousands but don’t let that sway you into choosing the other recipes. CHOOSE THIS ONE trust me!. In a span of 3 days I made 7 loaves!!!! I had a bunch of people (14 people total) try them and they all RAVED about it. This bread is so moist and flavorful. I highly recommend to not replace the applesauce with oil. This will definitely be my go-to zucchini bread recipe. I followed the directions exactly and didn’t change a thing. perfecto.
How does this freeze?
Freezes perfectly! I froze one loaf for about 2 weeks, thawed it in fridge and tasted fresh baked
Thank you for your comment. It’s so hard to know which one really is the best but this one sounded good and I’m going to try it!
Absolutely delicious even while still slightly warm. I made this with a few alterations – scant flour measure,
3/4 c. granulated sugar, did not pack brown sugar and used only half the recommended cinnamon for a
more delicate flavor. For extra protein you could add 1/3 c. of finely chopped walnuts. I usually do for
breakfast breads. In my cool kitchen, I leave breads / cakes at room temperature for flavors to meld before
refrigerating the next day.
What if you don’t have apple sauce and would rather not add any at all? Should you add extra sugar or keep everything exactly the same?
The unsweetened applesance is an oil substitute in quick breads so maybe substitute oil.
I used 2 ripe bananas! But I also doubled the recipe. 😉
Applesauce is a sub for oil not sugar
It calls for oil and unsweetened apple sauce should I use both?
I made this because I scored an awesome 2lb zucchini this harvest, so I started baking…I had to tweak it into my own recipe however I didn’t have apple sauce. BUT I had some processed canned pears I made last fall, however, they were in sugar. I replaced the 1C sugar with just 1/2C, replaced the apple sauce with about 1/2C pureed canned pears, and then I realized I just hard boiled the last of my eggs! Damn. Fortunately I hadn’t cleaned out my blender from the pears, so I added one half of a banana to replace the egg, that pear puree gave it the liquid it needed to puree. My bread came out soo moist!
I’m making this recipe again and this time, I’m using 1/3C sugar, 1/3C pear puree, and still 1/2 banana…I only made my first loaf yesterday! LOL. I’m hoping to see it comes out a little drier.
I’ve made this bread many times and it always comes out great! In fact, i made two loaves today. I didn’t have applesauce so i grated an apple very fine. Worked out nicely.
I use canned pumpkin…not pumpkin pie filling but pure pumpkin. Comes out fine in zucchini bread and brown sugar banana bread recipes.
K, apple sauce is usually a fat free substitute for oil. You can look up the exact amt of oil to add, but I would add no more than 1/4c extra.
Ooh, I see you got lots of replies! Be creative!