This easy chocolate zucchini bread is so moist and flavorful you’ll need to keep reminding yourself there are vegetables in it. We use 1 1/2 cups of grated zucchini; you would never know!
Related: We also love this easy zucchini bread with almonds!
How to Make Moist Chocolate Zucchini Bread
I love making quick breads — they’re simple to make and quick to prep. This chocolate zucchini bread is no different. You should be able to get the loaf in the oven in about 15 minutes. After that, you can sit back and relax while it bakes.
We use 1 1/2 cups of grated fresh zucchini for this recipe. A hand grater works nicely, or use food processor with the grater attachment. Either way, grating the zucchini is a quick job. Even though there’s a bunch of zucchini added to the batter, you really don’t taste it. Instead, the zucchini helps to keep the bread moist and tender. It’s reminiscent of chocolate cake!
The ingredients for this chocolate zucchini bread are simple, and I bet you have almost everything on hand. For the dry ingredients, we will need all-purpose flour, unsweetened cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. For the cocoa powder, you can use whatever you have on hand, but I especially enjoy Ghirardelli unsweetened cocoa for this recipe. I also use this cocoa powder when making our chocolate muffins.
For the wet ingredients, we will need oil (any neutral oil works), eggs, and vanilla extract. As bonus ingredients, we add a dash of instant espresso powder (or instant coffee) to help bring out the chocolate flavor and some chocolate chips.
Easy Chocolate Zucchini Bread
- PREP
- COOK
- TOTAL
We love this easy chocolate zucchini bread! A food processor with the grating attachment makes quick work of the zucchini, but it really does not take long to hand grate. To make this a double chocolate zucchini bread, add 1/2 to 3/4 cup of chocolate chips.
You Will Need
1 ½ cup shredded raw zucchini
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, we use Ghirardelli
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon instant coffee powder or 1/2 teaspoon espresso powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 to 3/4 cup chocolate chips, optional
Directions
1Heat the oven to 350 degrees F and spray a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray.
2In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt, then set aside. In a large bowl, using a hand mixer, beat the oil, sugars, eggs, instant coffee, and the vanilla until blended, about 2 minutes.
3Stir the shredded zucchini into the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in two batches, stirring between each addition. Stir in chocolate chips.
4Spoon batter into the loaf pan and smooth the top. Bake 55 to 65 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean.
5When the bread is done, cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Turn out the loaf onto the rack to finish cooling.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Make ahead tip: The bread can be wrapped and frozen for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and allow to come to room temperature before serving.
- Baking tip: Place the pan on an insulated baking sheet or on top of two regular baking sheets stacked one on top of the other. This helps even baking and makes getting the loaf pan into and out of the oven easy.
- Nutrition Facts: The nutrition facts provided below are estimates. We have used the USDA Supertracker recipe calculator to calculate approximate values. We did include 1/2 cup of chocolate chips in the calculations.
If you make this recipe, snap a photo and hashtag it #inspiredtaste — We love to see your creations on Instagram and Facebook! Find us: @inspiredtaste
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Recipe updated, originally posted October 2009. Since posting this in 2009, we have tweaked the recipe to be more clear. – Adam and Joanne
Made this today. Delicious chocolate taste and so moist. I will be making this my go to recipe. I love this site and am never disappointed when I make any number of recipes. Thanks
I made this recipe last week and we enjoyed it so much that I made it again today. 8/8/23 . I didn’t use instant coffee and it was perfect. Today I doubled the recipe; and used chocolate chip in the second loaf. We love zucchini muffins sweet or savory. I will be baking this again.
The bread was moist. I only used a cup of the zucchini because of the comments I read. The consistency was good. However, the chips fell to the bottom of the pan because the batter was too thin. Next time, I will either coat the chips with flour before mixing them into the batter or not use them.
So delicious, this is my second loaf in the oven now, right after a double badge of your easy banana bread with chocolate chips. Both recipes are a big hit in my family. Thank you for sharing. Bye the Ay I also am a big fan of your hummus recipe. I have made this multiple times. It is a staple in my house, my grand daughter loves it too.
thank’s alot my kids love this bread
I made this, but it came out of the loaf pan and muffin pans crumbly. It was moist, but was more like a cake, then a bread constancy. I baked it for a little over an hour (65 minutes). Wondering if I needed to make sure the zucchini had all the moisture removed. Suggestions?
Hi Michele, This recipe does make a seriously moist zucchini bread which is rich enough to count as cake. You could try squeezeing excess liquid from the zucchini to see what happens. We do this for our Zucchini Bread with Almonds and it does turn out to have a fine crumb.
This is sooooo good. Thank you for posting this. I have made it several times already. It is so moist and delicious. Big hit with my family.
I made this today and used dark chocolate chips and it was amazing! Highly recommend!
Yummy! I loved this recipe! So moist. I tried a different one and it wasn’t nearly as moist! I will keep this one for sure!
This is so rich and moist and not one knew there is zucchini in it unless I told them. I have made it twice before (and plan on making it again soon) and everyone loves it 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
That is awesome Shawna, so glad everyone liked them!
~Joanne