Gluten Free Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

These gluten free zucchini muffins are the perfect healthy way to satisfy your chocolate craving! They’re moist, fluffy and rich, but made without dairy or refined sugar.

Gluten free zucchini muffins with a rich chocolate flavor but no refined sugar OR dairy?! Sounds too good to be true, but it’s not! These muffins are light yet rich, with a moist and tender crumb and beautifully domed muffin tops.

We’ll be using a few key ingredients to keep these muffins delicious but also healthy too! For dry ingredients, you’ll need oat and almond flour which keep these gluten free, plus cocoa powder for a rich chocolate flavor.

For wet ingredients, we’ll be using maple syrup and coconut sugar to sweeten, plus coconut oil and almond butter to keep them moist. We’ll finish them off with some eggs and non-dairy milk to give them structure and nice rise! If you like this recipe, be sure to try my gluten free blueberry muffins next!

How to make this recipe

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Line a muffin tray with 12 liners and set aside. Grate the zucchini and set aside. Don’t squeeze out the liquid.

Whisk together all wet ingredients aside from the zucchini.

Whisk in the dry ingredients, aside from the chocolate chips, making sure to spoon and level the flour and cocoa. Fold in the zucchini and chocolate chips.

Scoop the batter into the muffin tray, filling each pretty close to the top for nice round muffin tops. Add some extra chocolate chips on top.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean, but careful not to over bake!

Let cool in the tray for about 10 minutes, then remove and let finish cooling on a cooling rack.

Should I peel zucchini?

You can! But you definitely don’t have to. Since these zucchini muffins have chocolate in them, you won’t even notice the green specks, so safe yourself some trouble and just grate the zucchini as is!

A lot of recipes for zucchini bread and muffins will tell you to squeeze the extra liquid out of the zucchini, but I actually never do this! I like to keep the zucchini as is, since that extra moisture keeps the muffins moist and fluffy.

Ingredient substitutions

Whether you’re missing an ingredient, can’t stand an ingredient, are allergic or anything else, here are some simple swaps you can make!

Eggs. This recipe calls for two eggs, which is just within my limit for being able to safely swap for an egg replacer. For this recipe, I would recommend mashed banana, apple sauce or flax eggs. If you use mashed banana or apple sauce, you’ll want about 4 tbsp per egg, so 1/2 cup for the recipe, of whichever you choose. For the flax eggs, just whisk together 2 tbsp of ground flax with 5 tbsp of water, let thicken and use that in place of the two eggs.

Almond Butter. I’m a *big* almond butter fan. I use it a lot! You can absolutely swap for any other nut or seed butter of your choice such as peanut or even tahini. For best results, use a natural one with the nut as the only ingredient.

Coconut oil. Any oil will work here! Avocado, vegetable or even olive for a deep and rich flavor.

Almond and Oat flour. For these gluten free zucchini muffins, you need 1 cup each of almond and oat flour. If you want to use all of one of them, you can most likely swap 1:1 with no issues. Just make sure you’re using a total of 2 cups of flour. Almond flour has a lot more moisture than oat flour, so if you use all almond flour, the bake time may be a little longer, so keep an eye on the oven!

Try these next!

• Chocolate Banana Muffins
• Sweet Potato Muffins
• Almond Flour Banana Muffins

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