I Make This Chocolaty Zucchini Bread Every Year

If you have friends, family or neighbors with gardens, it’s possible that someone has “gifted” you a zucchini—and if not, they will soon. And when they do, I highly recommend that you make this zucchini bread recipe.

More than a decade ago, I had just harvested several massive zucchini from our garden. I sliced and grilled the smaller ones and then folded them into cooked rigatoni along with cherry tomatoes, cubes of mozzarella and homemade pesto. I made our Test Kitchen manager’s mom’s recipe for super-simple sautéed zucchini with Parmesan to serve alongside grilled chicken. I made a frittata for breakfast. Even after those three meals, I felt like I hadn’t even made a dent in my harvest.

So I took to the internet to look for a new zucchini bread recipe. While I already add chocolate chips to my loaves pretty regularly, a recipe rich with cocoa powder caught my eye. Quite honestly, it looked like a loaf of chocolate cake, which sounded delicious. I decided to give it a try.

Since the recipe wasn’t an EatingWell recipe, it had kind of a ridiculous amount of sugar. Consuming too much added sugar has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Even though sugar is important to the success of baked goods (it contributes to the moistness and texture), my intuition told me I could successfully reduce it—so I did. It also had a generous amount of cinnamon in the mix, which gave the loaf more nuance. My husband and I devoured the loaf in less than a day.

We loved that chocolate zucchini bread so much that I turned to it every year. Sometimes I made it in a cake pan and slathered it with frosting (chocolate and cream cheese were both delicious). I baked the batter into muffins to tuck into our lunchboxes for work and school, freezing what we didn’t eat in a few days for emergency snacks.

Fast forward to 2023. Our associate food editor and I were coming up with a new batch of recipe ideas to develop. We knew zucchini season would be here soon enough. We should do a zucchini bread recipe, we said. As we looked at the different recipes we had—from Lemon Zucchini Bread to dried cranberry–studded Zucchini Bread—it came to me. We should make over the chocolate–chocolate chip zucchini bread recipe I make every year. 

It’s not only my favorite (while we did leave out the cinnamon, I do usually add a generous teaspoon when I make it), it’s been a hit with our readers too. In Joy Lizabeth Almond’s review, she said, “Love this bread. I have made it several times, and it is always moist and a hit.” An anonymous reviewer said, “I have made this and OMG absolutely amazing and delicious.”

But I think Laura Hanson really hit it on the head when she said, “The sweetness is subtle and lets the cocoa flavor shine.” I totally agree. Like I said, sugar is essential to the texture of baked goods, but it also tastes, well, sweet. I can hear you saying to yourself, well, obviously. But sometimes too much sugar just overpowers the other flavors in a dessert or baked good. But not in this recipe—this bread is super chocolaty, with subtle grassy notes from plenty of shredded zucchini. 

So here it is—I’m happy to introduce your new favorite zucchini bread: Chocolate Zucchini Bread. To make it, you’ll whisk together eggs, brown sugar, yogurt, oil, vanilla and salt in a large bowl until smooth. Next, sift in the all-purpose flour, pastry flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and baking powder. Fold in the grated zucchini. Stir the batter until just combined, then pour it into a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan that has been sprayed with cooking spray and lined with overhanging parchment paper. This makes it easier to lift the bread out of the pan later. Smooth the top of the batter with a spatula and sprinkle with chocolate chips. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F for 55 to 60 minutes. The bread is done when a wooden pick inserted into the center comes out clean. Once baked, let it cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Then, lift the bread out of the pan and transfer it to a wire rack to cool for an additional hour before serving.

Whether you bake up a loaf with a gift zucchini or one from the grocery store or farmers market, I know you’ll love it as much as I do. And if you do wake up one morning with a massive zucchini on your porch, you could make a couple of loaves and drop one on the porch of your zucchini gift giver. After all, who doesn’t love the gift of good food?