Zucchini Muffin Recipe With Applesauce

We’ve been baking quick breads and muffins with zucchini for over 15 years (and enjoying them since childhood), and these healthy zucchini muffins with applesauce have quickly become a family favorite! Our easy and detailed instructions, along with step-by-step process shots, will have you enjoying a delicious batch of muffins as a breakfast or a snack in no time!

In addition to being delicious, these muffins are a great way to get kiddos to eat vegetables without knowing it… if that’s an issue in your family. They were toddler approved in our house and the homes of many of our friends too!

Along with this recipe, these double chocolate zucchini muffins, and our whole wheat zucchini bread, are always on a heavy rotation when it’s zucchini season! And if you’ve got some extra applesauce leftover after making this recipe, give our delicious wheat germ muffins with applesauce recipe a try too.

Why You’ll Love These Zucchini Bread Muffins

Quick and easy to make! These classic zucchini muffins with applesauce are easy to mix up and ready to enjoy in 35 minutes!

Getting those veggies in without tasting them. The spices used in this easy muffin recipe make it feel like you’re enjoying a moist and delicious spice muffing…you can’t even taste the zucchini!

Reduced sugar and fat thanks to the use of applesauce! Baking with unsweetened applesauce is one of my favorite ways to reduce the need for refined sugar, and also allows you to reduce the amount of fat needed in recipes.

Healthy Zucchini Muffin Recipe Ingredients

• Large eggs. Eggs not only add moisture to baked goods, they help to create structure and stability in the batter. Bonus that the use of eggs adds a bit of protein to your muffins too!
• Neutral oil. I prefer to use canola oil or vegetable oil, but you can use coconut oil if preferred. The goal is to select an oil that does not have a lot of taste to it.
• Granulated sugar. While we do use unsweetened applesauce, which adds some natural sweetness, this recipe uses a small amount of white sugar too to help these muffins get that perfect balance of sweetness.
• Unsweetened applesauce. Unsweetened applesauce often acts like a fat would in baking and plays the same role as butter or oil does in baked goods. Applesauce helps to keep the flour proteins from mixing completely with the wet ingredients in a recipe to create a lovely texture (avoiding dense, rubbery textures). Unsweetened applesauce also contains naturally occurring sugars reducing the amount of other sugars or sweeteners needed in baking recipes.
• Vanilla extract, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg. All used to enhance the flavor and add warm spices to your zucchini bread muffins.
• Zucchini. Fresh zucchini is the star of the show for this recipe! Not only does zucchini add moistness and nice texture to our muffins, it’s mild flavor lets it hide in your baked goods. Using zucchini also adds some great nutrition to our recipe as it’s packed with lots of vitamins (especially high in vitamin A), minerals, and antioxidants. Extra bonus is that zucchini is high in fiber (both soluble and insoluble) and low in calories.
• Baking powder and baking soda. We use a combination of baking soda and baking powder for our leavening agents in this muffin recipe. This helps our muffins achieve the perfect volume (think domed muffin top), flavor, and browning during baking.
• Salt. Salt is a flavor enhancer, and adding a small amount into baked goods is a must!
• All-purpose flour. All-purpose flour is a versatile flour that is great for many types of baking. It’s also a common pantry ingredient for many families, making it an accessible ingredient to use in our recipe.
• Coarse sugar for topping (turbinado sugar). This adds wonderful texture, and a pop of sweetness, on top of your zucchini muffins!

See recipe card below for a full list of ingredients and measurements.

How to Make Healthy Zucchini Muffins

Preheat the oven and prepare muffin tins. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Prepare muffin tins by either lining with cupcake liners or spraying with non-stick cooking spray. Set aside.

Combine wet ingredients. In a large bowl combine the eggs, oil, sugar, applesauce, and vanilla extract by whisking them together. 

Stir in the shredded zucchini.

Add in dry ingredients. Slowly stir in the cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and flour. Stir until just combined, DO NOT overmix your batter (a few lumps are ok!).

Scoop batter into prepared muffin tins. Divide muffin batter between 12 standard sized muffin tins, filling the tins about ⅔ full.

Top with turbinado sugar. Before putting the muffins into the oven, add a sprinkle of turbinado sugar on top of each muffin. This adds a nice texture and a little more sweetness to your muffins.

Bake. Bake muffins for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (ok to have a few crumbs).

Cool. Allow muffins to cool in the muffin tins for a few minutes and then move them to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Zucchini Bread Muffins Variations

• Substitute in whole wheat flour. If you’d like to add some whole grains to your zucchini muffins, I would recommend swapping out half of the all-purpose flour 1-for-1 with whole wheat flour. Doing so is a great way to increase the amount of protein protein, minerals, and fiber content of your muffin recipe. This is the most common change I make to this muffin recipe when making these for my family.
• Add some mix-ins! This applesauce zucchini muffin recipe can accommodate up to 1 cup of mix-ins, so have some fun with it!
  • Make zucchini chocolate chip muffins by adding your favorite chocolate chips!  
  • Try adding chopped walnuts or pecans for a zucchini nut muffin.
  • My personal favorite is a combination, adding ½ cup chocolate chips and ½ cup of chopped walnuts! SO YUMMY.
  • Mix in rolled oats for some nice texture and added fiber. I would recommend using ½ cup if choosing to add oats to your zucchini muffins.
  • I’ve also seen recommendations for craisins, raisins, or currents if you’d like to add dried fruit to your zucchini muffins.
• Add a glaze instead of the turbinado sugar. If you’d prefer to have a glazed muffin, skip sprinkling the muffins with turbinado sugar before baking. Instead, once the muffins are cooled, add a simple glaze. Plain or lemon would both be lovely on these applesauce zucchini muffins! To make a simple glaze for your muffins, whisk together 1 cup of powdered sugar with 2-3 teaspoons of liquid until a smooth glaze is formed.
  • Using water with a tiny splash of vanilla makes a quick vanilla glaze.
  • For a lemon glaze, use fresh-squeezed lemon juice. Option to add some lemon zest into your glaze if desired (½-1 teaspoon would work well, but adjust the amount to your taste).

Possible Dietary Restrictions?

These zucchini muffins with applesauce are vegetarian and dairy-free as written. One quick swap can make these into gluten free zucchini muffins or into vegan zucchini muffins!

• Using a 1-to-1 gluten free flour is a good option for making this into a gluten free zucchini muffin recipe! I’ve had success baking with this 1-to-1 gluten free flour, however, I have not used it specifically for this recipe.
• To alter these into zucchini vegan muffins, the eggs need to be replaced with a vegan-friendly substitute. If I were to do this, I would default to using 2 flax eggs to replace the 2 eggs in this recipe (2 tablespoon ground flax + 6 tablespoon water, mixed, and allowed to sit for about 5 minutes). I found this blog post on vegan egg substitutes helpful!

Tips for These Healthy Zucchini Muffins With Applesauce

There is no need to peel your zucchini before grating. The skin of a zucchini is soft and contains a lot of nutrients. There is no need to remove it for baking (or eating in general).

Do not blot or squeeze out the liquid from your shredded zucchini! The fresh zucchini makes wonderfully moist muffins. For best results, avoid removing the excess water after shredding the zucchini. This is unnecessary and will result in dry muffins.

Do not overmix the batter. To get light and fluffy muffins, mix your batter until just combined. This is sometimes described as being to the point where the dry ingredients are moistened. A few lumps in your batter are ok! Overmixing develops the glutens within the flour which results in denser muffins.

Tips for Grating Zucchini

Grating zucchini for baking is easy with a few helpful tips!

• After washing your zucchini, cut off the rounded end and use the stem-end as a handle while grating.
• I recommend using a simple 3D, or box grater, to shred zucchinis for baking. I place my grater on a dinner plate, and while applying medium pressure, quickly move the zucchini up and down the grater, always keeping the zucchini touching the grater (it grates on the downward motion). The box grater keeps most of the zucchini pieces inside of it, and the plate is a simple surface to transfer your grated zucchini over to a measuring cup on and then to clean afterwards.
• Don’t select a super small grating size for zucchinis, they will turn to mush. I use the larger, circular holes on my box grater. Similar to what you might use for a block of hard cheese.

How to Serve This Recipe for Zucchini Muffins

You can enjoy these muffins either warm or cooled down to room temperature. My family loves these warm with a smear of butter, but you can also try serving these all kinds of ways! Try them with a smear of plain cream cheese, a drizzle of honey, or smear of Nutella, or some apple butter (it’s a nice compliment to the warm spices in our recipe). Experiment and have fun!

Storing Zucchini Muffins With Applesauce

Store these delicious zucchini muffins by placing cooled muffins in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days. 

You can also freeze these homemade muffins for another day! To do so, allow the muffins to fully cool before storing. Individually wrap each muffin in plastic wrap and place into a gallon-sized freezer bag and freeze for up to 6 weeks. To thaw, remove individual muffins from the freezer and let them sit at room temperature for about 1 hour. You can also warm them up directly from the freezer, removing the plastic wrap and microwaving them for 15-30 seconds!