Don’t let the word zucchini scare you away from making this recipe. Chocolate zucchini muffins are moist and chocolatey and an absolutely delicious way to get in some vitamins and minerals. Who wouldn’t want to eat chocolate to get in some micronutrients?! The zucchini doesn’t just add extra nutrients, it keeps the muffins moist and soft. With the chocolate covering all the flavor, you won’t even know it’s a “veggie” muffin.
Zucchini is a great veggie to bake with because it adds moisture to the baked item without messing with the flavor. Zucchini is a bland vegetable, so it can take on other flavors – chocolate in this instance. The veggie is an excellent source of vitamin C and vitamin B6. So bake a bunch of these and stock them in the freeze to snack on the first few weeks that school starts. The vitamin C will help fight off flu season. We could all use an immune boost – why not have it in a chocolate muffin form? 
Three reasons why you need to make this recipe!
These are perfect for kids’ snacks.
Just don’t tell them what’s in it! They’ll love these healthy chocolate zucchini muffins, and you’ll feel good about getting some veggies into the kids finally.
They’re great for breakfast, snacks, or dessert.
Muffins make a great breakfast or snack on the go. No need to heat it up or carry a fork or spoon. And the chocolate flavor makes it work for a healthy dessert as well.
They’re much healthier than traditional chocolate bakery muffins.
If you get a chocolate muffin at a bakery or coffee shop like Starbucks, you’re going to be ingesting tons of sugar. A Starbucks chocolate chunk muffin has 39 grams of sugar!! These chocolate zucchini muffins have under 10 grams of sugar per muffin. You’re not going to get a crazy sugar crash after eating one of these. Instead, you’ll be energized!
Ingredients you need to make Chocolate Zucchini Muffins:
- 1 3/4 cups diced zucchini
- 1 medium mashed banana
- 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1 Tbsp honey
- 2 Tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 cups flour
- 1/3 cup mini chocolate chips
How to make Chocolate Zucchini Muffins (step by step):
- Preheat the oven to 375F and spray a 12 hole regular size muffin tin with nonstick spray.
- In a bowl, whisk the eggs and add in the brown sugar. Whisk in the mashed banana, applesauce, honey and vanilla.
- Then mix in the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder. Fold in the diced zucchini and chocolate chips.
- Pour the batter into the 12 cups and bake for 22 minutes or until the muffins are golden brown.
- Let them cool completely before removing them from the muffin tin by running a butter knife around the edges. Enjoy!
Makes 12 muffins. Nutrition info for 1 muffin: Calories 142, Fat 3 g, Saturated fat 1.7 g, Carbs 27 g, Fiber 2 g, Sugars 9 g, Sodium 155 mg, Protein 3 g.
WW Points
- Diced zucchini 0 points
- Medium mashed banana 0 points
- Unsweetened applesauce 0 points
- Honey 5 points
- Brown sugar 5 points
- Vanilla 0 points
- Eggs 0 points
- Cinnamon 0 points
- Baking powder 0 points
- Baking soda 0 points
- All purpose flour 26 points
- Mini chocolate chips 17 points
4 points per muffin based on the WW app recipe creator.
If you’re using an older version of WW, check out these points below.
Personal Points- 4-5 depending on your 0PP foods
Freestyle SP- (blue & purple) 4 using WW recipe builder
Smart Points- (green) 5 using SP calculator
Points Plus- 3 using PP calculator
Different ways to change up this recipe:
- You can use Kodiak buttermilk pancake mix instead of the all purpose flour, baking soda, and baking powder for a quicker version.
- Use Lily’s no sugar added baking chips – there are a lot of flavors to choose from. And it’ll lower the sugar content.
- If you don’t have applesauce you can use extra banana, non-fat Greek yogurt, or pumpkin puree. Same for the banana – if you don’t have that you can use pumpkin puree.
- The honey adds a good flavor, but you could use sugar free maple syrup if you wanted to lower the sugar content or add an extra tablespoon of brown sugar if you don’t have honey.
- To make them gluten free, use a gluten free flour blend like Bob’s Red Mill instead of the all purpose flour. Add an extra ½ tsp of baking powder to help it rise.
- Add 1-2 scoops of vanilla protein powder and take out ¼ cup of the all purpose flour for a protein boost.
Tips and Tricks for Making Chocolate Zucchini Muffins:
- You can choose to leave the chocolate chips out to save on points, but a few extra points are worth the chocolatey flavor.
- These muffins will freeze well and are best stored in the fridge after a day or two. Make sure to keep them in an airtight container or ziplock bag.
- If you’re worried that you won’t like the zucchini diced, I suggest grating it onto some paper towels before starting to make the muffins. Let the paper towels soak up water from the zucchini while you assemble the batter, then add the grated zucchini when you add the dry ingredients. You can give the grated zucchini a good squeeze with the paper towels to remove excess moisture. However, if you dice the zucchini small enough, it’s very similar to grated zucchini.
- You can make this into a Chocolate Zucchini Loaf by putting the batter into a nonstick loaf pan and baking it for about 45-50 minutes.
Similar recipes you’ll enjoy:
Chocolate zucchini muffins
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups diced zucchini
- 1 medium mashed banana
- 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1 Tbsp honey
- 2 Tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 cups flour
- 1/3 cup mini chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375F and spray a 12 hole regular size muffin tin with nonstick spray.
- In a bowl, whisk the eggs and add in the brown sugar. Whisk in the mashed banana, applesauce, honey and vanilla.
- Then mix in the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder. Fold in the diced zucchini and chocolate chips.
- Pour the batter into the 12 cups and bake for 22 minutes or until the muffins are golden brown.
- Let them cool completely before removing them from the muffin tin by running a butter knife around the edges. Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
These look great, Kate! I just want to thank you for taking the time to come up with these recipes and posting them. I really appreciate it, and enjoy trying them out.
Hi Ali, thank you 🙂 I hope you enjoy the muffins
I wanted to reduce the carbs and points in this so I added 1/2 cup applesauce, 1/2cup cocoa at 2 points 1/2 cup non fat Greek yogurt and 2 1/2 cups grated zucchini. I also replaced the brown sugar with swerve brown sugar and the honey with monk fruit sweetener. This brought the points down to 2 per muffin on Blue . The carbs came down to about 20 per muffin . They were chocolately but not sweet enough.
Thanks for this recipe! No matter how I type it into my WW app though, it cones out at 6 points per muffin for me. I tried the nutrition calculator and recipe builder.(not adding the zucchini, banana, apple sauce, etc) When j change the brown sugar to my monkfruit sweetener, it drops to 4 so I’m doing it that way. I’m just wondering if they changed the calculations since you figured out the recipe!
Thx again!
Oh my bad!!! I didn’t hit MINI Choc chips lol. Somehow that made a difference even though it’s 1/3 cup of big or little Choc chips lol.
Ahhh ok, lol I already replied to your other message but glad you figured it out 🙂
Hi Karrie, it could come down to products used, as weird as it sounds the flour or honey or chocolate chips you used could slightly differ from my brand and the smallest point change could alter the outcome, also did you enter packed or unpacked brown sugar? I hope you enjoyed them 🙂
Did you dice the zucchini by hand? In the photo it looks more like it’s been grated. Or pulsed in a food processor maybe? They sure look good! Thanks for sharing.
I’m wondering this too! I just put mine in the oven and I don’t think they’re going to turn out 🙁 I diced it as the recipe says… but your photo looks grated and every other zucchini muffin recipe asks for grated
Hi, I did dice them but really small, you can try grating if you prefer, or chop them in a food blender is another option.. I hope they worked out for you
When I put your amounts into my recipe builder the points came to six. Disappointed.
Hi Lousie, please know that I can’t be responsible for your builder and possible different brands of products, I can only use what is in front of me, here is a breakdown of my recipe builder in my App (please know I use 3 methods to make sure I am triple checking my points, I take it very seriously, I use the WW recipe builder, My fitness pal and I do the math on paper as well) anyhow my app has as follows, flour 25SP, honey 4SP, brown sugar 4SP, and mini chocolate chips 18SP, the eggs, banana, zucchini and apple sauce are zero foods that I did not incl.. and it made 12 muffins, my app gives me 4SP per muffin
Wouldnt another flour have less points. Like almond or coconut or one of the others ?
Hi I am not too sure, most flours are similar in points, actually I would think almond is higher, I only use all purpose
Thank you so much Kate! I made theses into mini muffins for only 2 points each (I did put it in the recipe builder). I baked them at 325 for 18 minutes and they are fantastic. A great 2 point treat.
Thanks for the tips Cindy, so glad you enjoyed them 🙂
Very yummy!!
My batter turned out more like a dough. Two cups of flour seemed like a lot and firmed it right up. Any ideas where I may have gone wrong?
My batter was slightly thicker than my batter usually is for muffins but was not too thick and still baked into muffins with no issues, it is really hard for me to know what went wrong without being there sorry
Could you use more applesauce in place of banana??? I am allergic to them.. thx
All I can suggest is to try, I think they should still turn out but I have only made them using banana, another option is pumpkin
I would like to make a bread instead. How long to bake?
Most of my loaves bake for about 40-45 minutes, I’d say check it around 35 min and onwards, sorry I only know how long for muffins as that is how I made this recipe, I might of altered it a bit if I was making a loaf
I wonder if you could use Kodiak pancake mix (buttermilk) to cut the points of the flour?
I have seen others sub Kodiak mix so I’d say try it and see 🙂 Feel free to share if they turned out ok
Just took these out of the oven and WOW!!!!! They smelled amazing while baking and I could barely wait until it cooled enough to taste!!! So, so good!!!!! So thankful I found this recipe!!!!
Hi Julie, Yay!! So glad you enjoyed them 🙂
Quick question. If I use self rising flour would I leave out baking powder & baking soda?
Hi, I’d still add in a little personally.. I only use all purpose when I make muffins/loaves