Melt-In-Your-Mouth Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread
I took my perfect zucchini bread base and turned it into the best melt-in-your-mouth chocolate chip zucchini bread with a little bit of browned butter for extra toastyness. Top it with the best brown butter glaze for a little extra umph.
Since I was given like a thousand pounds of zucchini, I figured I would bake as many zucchini recipes as I could with them. I made *one* zucchini salad lol but I took my Easy Zucchini Bread Recipe and turned it into different flavors like double chocolate, lemon and of course, this melt-in-your-mouth chocolate chip zucchini bread.
How To Make The Best Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread
It’s almost just as simple as the original but with an extra step. For this recipe, I browned some butter first, for extra flavor of course, and then folded in chocolate chips at the end. It’s soooo good.
The most tedious part is just shredding the zucchini so I definitely recommend a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer Shredding Attachment. It’s fairly inexpensive and so useful for so many recipes!
I also made a brown butter glaze to go on top but this is totally optional, as it’s so good both ways. Without the glaze, I top the loaf with granulated sugar and/or more chocolate chips. With the glaze I leave those out.
Ingredients & Substitutions
- Zucchini: I had very large zucchini and made several recipes from one. Some zucchinis can be more dry than others but if you weigh the amount, this shouldn’t matter. If you’re a little short on zucchini, you can also make up the difference in weight with apple sauce or yogurt.
- Flour: I use all purpose flour in most of my recipes and I HIGHLY recommend using a digital scale, as flour is so often over measured.
- 1:1 Gluten-free flour substitutes should also work fine.
- Baking Powder/Soda: I use both baking powder and baking soda to get a nice rise on the heavy batter.
- Sugar: I use granulated sugar, brown sugar also works fine. I use powdered sugar for the glaze and I don’t recommend swapping that.
- Oil/Butter: My zucchini bread recipes work with both oil and butter, but for this recipe I really wanted to use brown butter. Of course you can skip that and use melted butter or oil if you neeeed to.
- Eggs: I use room temperature, large eggs. Place them in hot water for a few minutes if they’re cold.
- Greek yogurt: I like to add greek yogurt as a healthier option but sour cream and plain yogurt also work. Make sure the yogurt is unsweetened. I’ve also skipped this and replaced it with more zucchini and it works fine as well.
- Chocolate chips: Any kind of chocolate chips or chopped chocolate works fine!
Step-by-Step Instructions with Photos
- Brown the butter and set aside to cool.
- Shred the zucchinis (with the peel is fine). Small seeds are fine but I discard the large ones.
- Whisk together the sugar and brown butter, until they’re well combined.
- Whisk in the eggs. For extra fluffy bread, add one egg at a time, whisking until each one is completely combined. Then add the other egg, etc.
- Add the greek yogurt and vanilla and whisk until it’s completely smooth.
- Whisk together the dry ingredients and then add them into the wet ingredients, whisking just until they’re completely combined.
- Fold in the chocolate chips, just until they’re evenly distributed.
- Fill the batter in the prepared pan and *optional* top with granulated sugar and pipe a line of butter down the center.
- Bake for about 60 minutes, until you insert a knife in the center and no wet batter comes out.
- Allow the bread to cool for 30-60 minutes before making the glaze.
- There should be about 1/4 cup (50-60 grams) of brown butter left. Make sure it’s melted (not hot), mix with milk and powdered sugar.
- Add the salt and vanilla bean paste, mixing until it’s well combined. Drizzle over the bread and allow it to set for a few minutes.
Pro Tips for the best zucchini bread:
- Make sure to use the right pan for this zucchini bread. I recommend a 9×5” metal loaf pan. Don’t use a glass pan or it won’t bake properly.
- Don’t swap or reduce any of the ingredients if I didn’t mention them in the ingredient section above.
- Use a digital scale to measure your ingredients for the most accurate measurements. If your zucchini doesn’t add up to the exact weight, you can add a little water or yogurt to make up the difference.
Frequently Asked Questions
I stick a knife all the way down the center (the tallest part) and if it comes out with moist crumbs instead of gummy batter it’s done baking.
You can also check the temperature with a digital thermometer – you want it around 200F (93C).
You can use any kind of chocolate you want here. Mini chocolate chips disperse more evenly, larger chocolate chips give you nice large chunks of chocolate and a chopped up chocolate bar takes longer to ‘set’ so you’ll get more of those melty pools of chocolate as opposed to a chunk/bite of chocolate.
Absolutely, I made this zucchini bread into like 5 flavors and tested them all as muffins – I won’t double post the recipe as muffins lol but they do work perfectly if you follow the baking instructions of my vanilla muffin recipe (rest for about an hour, bake 12 large muffins at 425F and then 375F).
How to store zucchini bread
I place the bread under a cake dome or in an airtight container or baggy at room temperature for 2-3 days. If it’s longer you can refrigerate it for a couple of days but it may dry out quicker in the fridge, so I recommend freezing instead.
You can freeze the whole thing or each individual slice with plastic wrap and then place them in a freezer bag. Bring back to room temperature before serving.
Thanks so much for reading today’s post, if you have any questions just comment down below.
If you also agree that this brown butter chocolate chip zucchini bread is the best, I would appreciate it if you left a 5-star rating or a review below and don’t forget to pin on Pinterest.
As always, have a blessed day and happy baking!
Love, B
