Healthy Zucchini Bread

Healthy Zucchini Bread

When you think of bread, I am sure green vegetables (ok, zucchini is botanically a fruit) are not even one of the top 10 ingredients that pop into mind. Since we’ve covered the versatile zucchini before, you know there are oodles of ways to prepare it (do a search for the word “zoodle”), so making it into a loaf of bread should not come as a surprise to anyone. Technically this may be closer to a cake than a bread, but if you’ve got fussy kids who won’t eat their green vegetables (fine, I give up on calling it a fruit), this will be a tasty surprise for them.

If you’ve never ever had zucchini bread before, it doesn’t taste anything like zucchini. Although you may be able to see pieces of it in the bread itself, there is no way you will feel it when it’s being eaten. Both the flavor and the texture of the shredded zucchini just melt into the batter, creating a subtle sweetness and a soft texture in the finished bread.

Below is a recipe that’s sure to be a hit and healthier than many other recipes. By using very ripe mashed bananas you use about a cup less of sugar than other recipes, coconut/olive oil may be replaced with apple sauce and, instead of more white flour, pulse oats to make your own oat flour.

Enjoy

Ingredients

  • 125g Greek yogurt
  • 5 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 large egg
  • 85g coconut, or olive, oil
  • 2 tablespoons honey
  • 3 tablespoons very ripe mashed banana
  • 100g lightly packed brown sugar
  • 60g cup oat flour (just pulse oats with blender until flour-like)
  • 120g white flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 pinches of salt
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 150g lightly packed grated zucchini
  • Optional extras: 100g dark chocolate chips or chopped nuts

Directions

  1. To avoid having a soggy loaf from the excess moisture in the zucchini, after grating, place into cheesecloth, or thin tea-towel, and wring out excess liquid. This keeps the loaf light and airy rather than dense.
  2. Preheat the oven to 325 F / 165 C. Lightly grease and flour one bread pan.
  3. In a bowl, mix Greek yogurt, vanilla extract, 1 large egg, coconut oil (measured when melted) and honey.
  4. In a small bowl, mash bananas till smooth: the riper, the better. The banana binds bread and lowers the amount of sugar needed. Mix banana and brown sugar.
  5. In a separate bowl, stir together the oat flour with the white or white-whole wheat flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
  6. Add the dry to the wet and mix until just combined. Over-mixing will result in dense bread.
  7. Stir in the grated zucchini (and an optional extra if desired).
  8. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and top with more optional extra if desired.
  9. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the bread has begun to pull away slightly from the sides. Barely under-cooking the bread will yield a softer and slightly denser bread. (I pulled mine out at 43 minutes.)
  10. If needed, tent some tin foil over the top to keep the top from over-cooking.

 

Did you know.

  • April 25 is National Zucchini Bread Day in the US.
  • Zucchini has more potassium than a banana. Recent research has shown that there may be a link between type 2 diabetes and low potassium levels.
  • Zucca is the Italian word for pumpkin.
  • Zucchini is the plural form of this kind of squash, and zucchina is the singular form.
  • Zucchini are healthy since they only contain 15 calories per 100 grams