Light and fluffy vegan zucchini muffins are easy to whip up! Topped with a crunchy brown sugar pecan streusel, these rich vegan chocolate muffins are packed with zucchini with no need to squeeze out the zucchini juices! This recipe is vegetarian and vegan.
Zucchini Bonanza Muffin Style
Summer just wouldn’t be the same without vegan blueberry oat flax muffins and chocolate zucchini muffins!
For a little chocolatey treat made with everyone’s favorite iconic summer veggie, the humble zucchini, these vegan chocolate zucchini muffins are easy to whip up, ready in under an hour.
They’re super rich, full of moist zucchini and studded with a scrumptious pecan streusel. If you make homemade vegan recipes, you’ll enjoy these tasty muffins.
At a Glance: How to Make Chocolate Vegan Zucchini Muffins
After shredding the zucchini, this recipe comes together with quick.
- First, preheat the oven and toast the pecans (for the streusel).
- Second, mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.
- Third, whisk the wet ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
- Fourth, add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Mix.
- Next, fold in the zucchini and chocolate chips.
- Last, mix the streusel, scoop the batter into the muffin cups, top with streusel then bake!
This batter is thick, so just when you think the ingredients aren’t going to come together, keep folding, gently. The zucchini contributes a lot of hydration in this recipe, so once it’s introduced into the batter, you’ll notice the batter soften and moisten.
It’s All About that Streusel!
The chocolate streusel offers a bit of crunchy texture to top these rich treats! It’s made with the same ingredients plus pecans or walnuts, in part, that you’ll use for the vegan zucchini muffin batter.
When the streusel is spooned over the top of the batter, some of it falls on the sides and in between areas of the muffin. After the muffins bake, you’ll find hidden bits of streusel on the sides and even inside parts of the muffin!
Pro Tip: Knowing the temperature of your oven is key for best baking outcome. Use an external oven thermometer (dial or digital) to know its true temperature and adjust as needed.
Pro Tips
- Oil Choice: I use coconut oil in this recipe, however, canola oil will also work. If you use coconut oil, and since it’s solid at room temperature, you’ll need to make sure it’s warm to the touch before stirring it into the muffin batter.
- Nut Options: Enjoy the streusel with walnuts or pecans. For nut free muffins, they can be easily left out.
- Weigh Your Ingredients: For best outcome, use a digital kitchen scale. Use the scoop and sweep method for volume measurements if a scale is unavailable.
Vegan Chocolate Zucchini Muffins Recipe
Ingredients
For the Muffins:
- 1 1/4 Cups (175 grams) Unbleached All Purpose Flour or Whole Wheat White Flour
- 1/2 Cup (50 grams) Dark Unsweetened Cocoa
- 1/2 Cup + 1 Tablespoon (115 grams) Light Brown Sugar packed
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
- 1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon Fine Sea Salt
- 1/2 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
- 3/4 Cup (140 grams) Mini Vegan Chocolate Chips I like enjoy life
- 1 1/2 Cups (265 grams) Shredded Zucchini packed, about 1 medium
- 1/3 Cup + 2 Tablespoons Coconut Oil melted and warm to the touch
- 1/2 Cup (115 grams) Unsweetened Apple Sauce
- 1 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
For the Streusel:
- 1/4 Cup (35 grams) finely chopped Pecans
- 1/3 Cup (50 grams) Unbleached All Purpose Flour or Whole Wheat White Flour
- 1/2 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
- 3 Tablespoons Light Brown Sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon Sea Salt
- 1 Tablespoon Dark Unsweetened Cocoa
- 2 Tablespoons Coconut Oil melted and warm to the touch
- 1/4 Cups (45 grams) Mini Vegan Chocolate Chips optional for sprinkling on top
Instructions
For the Muffins:
- Preheat the oven to 375 Fahrenheit (205 Celsius) and set oven rack in the center. Place the pecans (see streusel) on and small pan and into the oven while it preheats for about 15-18 minutes, or until they're fragrant and toasted. Set aside to cool then rough chop. Set aside. Line a standard muffin pan with 12 tulip style muffin cups or DIY your own.
- Shred the zucchini using a box grater, coarse microplane or the fine shredding blade on a food processor. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl whisk the flour, dark cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon into a large mixing bowl. Set aside. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the oil, applesauce and vanilla extract until smooth. Add the dry ingredients all at once and stir, just until the ingredients are incorporated. The batter will be very thick and it will seem dry. Press on! Fold in the zucchini and chocolate chips until the mixture is moist and has evenly distributed ingredients.
- Using a large cookie scoop (#20), scoop overfilled scoops (or about 4 1/2 tablespoons) of batter into each muffin cup. Set aside.
For the Streusel:
- In a small bowl add the chopped pecans, flour, cinnamon, brown sugar, salt and cocoa into a bowl. Add the coconut oil, stirring to incorporate. The mixture will be crumbly.
To Finish:
- Spoon 1 1/2 tablespoons of streusel over each muffin. You'll have a little left over, so divide it up among the muffins. Sprinkle the optional mini chocolate chips over the tops of the muffins.
- Bake in a preheated oven at 375F for about 33-38 minutes. Use a toothpick to check for doneness, poking around several times to avoid melty chocolate. The toothpick should come out mostly clean of crumbs. Remove from pan and place on a cooling rack. Cool at least 20 minutes before enjoying.
To Store:
- Store in a covered container at room temperature for up to three days or freeze for up to two weeks. Thaw at room temperature. Rewarm in a 350 Fahrenheit oven for about 10 minutes.
Thank you for linking the DIY tulip liners. I was going to ask how to create them!
Making the muffins GF today.
Love your website and ALL your recipes.
Licking my computer screen…just sayin’!
I know, meee too!!!
I just made these using gf flour & they turned out awesome!! First zucchini muffin recipe I’ve ever made that you can’t even tell zucchini was used!
Hi Margo! Oh this is great! So happy you enjoyed the recipe and were able to use a flour that suits your needs! Can you share with us what you used? I swear, chocolate makes everything better! Thanks for writing and stopping by!
Can you tell me what and where you get the brown paper please?
Hi Tracey! There is a link in my recipe under the method section,’for the muffins’. Thanks for stopping by!