Paleo Zucchini Bread
377 Comments
Updated Jul 28, 2021
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Paleo zucchini bread is delicious, moist and flavorful. And unlike most paleo zucchini bread recipes, it’s not overly dense. It’s a tasty way to use up all your in season zucchini and give a nutrient boost to bread.
The Best Paleo Zucchini Bread
Are you ready for the best paleo zucchini bread you’ve ever tasted? When it’s zucchini season it’s an absolute must to whip up a loaf of this bread. It’s gluten-free and grain-free, using my usual triumvirate of flours (almond flour, tapioca flour and coconut flour) for the perfect texture. And if there’s any doubts on why three flours are necessary, just read all the comments on my reader favorite paleo chocolate cake recipe.
This paleo zucchini bread is virtually identical to my gluten-free zucchini bread recipe, but so many readers didn’t realize that recipe was also paleo-friendly, so I’ve posted this updated version today (with just a few minor tweaks).
Paleo Zucchini Bread Recipe Video
Are you ready to make the tastiest paleo zucchini bread? It’s an easy recipe to make, but if it’s your first time I recommend you watch this step-by-step tutorial video. Give it a watch below!
Paleo Zucchini Bread Ingredients
Want to know what’s in this recipe? Just a handful of simple ingredients, including:
- Dry Ingredients: My flour blend of almond flour, tapioca flour and coconut flour, plus baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
- Wet Ingredients: A few fridge and pantry staples including eggs, applesauce, maple syrup, apple cider vinegar….and of course zucchini!
Extra Recipe Tips
One thing you should note, I’ve kept kept the maple syrup to a minimum in this recipe. That means you could easily use this recipe for both sweet and savory options. But if you’d like a sweeter bread, you could certainly increase the maple syrup by 1-2 tablespoons. And if you’d like a much sweeter bread, you definitely need to whip up my chocolate zucchini bread.
This is a quick bread recipe (similar to my paleo banana bread and paleo pumpkin bread recipes) so it will naturally be a thicker bread than sandwich bread.
On my Summer Meal Prep video I show you a few ways to get creative with your paleo zucchini bread recipe. Of course you can eat it plain or top it with butter. But you can also top it with a variety of other ingredients for a delicious, healthy and creative breakfast or lunch option. Enjoy!
More Delicious Zucchini Recipes
When zucchini is in abundance you’ve got lots of options for delicious zucchini recipes!
- Baked Zucchini Fries
- Zucchini Lasagna
- Zucchini Pasta with Lemon Garlic Shrimp
- Taco Stuffed Zucchini Boats
- Easy Sautéed Zucchini
- Zucchini and Prosciutto Egg Muffins
Want another “green” bread recipe? Try my Falafel Flatbread – it’s incredibly unique and versatile. You’ll love it!
Best Paleo Zucchini Bread (gluten-free, dairy-free)
Description
Video
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups almond flour
- 1/2 cup tapioca flour
- 1/4 cup coconut flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp salt
Wet Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 cup applesauce
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 1/2 cups grated zucchini
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.
- Add all of the dry ingredients to a mixing bowl and stir until combined.
- In a separate bowl add the eggs, applesauce, maple syrup, and apple cider vinegar and whisk together. Squeeze the grated zucchini in a nut milk bag or kitchen towel to remove the excess water. Then add the grated zucchini to the wet ingredients and stir to combine.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until the batter is well mixed. Pour the batter into a greased 8.5 x 4.5 inch loaf pan.
- Bake the zucchini bread for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Lisa's Tips
- This is the nut milk bag I use to squeeze the zucchini and I love it. It's great for homemade almond milk as well.
Nutrition
©Downshiftology. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited.
Recipe originally posted August 2018, but updated to include new information.
Hi Lisa
What can I use instead of Almond Flour (allergic)
Thanks
Judith
PS looks delicious, also want to try the pumpkin bread
Hi Judith – I haven’t tested this recipe without almond flour yet. So, I’ll have to keep you posted when I do!
This is the bomb zucchini bread in the health conscious arena!! This is so moist. I have made it multiple times. Recipe as written. I top it with my homemade yogurt and cacao nibs and strawberries as suggested. It is decadent. Lisa, you have a gift! Thanks for being there! Fighting my own inflammation issues. Your helping me with my recipe arsenal.
Thrilled to hear you enjoyed this zucchini bread! Sounds delicious with yogurt, cacao, and strawberry as well.
I’m excited to make this zucchini bread. Has anyone tried adding fresh blueberries – say maybe a cup?
How long does this bread keep? I made it and am storing it in the fridge, is that correct?
This will last for about one week in the fridge. But you could also freeze slices of it for about 2 to 3 months :)
if i dont include zucchini, what do i add instead ？just want to make a plain gf, df, yeast free
vegan bread.
These were delicious! I’m absolutely addicted. The only problem is, my bread didn’t rise very high – any tips?
Hi Isabella – it’s normal for gluten-free and grain-free flours to not rise very much. As long as you enjoyed it, that’s what matters!
Is it possible to make this using one type of flour? I’m not gluten free so I’m open to all options (GF or not) – just don’t want to have to buy three different kinds!
I haven’t tried this recipe with just one flour yet, unfortunately. I’ll have to do some testing!
Have no idea what happened, but it came out dry and bland. Baked it for 7 minutes less than suggested and still dry, dry, dry and practically tasteless.
Hi Jennifer – all ovens bake slightly differently, and yours may cook a little warm. You may need to take it out even earlier next time. And you can feel free to add more spices as well, if you’d like.
Would you please be able to give the weight of 1.5 cup of grated zucchini? Many thanks.
Hi Ingrid – just click the metric button on the recipe card for the weight measurement. :)
This was way more tasty than I imagined and got through it in a couple of days. 😁Each time at morning tea I would wonder what I would eat, then had a little happy dance remembering that I had made this!!
To the commenters who talk about wasted ingredients: I’ve been there! We are three years into fully GF and I find that I have to bookmark recipes and not let them go if they turn out. GF baking is hard.
That being said, I did substitute with this recipe.
– I swapped the applesauce for an equal amount of mashed bananas
– I used corn starch for tapioca because the grocery store’s tapioca was very expired. I know that tapioca is slightly more absorbent and they are not a 1:1 solution, but it worked in this application.
– I added an extra heaping 1/3c coconut sugar to a doubled batch.
– I left out the cinnamon and threw in some vanilla and mini chocolate chips (1/2c per loaf).
– I baked til my internal thermometer read 95C or over 200F.
My 3 year olds were fans!
This recipe is bookmarked and we’ll make it again.
I plan to try to figure out how to add some finely chopped walnuts next time. The bread was tasty but I was looking for a bit more variety in the chew of each bite.
I just made this and cooked /baked it for 55 min and it is not dry inside it is very very moist.. almost wet, any idea why?
It’s probably due to the zucchini. Make sure to squeeze as much water out of it before baking as zucchini retains a lot of water!
Great recipe! Super easy and delicious. I need more recipes in my life that are simple and don’t make a big mess to clean up. I made this in muffin tins, baked for 40
Minutes and they came out perfect. Thanks!
This came out wonderfully. I salted the zucchini before wringing it out and swapped some pumpkin pie spice for the cinnamon. I was a bit nervous after reading one of the reviews but I was very happy with the taste and texture. I’ll make at least a double batch next time. Thank you for sharing :)
Thrilled to hear your zucchini bread turned out great! And good idea on salting the zucchini.
Please can you tell me how to make the apple sauce used in this recipe? Apple sauce is not something usually found readymade here in South Africa.
To make applesauce you core an apple and cook them down until they turn into a sauce.
Hi, could we replace de apple sauce with real shredded apples?
The amount of moisture is not de same, so i wounder…
Unfortunately you’ll need applesauce for this recipe.
Hi Lisa, thanks so much for recipe, my first time baking with almond flour and was a bit nervous. However I decided to give it a try, especially as other recipes I tried from you is always a pleasant surprise. The only change I made was use honey, I did not have coconut flour so used 1/4 cup extra almond flour with tapioca flour and used a glass loaf pan. It was in oven for about 20 minutes when I realized I forgot the baking powder. Well I was pleasantly surprised because even forgetting baking powder it still came out beautiful. I shared with 2 of my neighbors and they enjoyed it.
I now feel comfortable baking with almond flour. Thank you for all your hard work. Much appreciated :)
This makes an incredibly moist and fluffy bread. I didn’t have applesauce so I subbed with avocado oil, and subbed tapioca with cassava. Used 2 full cups zucchini. This is an awesome base that I look forward to adapting (banana, apple, pumpkin, blueberry, maybe even a carrot cake!). Yum! Thanks so much for sharing
Hi Lisa! I have made this bread many times and everyone always loves it! I’m wondering, can I make it and freeze it? I would love to make a few loafs and save some for later. Thanks for another awesome and easy recipe :)
Yes, you can freeze this!
I made this zucchini bread! It was wonderful!! Came together fast. Firm but moist and very filling. I didn’t have tapioca flour and couldn’t find my dry grind container for my Vitamix, so I substituted casava flour. This is great for breakfast or dessert. I used my homemade yogurt as Lisa suggested and added a couple slices of banana, strawberry, unsweetened coconut and cacao nibs. ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!!!
This looks delicious! Can I substitute the tapioca flour with anything? Like buckwheat flour? New to this whole gluten-free journey… Thank you <3j
You can use any gluten free flour blend.
First, I am not a bread maker! I love bread, who doesn’t? But, the path to my stomach doesn’t let me eat anything wheat. I found this recipe on utube😃so I thought, maybe if I followed the video – exactly- I might get lucky. I was AMAZED it was absolutely perfect!! And it was delicious, I make 2 loaves every week, my husband will even have a couple slices for dessert. My favorite is toasted with avocado, everything bagel and topped with sprouts. Yummy for my tummy❤️
So happy to hear you and your husband are loving this zucchini bread! It really is the best for a simple dessert or when you need a chocolate touch to your breakfast or snack :)
I was so excited to try this recipe and read through the comments to make some small tweaks. I followed all the directions as listed, except I added more maple syrup (4 tablespoons) and some cinnamon, nutmeg and pie spice. Overall, the flavor is great and the outside texture is perfect. The inside of mine did turn out a little more egg-ey than I was hoping – maybe I need to up the flour ratios?
This could be due to the extra maple syrup in the middle. But, I would try to stick to the original ingredient amounts for the perfect texture!
Easy to make, and tastes great. I love it best toasted, great to top with hummus or peanut butter as a side to breakfast or a salad. I would be tempted to play with some seasoning to pop it a bit, like adding nutmeg or cloves with the cinnamon or eliminating the cinnamon and adding Italian seasoning or dill, garlic powder and onion powder. It more moist than baking a loaf with regular flour, I would highly suggest baking it the full 60 minutes. Thoroughly enjoyed this zucchini bread, it disappeared quickly!
Yay! Glad you enjoyed this zucchini bread Katherine :)
To Robyn: One other thought – you may want to increase the maple syrup and cinnamon amount to offset any “egginess”.
This in in reply to Robyn, who reported that the bread was very wet and eggy. I’m in the process of perfecting my paleo quick bread recipes, and I am learning from my mistakes. Looking at this recipe (which I will adapt slightly), I would suggest, as Lisa did, that the zucchini may have been too wet. But I do have two other suggestions – the first is to change the leavening to at least 1 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp baking soda. I usually make almond bread recipes with 1 3/4 cups almond flour, and 1/2 cup tapioca flour, and I use 1 1/2 tsp each and get a perfect result, so I’m scaling down a bit due to this recipe being a little smaller. 1 1/4 each might work well also. The second suggestion is to both check your oven for accuracy, and to purchase an electronic probe thermometer. Quick breads can be tricky – often the toothpick will come out clean, but later you find a wet mess or a hole in the middle. Start using the probe when you estimate it is about three quarters done. Don’t open the oven before that. You want the tip of the probe to be in the center of the loaf. When the probe shows 197- 200 degrees, take it out and let it cool. Don’t let it go above 200. One other thought; use a full 5 x 9 pan instead of the 4.5 x 8.5. I found that the quicker cooking eliminated a too-dark bottom and sides of the loaf. Good luck!
Hi! I wonder if I could use bob’s red mill egg replaced in this recipe?
I haven’t tried it that way, but if you do, please let me know how it turns out!
Admittedly, we’re having a real hard time with the elimination diet we’re currently currently doing in my household, so I’m choosing not to give a rating. I don’t want to influence others with my opinion right now. But I did want to say something before others currently in my boat make the same mistake. I found these flat out disgusting. I went ahead and made a double batch because I’m rolling in zucchini from the garden, half in the 8×4 pan as directed and the other half in muffin tins…and I’m really regretting it. Nobody in the house will touch these, and they’re about to be ridiculously expensive dog treats. (The dog gives them 5 stars!)
I read comments about grain-free treats being “eggy”, and dismissed them because we just love eggs in this house, but I finally understand now. By “eggy” they mean weirdly porridge-like, spongy and wet at the same time.
I don’t think it’s a recipe fail, though. This might very well be the best that can be done with these types of ingredients and dietary restrictions. I’m so appreciative that you make the effort to try and share recipes like this, putting your reputation on the line. These are probably pure comfort food if you’ve forgotten what traditional baked goods are like. This has been a really difficult adjustment for my corn/wheat loving family, though, and I think these just added to the sadness rather than what I hoped for. I just want people who are new to this to proceed with caution before they waste expensive ingredients, and maybe try half a recipe in muffin tins first?
Hi Robyn – thanks for your honest feedback! If this is your first time baking gluten and grain-free, it can be an adjustment for sure. But just for clarification, these should not be porridge-like, spongy or wet in the middle. It sounds like you may have under-baked them and/or not squeezed enough of the liquid out from the zucchini. You can see from the photos that mine are perfectly bread-like in the middle (and it’s why this recipe has received so many rave reviews). Of course, everyone has different tastes, so I hope you enjoy some of my other recipes more!
Hi Lisa,
I made your pumpkin bread last week and it was delicious. I want to make this zucchini bread this week, and wanted to know if I could make it in my Nordic-ware heritage loaf pan? Thanks
Yes, no problem!
Hi Lisa,
Could I bake this in a Nordic ware 6 cup pan, one of those with the grooves?
I don’t see why not!
I can’t find the video.
Hi Ellen – you can see the video if you turn off your ad blocker.
if I am getting ready to shred and freeze zucchini, should I squeeze dry before or wait until ready to use after I thaw it? can’t wait to try. Thanks so much.
It would be best to squeeze dry before freezing.
It’s been years since experimenting with zucchini. My neighbor have me a huge zucchini from their garden and I ran across this keto friendly recipe. My zucchini bread loaf turned out great, the texture was perfect and it is a wonderful go to for a hurried breakfast. I added 2 to 3 tablespoons of monk fruit sugar to add a little more sweetness. Just love this recipe! Thanks.
Happy to hear your zucchini bread turned out perfectly Candice!
My husband and I love this. I have made it a few times. Today I tried it in muffin tins and it was perfect! Thanks so much.
Happy to hear you and your husband loved this recipe! If you also want a slightly sweeter version, I have a healthy zucchini muffin recipe as well :)