Grandma’s Best Zucchini Bread is super moist, buttery quick bread made with tangy sour cream and chock full of raisins, nuts and healthy shredded zucchini.
Best Zucchini Bread is perfect for baking with seasonal, fresh zucchini from the garden or farmer’s market. We love quick bread recipes with healthy zucchini baked in like our Best Blueberry Zucchini Bread and Goat Cheese Bacon Zucchini Bread. This is one of our Bread recipes you’ll want in your recipe box!
If you’re looking for a simple quick bread recipe that’s stuffed with good for you ingredients, you can’t beat this easy zucchini bread recipe. It’s an AMAZING way to use those gorgeous zucchinis from the garden or from your local farmer’s market. We’ve been getting lots of zucchini lately our Misfit Market subscription box and this is one of my favorite ways to use it up. Healthy, easy to make and totally shovel in your mouth delicious.
How To Make Grandma’s Best Zucchini Bread Recipe
It’s easiest to make this if you have a stand mixer, but if not, an electric hand mixer or even mixing by hand are just fine. My Gran mixed pretty much everything by hand with a wooden spoon in her giant stoneware mixing bowl similar to this one. It took some time and effort, but turned out fantastic every time.
Directions?
- Start by preheating the oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C). Grease or spray with cooking spray a 9 x 4 loaf pan or similar size pan. Set the pan aside.
- Shred the zucchini using a box grater and remove any excess moisture. *See instructions below
- In the bowl of a stand mixer or large bowl, beat the butter or margarine together with the sugar until they’re light and fluffy. ?This works best when the shortening has been softened to room temperature. Hard butter or margarine beaten into sugar will leave large hard clumps.
- Beat in your eggs one at a time. Then add the spices and sour cream and stir until the spices are all mixed in and there are no white streaks remaining from the sour cream.
- In another bowl, mix together your dry ingredients: flour, salt and baking soda. You can sift them together if you like, but I just stir them up really well.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, about a half at a time and beat until well mixed. Then, add the zucchini, walnuts and raisins to your batter and fold them until until distributed throughout the batter.
- Scrape the batter into your prepared loaf pan, and bake on the center rack of the oven for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. It’s done when the top of the bread is firm and when a knife inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool first in the pan on a wire rack. After about 10 minutes, remove the loaf from the pan and continue to cool on the wire rack. You might need to run a sharp knife around the edges to get the loaf to release cleanly.
Chef Tips for Making the Best Zucchini Bread
- Shred zucchini on a box grater, then wring out any excess moisture before adding to the batter.
- Make grating easy. Use ripe but firm zucchini. Soft zucchini is hard to grate and will end up more like mush in the grater.
- Carefully measure your flour. Don’t scoop the flour into your measuring cup! Use a spoon to fluff flour first, then spoon into your measuring cup and scrape excess off the top with a knife.
- Mix the dry ingredients together before adding to the wet ingredients. This makes a more uniform batter.
- Don’t overmix the batter. Overmixing can make the bread tough. Mix only until the ingredients are combined. It should be smooth but small lumps are okay.
Ingredients To Make Zucchini Bread?
You probably have most of what you need in the pantry already!
- Zucchini – adds flavor, moisture and colorful flecks of green to the bread. You’ll get the most out of zucchini’s health benefits by leaving the peel on!
- Walnuts – a common nut that is perfect for baking. It’s healthy and packed with Omega-3 fats.
- Raisins – grandma’s secret for adding chewy sweetness to this bread.
- All Purpose Flour -nothing fancy going on here. I used King Arthur unbleached flour for this recipe.
- Brown Sugar – for a slight maple flavor.
- Butter or Margarine – Use margarine to to reduce the saturated fats found in butter.
- Eggs – 2 whole large eggs.
- Sour Cream – all natural sour cream was used to test this recipe, but regular or reduced fat varieties are a great substitute.
- Spices – Vanilla Extract, Cinnamon, Allspice, Nutmeg.
- Baking Soda
How to remove excess moisture from Zucchini
- This is a easy process and only takes a few minutes.
- Shred zucchini on a box grater using the largest hole grating size.
- Transfer zucchini to a clean kitchen towel. We love flour sack towels for this. Place zucchini in the center of the towel, spreading it out lengthwise on the towel.
- Roll zucchini up in the towel. Grasping both end of the towel, stand over the sink and using both hands, twist the towel like you are wringing it out. Let the moisture from the zucchini fall in the sink. Repeat this over and over ( 6 or 7 times) until little to no liquid comes out.
- Spread zucchini out on a dry towel until you’re ready to add it to the batter.
How to Store Zucchini Bread
Counter or Refrigerator:
Let the bread cool completely on a wire rack. Pop the bread into a large plastic food bag or airtight container (I usually slice it first) and store on the counter for up to 3 days. You can also refrigerate this bread for up to one week.
Freezer:
Allow the bread to cool completely. Place the bread (sliced or whole) into a large plastic freezer bag. Remove any excess air before sealing. OR wrapped the cooled loaf completely in plastic, then a layer of foil. Will keep in the freezer for up to 3 months.
What To Serve With Zucchini Bread
A thick slice of Zucchini Bread is a great start to the day with your morning coffee, or an anytime snack and dessert. We love it as a side for roasted tomato soup and minestrone soup. Healthy mushroom soup with keep those good-for-you vibes humming.
What is Allspice?
Despite the name Allspice, which many people believe is a blend of several spices, it’s really the dried unripe berry of the Pimenta dioica tree, native to the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America. The name Allspice stuck because this spice has the flavor and aroma of a mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.
In my opinion, Allspice tastes a lot like cloves, just less intense with cinnamon and nutmeg flavors thrown in. A good substitution is to use ground cloves instead of the Allspice. I recommend about 1/8 teaspoon cloves, 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg and 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon for every 1 teaspoon of Allspice called for in the recipe.
More Easy Bread Recipes to Love
- Cranberry Cinnamon Banana Bread
- Pull Apart Three Cheese Garlic Bread
- Goat Cheese Bacon Zucchini Quick Bread
- Blueberry Pecan Banana Bread
Grandma’s Best Zucchini Bread
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter or margarine softened
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp allspice
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup shredded zucchini about 1 medium
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
- 1/4 cup raisins
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease or spray with non-stick cooking spray a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.
- On a flat surface, shred zucchini on a box grater using the largest hole grating size. Transfer zucchini to a clean kitchen towel. Place zucchini in the center of the towel, spreading it out lengthwise. Roll zucchini up in the towel. Grasping both ends, and using both hands, twist the towel like you are wringing it out. Repeat wringing until little to no liquid comes out. Spread zucchini out on a dry towel until you're ready to add it to the batter.
- In a large bowl, with the mixer set on medium, cream the shortening and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and sour cream. Beat on low speed to combine.
- In medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt.
- Add the dry ingredients to the batter, beating on medium speed for one minute. Scrape down bowl as needed. Fold in zucchini, walnuts and raisins until well distributed.
- Spread into prepared pan. Bake on center rack of oven for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Allow to cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack. Remove from the pan and cool the loaf completely on the wire rack before slicing.
Chef Tips
Equipment Used
Nutrition Facts
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The nutritional information shared is an estimate, and is automatically calculated through a program in the recipe card. If nutritional information, like the calorie count is important to you, we recommend running the ingredients through whichever nutritional calculator you feel most comfortable with. Nutritional values like calories, fat and sugar can vary widely depending on which brands were used.
Hi Ange, thank you! Grandma definitely knew best with this tender, healthy bread recipe?!
Very very good!
Hi DeeAnn…great question! I didn’t squeeze the moisture from the zucchini…mine didn’t have much excess after shredding. If yours is dripping wet, you may want to blot some of it off, but leave some juice to moisten and flavor the bread. Hope that helps ?!!
Do you squeeze the excess water out of the zucchini?