These gluten-free Almond Flour Zucchini Muffins are the perfect healthy snack. Deliciously moist and studded with melty chocolate chips!
We love baking with almond flour and have compiled our favorite Almond Flour Dessert Recipes in one place, including these delicious almond flour muffins and our Blackberry Almond Flour Muffins along with cookies, cakes, and more.
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Why Make This Recipe
- Nutritious breakfast or snack option your family will love
- Kid-approved! The zucchini melts into the muffins so all you taste are those chocolate chips!
- Great option for gluten-intolerant eaters
🥗 Ingredients
- Zucchini: Choose a firm zucchini without brown or soft spots.
- Almond Flour: Look for blanched almond flour rather than almond meal for the softest texture. You could also using hazelnut flour.
- Gluten-Free Flour: Use your favorite gluten-free flour blend, or substitute regular all-purpose flour if you don’t need your muffins to be gluten-free.
- Brown Sugar: We love light brown sugar in this recipe, but you could use dark brown sugar or a combination of the two.
- Cinnamon: The cinnamon in this Zucchini Almond Flour Muffin recipe adds a warm, wintery spice to the muffins. You could also try adding a little ground cardamom or ground cloves.
- Chocolate Chips: These are optional, but so delicious. You could also replace these with dried berries or toasted nuts.
🥣 Step-by-Step Instructions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit or 190 degrees Celsius. Line a muffin tin with muffin/cupcake liners. Grate 1 medium zucchini—you should have about 1 ¼ packed cups of shredded zucchini.
Use your hands or a clean kitchen towel to squeeze out as much liquid as you can from the zucchini. Set aside.
In a large bowl, combine 2 cups almond flour, ½ cup gluten-free flour, ⅔ cup light brown sugar, 1 teaspoon baking soda, ½ teaspoon baking powder, ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon, and ¼ teaspoon kosher salt, and stir.
Whisk together 3 eggs and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract in a separate bowl.
Stir liquid ingredients into bowl with almond flour mixture. Don’t overbeat—stir just until combined. Stir in shredded zucchini, then ½ cup of chocolate chips (if desired).
Pour the batter into the muffin cups, filling them ⅔ of the way up.
Bake for 20 minutes, until the tops of these healthy zucchini muffins with almond flour are golden brown, and a toothpick comes out almost clean. Remove muffin tin from oven and place on cooling rack.
🧐 Recipe FAQs for Almond Flour Zucchini Muffins
Almond flour muffins will stay moist for several days, though the tops of the muffins become a little sticky. Cool completely, then keep in an airtight container for 3-4 days. To reduce the sticky top problem, try lining the container with paper towels and adding a layer of paper towels on top of the muffins as well. You can also freeze these muffins for up to 3 months.
When you use almond flour alone in a muffin recipe, the tops of the muffins can often fall after baking and become somewhat concave. That is why in this recipe, we combine the almond flour with a small amount of regular gluten-free flour. That helps build the structure you need for domed muffins.
Almond flour is denser than regular flour and absorbs more moisture than regular flour. So, you need to reduce the liquid in a regular flour recipe. It also helps to increase your amount of leavening agent. In this recipe, for example, we use both baking powder and baking soda.
👩🍳 Expert Tips
Squeeze as much liquid as you can from the grated zucchini. These chocolate chip zucchini muffins are plenty moist on their own, and too much liquid from the zucchini will make them soggy.
Hate the sticky tops on leftover muffins? Try making a glaze combining powdered sugar with a little bit of lemon juice and water, then pouring over your muffin. Problem solved!
These gluten-free zucchini muffins with almond flour will rise pretty well in the oven, so make sure to not overfill the muffin cups. If you fill them too much, the muffin tops will rise over the edge of the holes and then fall, causing the muffins to stick to the outside of the tin.
Don’t overbeat your batter—stir just enough to combine all ingredients well.
Use an ice cream scoop to fill the muffin cups quickly—almost a full scoop is the perfect amount.
Want to make your own almond flour? Just process blanched almonds in a food processor until finely ground. Don’t process too long or you’ll end up with almond butter.
Got more zucchini? Why not try this Pasta with Zucchini and Mushrooms recipe? Just sub gluten-free pasta for regular pasta if you want to make this a gluten-free recipe. Or, try these Ground Turkey Zucchini Meatballs!
Other Almond Flour Recipes
Love baking with almond flour? Same here! Start with this roundup of our favorite Gluten-Free Muffin Recipes. And check out some of these:
If you try this Almond Flour Zucchini Muffin recipe, we would love to hear from you! Please rate this recipe and leave a comment below—your feedback is invaluable to us.
And please follow along on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook or subscribe to our newsletter. We’d love to inspire you with more delicious, healthy, and seasonal recipes!
📖 Recipe
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Almond Flour Zucchini Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 medium zucchini (184 grams)
- 2 cups almond flour (175 grams)
- ½ cup gluten-free flour (75 grams)
- ⅔ cup light brown sugar (138 grams)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup chocolate chips optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit or 190 degrees Celsius.
- Line a muffin tin with muffin/cupcake liners.
- Grate zucchini—you should have about 1 ¼ packed cups of shredded zucchini. Use your hands or a clean kitchen towel to squeeze out as much liquid as you can from the zucchini. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine the almond flour, gluten-free flour, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt, and stir.
- Whisk together eggs and vanilla extract in a separate bowl, then stir into bowl with almond flour mixture. Don’t overbeat—stir just until combined.
- Stir in shredded zucchini, then chocolate chips.
- Pour the batter into the muffin cups, filling them ⅔ of the way up.
- Bake for 20 minutes, until tops are golden brown, and a toothpick comes out almost clean.
- Remove muffin tin from oven and place on cooling rack.
Notes
Almond flour muffins will stay moist for several days, though the tops of the muffins become a little sticky. Cool completely, then keep in an airtight container for 3-4 days. To reduce the sticky top problem, try lining the container with paper towels and adding a layer of paper towels on top of the muffins as well. You can also freeze these muffins for up to 3 months. Expert Tips:
These gluten-free zucchini muffins with almond flour will rise pretty well in the oven, so make sure to not overfill the muffin cups. If you fill them too much, the muffin tops will rise over the edge of the holes and then fall, causing the muffins to stick to the outside of the tin. Don’t overbeat your batter—stir just enough to combine all ingredients well. Use an ice cream scoop to fill the muffin cups quickly—almost a full scoop is the perfect amount.
Nutrition
Instagram Users: Now that you've made these Zucchini Almond Flour Muffins, tag us @vanillabeancuisine or #vanillabeancuisine because we’d love to see your results!
More About Molly
Cooking healthy(ish) meals with seasonal ingredients is my passion. Trained as a French pastry chef, I spent over 10 years as a personal chef. Here you'll find well-tested recipes that you and your family will love!
Melanie Apel says
Made the recipe this morning. The muffins turned out so good!! I had to sub brown sugar for equal parts coconut sugar; my gluten free flour was sorghum flour with 1/4 tsp xanthan gum, but it worked. This is truly one of the few GF recipes that turned out. Thank you!
Chef Molly says
Yay! So glad to hear that. Thanks so much for letting me know, and for offering up some advice for others thinking about ingredient substitutions! I really appreciate it.