How To Make Easy Zucchini Bread

Is there a summer quick bread more ubiquitous than zucchini bread? It is our favorite vehicle for the overabundance of zucchini that comes in August. We love zucchini most for its keen ability to play either sweet or savory. Bake up this tender loaf of zucchini bread and you’ll feel like you’re getting a sweet treat and a serving of vegetables all in one.

This zucchini bread recipe is our tried-and-true method that uses up a full pound of zucchini and will make you two gorgeous loaves — one for now and one for the freezer.

Zucchini bread is a sweet quick bread designed to use up a bunch of fresh zucchini at once, much like banana bread. If you’ve never been introduced before, let me say a few words about zucchini bread. First off, it doesn’t taste like zucchini. Nor can you feel pieces of it in the bread itself. Both the flavor and the texture of the shredded zucchini melt into the bread, creating a subtle sweetness and a soft texture.

This recipe makes two smallish “tea-sized” loaves. The smaller slices are perfect for an afternoon snack or late-night nosh. If you’d prefer larger slices, bake all of the batter in one single 8×4-inch loaf pan and extend the baking time by about 10 minutes. You can also bake the batter in a muffin pan — use liners or spray liberally with non-stick spray.

• Squeeze the zucchini. To avoid ending up with soggy loaves from all the moisture in the zucchini, I’ve adopted a trick from Cook’s Illustrated. You simply squeeze the shredded zucchini in a clean dish cloth before mixing it with the rest of the ingredients. The loaves end up light and airy instead of dense and weighed-down.
• Use the muffin method for mixing. When mixing quick breads it is important to mix the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients separately, then bring them together gently. Add the shredded and drained zucchini to the dry ingredients before adding the wet.
• Cool the loaves on their sides. This tiny trick makes for more tender loaves with crisp sides — especially ideal if you plan on freezing that extra loaf, which you should.

Zucchini bread is best served slightly warm with a slathering of butter, so toast leftover bread slightly before serving. As for storing you’ll want to tightly wrap the leftovers and store them at room temperature for just a few days. Move extra loaves to the freezer for long-term storage.

This zucchini-packed quick bread is one of the best reasons to turn on your oven in August. We swapped the ground cinnamon originally called for here with lemon zest for more of a fresh, summery flavor. And we simplified the recipe by eliminating a quarter teaspoon of baking soda.

If you’re looking to bake this into muffins, be sure to use muffin liners and bake for 16 to 18 minutes. Makes about 24 muffins.

— Meghan, August 2018