The Best Zucchini Muffins || Dense, delicious zucchini muffins made with chopped pecans, grated zucchini, cinnamon, sour cream, and brown sugar.
If you love my zucchini cake with brown sugar icing and my zucchini bread, try these big, dense, moist zucchini muffins. They are SO. GOOD. Especially with a latte, at 2pm.
How to make the best zucchini muffins:
Start by grating two small fresh zucchini, which should give you approximately two cups. Grate the zucchini over a tea towel so you’ll be ready for step two—squeezing out all the excess liquid.
Draining as much liquid from the zucchini as you can (without going overboard) is key. If left undrained, the excess liquid will affect the overall batter and make for soggy muffins. So fold the tea towel around the grated zucchini and ring out as much liquid as possible.
Next up, roughly chop pecans into small pieces and set aside. *If you don’t have any on hand, you can easily forgo or sub with walnuts.*
Now, for the easy. Mix all the dry ingredients together and add in the zucchini and pecans. Ensure they are well-integrated and not clumping.
Whisk all the wet ingredients (eggs, sour cream, oil, and vanilla) until smooth and fold the wet mixture into the dry. The batter WILL be quite thick and sturdy and ready for baking.
Healthy Substitutions:
I do consider these zucchini muffins to be slightly more indulgent than most of my muffin recipes (hello, sour cream, and brown sugar), BUT, you can easily make them healthier with a couple of swaps. Namely:
- Swap all or part of the sour cream for plain greek yogurt (0% or 2%)
- Cut the brown sugar down by half—from one cup to half a cup. Or swap the sugar entirely for half a cup of liquid honey. The muffins will be less sweet, but still delicious.
If you make these zucchini muffins, please let me know in the comments below and share your rating—I love to hear from you!
xo
Bri
P.S. Looking for more muffin ideas? Try these healthy carrot and date muffins and these orange cranberry muffins.
Best Zucchini Muffins with Pecans
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup brown sugar For a less sweet muffin, you can get away with only using half a cup.
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 cups grated zucchini ~ 2 small zucchinis, drained
- 1 cup roughly chopped pecans
- 2 large beaten eggs
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil substitution: melted butter
- 1 cup sour cream substitution: plain greek yogurt
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
- Wash and grate two small zucchinis.
- Remove excess water using a dry clean tea towel. Place the grated zucchini in the center of a towel, fold the towel in half over the zucchini and wring out the excess water.
- Add the zucchini to the flour mixture and toss to ensure the zucchini is well coated.
- Stir in the chopped pecans.
- In a medium mixing bowl, beat eggs.
- Whisk in oil, sour cream and vanilla until smooth and well combined.
- Fold the egg mixture into the flour mixture. Stir until well combined (the batter will seem thick, but not to worry, these muffins will turn out super moist).
- Spoon into parchment-lined muffin tins and bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes — until golden and a fork comes out clean.
Notes
Hi..awesome recipe..The first time i come across your site.. i liked it ..i am subscribing ti your newsletter..also following you on Twitter..and Instagram..regarding the recipe i like to try it but we do not have at all sour cream in our market ,,Hoe i can replace it ..Thank you
Hi! Thanks so much for following! Re the substitution, plain greek yogurt (any percentage) would work well! Hope this helps! Bri
Delicious recipe! I used Greek yogurt and it turned out great. Next time I may reduce sugar a bit as they are pretty sweet.
Thanks Hilary! Glad they were enjoyed! xo
Hi Bri. This recipe is delicious and easy. My 20-something sons thought the muffins were way better than my usual healthier recipe. I’m definitely adding this to the regular rotation during zucchini season. Can’t wait to try some of your other recipes.
I made these muffins today and they were wonderful! Nice and moist. I followed your recipe exactly, except did not have a full cup of pecans. But none-the-less, they are very tasty!
Thanks for sharing your recipe !
Thanks Donna! So happy you enjoyed them! xoxo
Hi Bri. This recipe is delicious and easy. My 20-something sons thought the muffins were way better than my usual healthier recipe. I’m definitely adding this to the regular rotation during zucchini season. Can’t wait to try some of your other recipes.
These muffins are delicious and moist! I took your recommendation to use 1/2 cup brown sugar and they are just sweet enough. I will definitely make this recipe again – I may add raisins or a little nutmeg next time. Thanks for the great recipe!
Made these yesterday and wow!delicious, moist, not too dense, I used only 1/2 cup of maple sugar and followed the rest of recipe as shown. Will definitely be making these again! Thanks for your recipe 👩🍳
Hello, made these zucchini muffins today,
and I must admit, these are the BEST!!!!!!
I used Greek yogurt(plain) and pecans. Oh my goodness, sooooo delish. Definitely my absolute go to for my favorite muffin.
Thank you, thank you thank you!!!!!!!!!