Chocolate Zucchini Paleo Muffins
What to do when you have too many zucchini or summer squash hanging around in the fridge? Make muffins of course!
These muffins are a feel good treat that are perfect for your kid’s lunchbox. They are grain free and full of protein and healthy fat! The kids will be satisfied until their next lunch break or until home time.
6 test batches later, I think I have come up with a perfect recipe that is sweet, moist, with a light fluffy texture. They are a hit with all 3 of my kids and hubby too!
Chocolate Zucchini Paleo Muffins
Ingredients
1.5 cups shredded zucchini or summer squash
3tbsp Coconut Flour
3tbsp ground pepitas (raw pumpkin seeds)
¼ cup dairy free cocoa powder
½ tsp baking powder
Pinch of fine sea salt
1tsp cinnamon (optional)
2 large eggs
½ cup of pure maple syrup
½ cup sunflower seed butter or make your own (Sun-butter recipe)
Here is a muffin all dressed up for my daughters birthday:
These muffins look beautiful!! I want a bite!
Megan
Thank you Megan!!
These look SO rich!!
YUM I'd like to invite you to link it up at our Gluten Free Fridays recipe party that is going on right now! 
Hope you can join us!
Cindy
http://vegetarianmamma.com/glutenfreefridays-recipe-party-6/
These look beautiful! I really would like one right now!
Such a lovely recipe!
Featuring these this week, can't wait to make them!
Awesome!! Thank you Tessa
Hi, made these a few days ago with Irani Coconut flour and had deceiving result. I actually had them baked for about 60 min(after I strained the rest of my recipe) and they still looked and tasted uncooked. Making banana bread from (http://www.mygutsy.com/coconut-flour-banana-bread/) and I am having the same results.
I am not sure why that would happen, sorry. I have made these so many times without fail.
It’s not your fault. They are still delicious. Do you have a preferred coconut flour? I’m hoping to make more during the holidays.
I use This one
a lot, it is at my local grocery store
Could you use honey in place of the maple syrup? If so, how much would you recommend using?
I would say honey is sweeter than maple syrup, so I would say do 1/2 to start and then suit your taste.
Can you use almond butter in place of the sunflower seed butter?
Hi Michele. I think it will work fine! My brother actually made them that way with success. They will have a more almond taste, which isn’t a bad thing!
These look delicious! I can’t wait to try them for my toddler. Do you think I could use nuttelex instead of sunflower seed butter?
I am not sure it would work. Sunflower Seed butter is more like peanut butter or almond butter, not something made from oils or like cows milk butter or margarine.
Are the pumpkin seeds essential in this recipe or do you think I could sub another type of ground seed (such as sunflower seed)? Thanks!
yes I think any seed or nut would do!
I made the muffins with 2 cups summer squash, almond flour, 2 tablespoons flax meal, and almond butter. I greased the muffin pan with butter. They were moist, delicious, and reminiscent of brownies. My 20 year old daughter thinks they are great too! Thanks for coming up with this healthy and scrumptious treat.
Thank you so much liz for sharing your substitutions! I am so glad they worked out and everyone enjoyed them
Hi there! I found your site through a link on Holly Would if She Could’s page today. I’m so excited to try these!!!
Thanks for stopping over! I hope you enjoy them. Let me know
I love that these are chocolate so no one sees the green color from the sunflower butter and baking soda. I make these great sunbittern cookies but everyone is freaked out by the green. I don’t want the lemon and I think they are kinda cool looking!!!!! Thanks for posting these…. Can’t wait to bake a batch:)
Hi Misty!
Sunflower seeds are PH sensitive, they are more likely to react and change colour with baking soda than they are to baking powder. So I use powder instead…sometimes you need to reduce the amount of these 2 things to prevent them from turning green. I use sunflower seeds in almost all of my baking recipes. I also find adding lemon juice helps balance the PH issue and prevents them from turning green, that is why it is in the recipes! I hope that helps!
Let me know what you think if you make them
This looks fantastic, can’t wait to try it this weekend! Do you have a link for the icing you have on your dressed up one?
Hi Mel
I have not shared the icing recipe! I should…but it does contain icing sugar. We do a little sugar on birthdays. I usually just eyeball it. For chocolate I use about 1/3 cup coconut oil and 1/2 cup sunflower seed butter, cocoa powder, and sugar to taste/texture. For white I use coconut oil/coconut butter, vanilla and icing sugar to taste/consistency. I have a hard time using maple syrup as a sweetener in cake Icing to get it the consistency I need to use a piping bag and for it to stand up in heat (Travel to the party)
I just made this muffins this evening and I’m hooked; they are scrumptious!
Oh Thank you Sue! This made my day
In fact, I am making another batch this evening. Thank you for a wonderful recipe!
Yum, can’t wait to try these. What do you mean by “prepare a muffin pan”? Grease it? Or grease and “flour” it?
Do you have any trouble getting these out of the pan? Every GF or paleo baked good I’ve made so far has been moist and does not come out of the pan.
Thanks.
I grease or use muffin cups. No trouble at all getting them out. Let them cool first