Make delicious Lemon Zucchini Bread with this easy recipe that comes together in one bowl! Traditional zucchini bread gets an upgrade with the addition of fresh lemon to make a delicious treat everyone will love!
Imagine if a lemon cake and a loaf of zucchini bread had a baby. Now, no need to imagine. What you’d get is this Lemon Zucchini Bread! And boy is the baby a beaut!
Zucchini bread is a favorite of mine during zucchini season. If you have not tried my favorite one bowl recipe for Zucchini Bread, I highly recommend giving it a try. This classic quick bread recipe has a subtle, delicious flavour from cinnamon and brown sugar and you don’t actually taste the zucchini!
This lemony version is a completely different animal. While I used my zucchini bread recipe as the base, I married it with aspects of my lemon cake recipe.
While it boasts the same moist texture and you also don’t really taste any zucchini, what you do taste in this recipe is the lemon! And if you are a lemon-loving foodie like me, then you will love this quick bread!
Ingredients in Lemon Zucchini Bread
- Zucchini: shredded and with as much water wrung out as you possible.
- Flour: all purpose, whole wheat pastry flour or a combo of both.
- Sugar: You can also use coconut sugar.
- Baking soda: Used as a leavener.
- Salt: Adding salt to baked goods enhances the flavor.
- Eggs
- Vegetable oil: or another neutral-tasting oil.
- Lemon: juice and zest.
- Vanilla extract
**Note: Recipe quantities and complete instructions are in the recipe card at the end of this post.**
How to make Lemon Zucchini Bread
- Place shredded zucchini in a cheese cloth or clean dish towel and squeeze out excess water. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, add the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt and mix together.
- Add the eggs, oil, fresh lemon juice, vanilla extract and lemon zest and mix everything together until well incorporated. Add the shredded zucchini and stir until incorporated.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake in the oven for about 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean.
- Let the bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the edges and gently remove from the pan. Allow it to cool completely on a cooling rack.
How to make a simple lemon glaze
In a bowl, whisk the icing sugar and lemon juice together to create a glaze. Pour over the cake.
I like to also sprinkle the cake with lemon zest. If you do this right after icing the cake, the glaze will help it stick to the cake.
Tips for making the best Lemon Zucchini Bread
- If you have one, use a food processor to shred your zucchini. This is not essential at all and you can absolutely use a hand grater to do the job, but personally, I LOVE using my food processor and you really can’t beat shredding your zucchini in just seconds. Seconds!
- Squeeze out as much water from your zucchini as you can! In order to ensure the center of the bread bakes up before the outside burns, you are going to want to make sure all that extra moisture from the zucchini doesn’t leach out into your batter and make it too wet. Place the shredded zucchini in a cheese cloth or, alternatively, you can use a clean dish towel or paper towels (double them up to make sure they don’t rip). Then squeeze out as much moisture as you can.
- Use a toothpick to check that the center is set. Oven cooking times vary and so your best bet is to test the doneness of your bread by using a toothpick. If the toothpick comes out clean, the zucchini bread is ready. If it comes out with batter stuck to it, well, that means it needs to bake longer.
- Use parchment or make sure you grease your loaf pan well. I personally prefer using parchment to ensure their is no sticking but its up to you. If you are greasing your loaf pan, be sure to do it well. You can do this with either oil or butter.
- Double the icing recipe to completely cover the cake if you prefer. To be honest, I like it drizzled the way it is, but if you want more icing, you can double the recipe. The icing is lemony in flavour though, so if you double it, you may want to replace half of the liquid with milk (or a milk alternative if you want to keep this dairy-free) so that the lemon flavour isn’t too overpowering.
How to store lemon zucchini bread
Once cooled, zucchini bread can be transferred to an airtight container or simply set on a plate and covered with plastic wrap and stored in the fridge. While short-term storage at room temperature is usually okay with zucchini bread, since the zucchini adds a lot of moisture to the bread, it is safest to store it in the fridge to prevent molding.
Can you freeze zucchini bread?
Yes, this zucchini bread can be frozen for future eats. To freeze it, allow it to cool completely and then carefully wrap it in plastic food wrap. You can wrap the entire loaf or slice it and wrap individual slices so that you can thaw out smaller portions when you want them. Once wrapped in plastic wrap, I like to place it in a freezer bag or a freezer safe container. This will help prevent freezer burn.
I hope you enjoy this recipe!
-Cathy
You may also like:
Zucchini Bread
Chocolate Zucchini Bread
Blueberry Zucchini Muffins
Chocolate Chip Zucchini Muffins
Lemon Zucchini Bread
Ingredients
Lemon Zucchini Bread
- 2 cups zucchini shredded
- 2 cup flour (all purpose, whole wheat or a combo of both)
- 1 3/4 cups sugar or coconut sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 large eggs
- 3/4 cup vegetable oil
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice fresh
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- zest of 1 lemon
Lemon Glaze
- 1/2 cup icing sugar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice fresh (or as much as needed to reach the right consistency)
- 2 tablespoons lemon zest
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F and grease a standard loaf pan with butter or line it with parchment paper.
- Place shredded zucchini in a cheese cloth or clean dish towel and squeeze out excess water. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, add the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt and mix together.
- Add the eggs, oil, fresh lemon juice, vanilla extract and lemon zest and mix everything together until well incorporated. Add the shredded zucchini and stir until incorporated.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake in the oven for about 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean.
- Let the bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the edges and gently remove from the pan. Allow it to cool completely on a cooling rack.
- In a bowl, whisk the icing sugar and lemon juice together to create a glaze. Pour over the cake. Sprinkle with lemon zest.
Note: Metric ingredient measurements are provided as a courtesy using a third-party calculator and are rounded to the nearest unit. The recipes provided on this site have not been tested with metric measurements and their accuracy cannot be verified.
Nutrition
The nutritional information provided is based on third-party calculations and is an estimate only. Accurate nutritional facts will vary based on the particular brands used, portion sizes, measurement accuracy and more.