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Lemon Zucchini Bread Recipe

Our light, moist lemon zucchini bread is a delicious quick bread that combines fresh lemon, zucchini, and coconut oil for a flavorful snack that makes a perfect summer time treat.

This lemon bread recipe is great for an afternoon snack, brunch table, or party tray. The optional sweet lemon glaze livens the flavor and adds that extra flair that brings it into the dessert realm.

Quick breads are some of our very favorite recipes and we have a large selection on the blog. Zucchini is also one of our favorite veggies to cook with, and we have everything from cakes, savory casseroles, frosted zucchini cookies, and muffins that incorporate this versatile squash.

Lemon Zucchini Bread 1
Light lemon zucchini bread

Do you leave the skin on zucchini when you bake with it?

Yes, most often the skin stays on the zucchini and gets baked right into the recipe. Zucchini is a squash, and like most squash the skin is very soft and won’t be noticeable when it is cooked. It also adds beautiful color to your zucchini breads with bits of green flecks that will bring flavor and texture.

To prepare zucchini for bread, it will be washed and grated into thin shreds. You can mince it smaller if you prefer a less noticeable presence to your cake or bread.

Can you use frozen zucchini for bread?

Yes, using previously prepared and frozen zucchini can be used for various recipes including breads. If you are looking for some simple methods to freeze zucchini, we have a post that shares our tried and true strategies.

Fresh zucchini will be better, so if you can we suggest growing it, sourcing it from a local farmers market, or grabbing some from a gardener friend. But, if only have frozen on hand it can definitely be used for breads and will still yield a scrumptious loaf.

Lemon Zucchini Bread Recipe Notes

This lemon zucchini bread recipes uses cornstarch to help hold the crumb together, so it cuts very clean and presents well on party trays. If you choose to make the lemon zucchini bread glaze it brings added sweetness and a bright lemon bite to the loaf that we find divine.

The glaze is totally optional though, and this recipe is still so tasty without it.

Preparation

These are small things that we suggest to make the preparation easier, and bring the level of the bread up just a bit. It will not ruin the bread if you skip them however, each of these steps has a purpose.

  • Grate the zest off the lemon. In a small bowl combine the lemon zest and sugar and mix well. Set aside.
  • Add juice of the lemon to the milk in a separate small bowl. Let stand.
  • In a large bowl sift the flour, cornstarch and baking powder together. Set aside.
  • Zucchini must be shredded and drained of water for a truly light loaf.
Lemon Zucchini Bread
This time we used Golden zucchini for our zucchini lemon bread recipe

The crumb of our lemon zucchini loaf is light and cake like compared to some heavier zucchini breads. This is due to the process of removing as much of the liquid as possible.

Every time you make this bread the zucchini will determine how moist and heavy your recipe is. However, you can adjust the heaviness of the recipe by taking out unneeded extra zucchini juice.

The type of loaf pan can also affect the bake of the bread. We love non stick pans because they insult and protect the bread from burning along the bottom.

Lemon Zucchini Bread

Your Printable Recipe Card

Zucchini Lemon Loaf
Yield: 2 loaves-24 slices

Lemon Zucchini Bread Recipe

Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Light, moist lemon zucchini bread is a nice variation on the standard zucchini bread. Lemon bread with a lemon glaze for an added pop of sweet flavor. It's perfect for breakfast, lunch box, parties or after school snacks.  

Ingredients

Bread ingredients:

  • 3 1/3 Cup all purpose flour
  • 2/3 cup corn starch
  • 4 tsp. Baking powder
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 Cup coconut oil (softened to almost liquid)
  • 2 2/3 Cup sugar
  • 1 whole large lemon (you will need the zest and the juice)
  • 1 Cup milk
  • 2 Cups Zucchini

For the optional Glaze:

  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 2 TB lemon juice
  • 1 TB milk

Instructions

  1. Preparation:
  2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  3. Prepare zucchini by grating it.Shredding Zucchini
  4. and tossing it in a bowl with one tsp. salt.Tossing Shredded Zucchini With Sugar
  5. Let sit about 30 minutes until water is released. Squeeze the zucchini to release some of the juices. You need to be a bit discerning here. Some zucchini is dryer than others.Squeezing Juices Out Of Zucchini
  6. Oil two 9 x 5 loaf pans or two twelve hole muffin tins
  7. Grate the zest off the lemon.Zesting A Lemon
  8. In a small bowl combine the lemon zest and sugar and mix well. Set aside.Lemon Zest And Sugar In A Clear Bowl
  9. Add juice of the lemon to the milk in a separate small bowl. Let stand. (The milk curdles like buttermilk).
  10. In a large bowl Sift the flour, cornstarch and baking powder together. Set aside.Pouring Dry Ingredients Into Bowl

Make the batter:

  1. In a large mixing bowl mix together the eggs and coconut oil with a large whisk or electric mixer. Whisking Eggs
  2. Add the lemon zest infused sugar and whisk until thick and pale lemon color.Whisking Lemon Zucchini Bread Batter
  3. Pour in the lemon milk.Adding Curdled Milk
  4. Add in sifted dry ingredients slowly.Sifting Dry Ingredients
  5. Mix until just blended.Stirring Batter-Lemon Zucchini Bread
  6. Fold in zucchini.Mixing Batter

Baking and cooling Instructions:

  1. Pour the batter into the greased loaf pansEvenly Pour Batter Into Oiled Bread Pans
  2. Bake 60 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from heatLemon Zucchini Bread
  3. Cool on rack for ten minutes and then invert the pans to release the bread.
  4. Thoroughly cool the loaves on the rack and then glaze with the lemon glaze if desired.

For the glaze:

  1. Whisk together the ingredients as listed. Adjust the liquid to make the glaze your desired consistency.
  2. The glaze may be spooned on, poured on or drizzled. To drizzle the glaze put the glaze in a sandwich bag a with a teeny hole cut in the corner so you can better control the glaze if desired.Lemon Zucchini Bread

Notes

Tips For best Results:

Grate the zest off the lemon. In a small bowl combine the lemon zest and sugar and mix well. Let sit to blend the lemon flavor into the sugar.
Add juice of the lemon to the milk in a separate small bowl. Let stand five minutes or more. (The milk curdles like buttermilk).
Zucchini must be shredded and drained of its water for a truly light loaf. Follow the instructions above!

  • Use tender, ripe, fresh zucchini
  • Cut out the seeds and grate it.
  • Frozen grated zucchini can also be used if thoroughly drained.

If your Zucchini breads tend to be heavy:

Make a lighter loaf this way:

    • Beat together the eggs, sugar and oil until they are pale and thick like yellow cake batter.
      This step improves the texture and flavor of the loaf. Just follow the recipe instructions and your loaf will have a light lemon flavor and delicious texture.

Loaf Removal TIP: If the bread sticks to the pans after cooling 10 minutes run a knife around the sides of the loaf to release the bread form the bread pan. If the loaf still sticks on the bottom use a spatula to slide under the loaf to release it.

For Muffins:


This recipe makes about 24 muffins. Bake muffins 20 minutes at 350 degrees F. They are done properly when a toothpick inserted into the middle of the muffin comes out clean.Zucchini Lemon Muffins

Cool ten minutes and then remove from tins to cooling racks until room temperature.

Freezing Instructions:

  • Freeze without the glaze after the bread is cooled completely.
  • Wrap the bread in foil (or plastic wrap)
  • Wrap the foil in tightly in plastic wrap, a plastic grocery bag or heavy ziplock freezer bags for long term freezing. (over two months)Zucchini Bread Ready To Go Into The Freezer

Nutrition Information

Yield

24

Serving Size

1

Amount Per Serving Calories 283Total Fat 10gSaturated Fat 8gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 1gCholesterol 32mgSodium 101mgCarbohydrates 45gFiber 1gSugar 27gProtein 3g

Did you make this recipe?

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More Zucchini Inspired Recipes

After you have made this lemon zucchini bread, be sure to check out these recipes for more scrumptious and creative ways to use zucchini.

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Recipe Adapted from: Lilluna.com

Suzanne Habbershaw

Tuesday 30th of July 2019

I tried this recipe yesterday with great expectations - I love anything lemon and love the rich and moist flavor of traditional zucchini bread. Sadly, the result was not very lemony and din't have enough zucchini to give it a robust zucchini bread look or taste. Unfortunately, not a keeper.

Diane

Tuesday 30th of July 2019

Hi Suzanne, I'm sorry this recipe did not meet your expectations. Thank you for taking the time to comment for us. I will remake this recipe and give it the taste test again. I will certainly adjust the recipe if necessary and let you know if I think you'll appreciate the update. As you know zucchini changes throughout the season and we use garden grown zucchini so that may account for the zucchini flavor. For more lemon flavor I recommend more lemon zest. maybe double it? All the best and have a great day.

April J Harris

Tuesday 8th of September 2015

Your Zucchini Lemon Loaf sounds delicious, Diane. I really like the addition of the lemon! Stumbled and shared. Thank you so much for being a part of the Hearth and Soul hop.

Debra @ Bowl Me Over

Friday 28th of August 2015

Boy does this look yummy! I'm so glad you made the party and came over to share at #TryaBiteTuesday! What a delicious treat!! Pinned & shared!!

homemadefoodjunkie

Friday 28th of August 2015

Me too Debra! So many fun posts to enjoy at your party! Thank you for sharing!

Dini

Thursday 27th of August 2015

I love that you added lemon to the zucchini loaf! I can imagine that they would have smelled amazing! :D Plus it qualifies as veggies - so a big slice will be part of my 5 plus a day? :) Thank you for sharing this with us at #saucysaturdays!

homemadefoodjunkie

Thursday 27th of August 2015

Absolutely Dini. Enjoy!

jennifer

Tuesday 25th of August 2015

I could eat a dozen of these and not feel guilty because they have veggies in them!!

homemadefoodjunkie

Tuesday 25th of August 2015

HaHa!, Jennifer. Exactly!

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