Apple Zucchini Muffins
Updated October 15, 2024
Quick Summary
Apple Zucchini Muffins-these healthy whole wheat zucchini muffins are easy to make, popular with kids and adults and use up that summer zucchini! They freeze well too!
Whenever I have too much garden zucchini on my counter, I love making zucchini muffins. I also love these Apple Zucchini muffins because you get a fruit and a vegetable in ONE mufifn.
I wanted the muffins to be on the somewhat healthy side so we used whole wheat flour, applesauce, and zucchini. The applesauce and zucchini keep the muffins super moist without adding fat. There is a little bit of oil, but not much.
The muffins also have cinnamon, allspice, and chunks of apples. Before baking, we sprinkled the muffins with cinnamon and sugar, which gave the muffins a sweet and pretty crust!
These muffins make a great grab and go breakfast or snack.
How to Make Healthy Zucchini Muffins
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a muffin pan with paper liners or spray with cooking spray. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and all-spice. In a small bowl, whisk together buttermilk, applesauce, oil, egg, and vanilla extract. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon or spatula until just combined. Do not over mix. Gently stir in the grated apple, zucchini, and chopped apples.
- To make the topping, combine turbinado sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Stir well.
- Fill the prepared muffin pan with muffin batter, filling each cup about ¾ the way full. Sprinkle each muffin with cinnamon sugar topping. Bake for 20 minutes, or until muffins are golden and a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let muffins cool to room temperature and serve.
How to Store
- Store the muffins covered on the counter for up to 3 days.
- The zucchini muffins freeze beautifully! Let the muffins cool completely and store in a freezer bag or freezer container for up to 3 months. Thaw and enjoy!
Looking for more zucchini recipes? Check out our favorite zucchini recipes here. You might also like these zucchini recipes:
- Zucchini Banana Blueberry Muffins
- Zucchini Bread
- Lemon Zucchini Bread
- Chocolate Zucchini Bread
- Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread
More Muffin Recipes
- Banana Muffins
- Best Blueberry Muffins
- Chocolate Chip Muffins
- Healthy Pumpkin Muffins
- Strawberry Muffins
- Zucchini Muffins
- Pumpkin Zucchini Muffins
Apple Zucchini Muffins
Ingredients
For the Muffins:
- 2 1/4 cups white whole wheat flour
- 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1 tablespoon oil melted coconut oil, canola oil, or vegetable oil
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup grated apple I use Granny Smith
- 1/2 cup grated zucchini moisture slightly squeezed out
- 1 cup chopped peeled apple I use Granny Smith
For the Topping:
- 2 tablespoons turbinado sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a muffin pan with paper liners or spray with cooking spray. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and all-spice. In a small bowl, whisk together buttermilk, applesauce, oil, egg, and vanilla extract. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon or spatula until just combined. Do not over mix. Gently stir in the grated apple, zucchini, and chopped apples.
- To make the topping, combine turbinado sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Stir well.
- Fill the prepared muffin pan with muffin batter, filling each cup about ¾ the way full. Sprinkle each muffin with cinnamon sugar topping. Bake for 20 minutes, or until muffins are golden and a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let muffins cool to room temperature and serve.
- Note-these muffins freeze well.
Have you tried this recipe?
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I love apples and muffins. Thanks for sharing this recipe!
I really love your recipe! I made zucchini Muffins yesterday and my kid just loved it. Thanks for sharing! keeping sharing more recipes
These are one of my son’s favorite muffins. I like to make a double batch and put them in the freezer so I always have a quick snack to send to school. (I skip the cinnamon topping to cut down on crumbs at his desk) Just put one in a covered container in the fridge the night before, then drop into his backpack for his mid morning snack. He always asks for these!
This recipe looks so delish and a great way to get kids to eat veggies! I’d love to try it, but I don’t consume dairy milk. Can I use almond milk in place of the buttermilk?
Yes! Enjoy!
What substitute can you use for the allspice? Was about to make and don’t have it!
You can leave it out if you don’t have it. They will still be good!
What can you substitute for turbinato sugar as I have none
You can just omit it or use cinnamon and sugar!
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I made these today love the recipe the only thing I didn’t like is they stuck to the paper
You can spray the paper liners with nonstick cooking spray to make sure they don’t stick!
I use a silicone muffin, not spray and no sticking love it.
Can I sub regular whole wheat flour for the “white whole wheat flour?”
Sure!
I wasn’t sure how these would turn out since I didn’t have buttermilk on hand, but I replaced it with a cup of plain Greek yogurt and they were a huge hit with my toddlers and hubby! Love how wholesome they are and the combo of grated and diced apple pairs well with the zucchini!! Will definitely be making these again 🙂
A recipe that uses just a half cup of zucchini doesn’t begin to touch my supply of zucchini that needs to be used up before it all goes to waste! But the muffins sound delicious. I may try it next time I have Granny Smith apples that need to be used up
Can this be made into a loaf?
Sure! You will need to bake it for longer.
I love the muffins but do you have the nutritional facts for this?
Why not just buy a few Granny Smiths now and get started. They freeze really well.
Can I use regular all-purpose flour. I would hate to buy a bag of wheat flour for one recipe?
Yes!
What about making this gluten free? Can I use the 1:1 gluten free flour for the whole wheat flour?
yes!
Love your recipes! Glad you’ve finally got power!
Wondering if I can substitute anything for the applesauce, haven’t got any at the moment and can’t get to the store – hello newborn life 🙂
Thanks!
Thanks! You can use 1/4 cup melted butter or oil if you don’t have applesauce. Possibly 1/4 cup mashed banana but the flavor will be a little different.
Can I use non-dairy milk such as almond instead of buttermilk?
Yes! Enjoy!
These were amazing! My toddler devoured them. I used regular ww flour and they had that wonderfully rich, nutty taste. Will make again and again!
This recipe looks great. Can I substitute the brown sugar for honey or anything else to make it more healthy?
Sure, honey should work. The texture might be a little different.
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Do you think non dairy milk can be used in this recipe?
Thank you!
These look so appealing. But I did wonder about the low quantity of fat (1 T.). Despite just folding the wet and dry ingredients together and not overmixing, my muffins were heavy and went gummy within a couple of hours. To be relatively healthy, I guess some textural issues are hard to avoid. They tasted good though.
How many calories are in these muffins? They are so delicious and my kids love them, but curious as to the nutrition details. Thanks
I count calories. The whole recipe is about b2200 calories so divide 2200 by the number of muffins. I got 17 muffins. I also cut sugar by 2T so shaved a few calories.
Great recipe. I did reduce sugar to about 10 T from 12T. . great texture and taste. Used GrannyvSmith.
I tried them today for iftar desert.They were delicious.For sure I will cook them again.Faliminderit shume.Well don!
I made these muffins today to use up some surplus of zucchini we have from our garden right now and all I can say is WOW!!! They are so good! Both my kids 8 and 15 loved them. These will be a regular in our house! I followed the recipe exactly.
Delicious! A little like a fairly dense apple cake. Mine got sticky on top, but probably because I had to transport them with a lid before they cooled completely. I can’t wait ’til the second batch gets out of the oven!
These zucchini apple cinnamon muffins were VERY DELICIOUS. I was searching for zucchini ideas to preserve as much as possible when I ran across this recipe. I made a single batch and everyone snatched them up quick before they were even cooled enough.
Since they were a huge hit I decided to get back in the kitchen and made a triple batch so I could freeze them for when someone comes over or for a quick snack or even for breakfast on the go.
The only thing I did different is add more cinnamon and allspice for extra flavor.
THIS is a keeper for sure!
This recipe looks amazing but, I have one question my kiddo is someone who doesn’t like allt of texture and I’m worried the apple would give it a crunch, I was wondering if I could not put the apples in or if I could boil them like a apple pie filling and just put little dollops on to each muffin before baking. thank you so much in advance!
I have cinnamon applesauce on hand, can I use that instead of unsweetened?
Yes!
This recipe is fantastic!! I didn’t have buttermilk. So I made my own. Shocked to say the least that it worked out.
This recipe is a keeper!
We’ve made the apple zucchini muffins multiple times. We got a huge zucchini from a neighbor but today when I was ready to bake it was 107 outside…no way am I turning on my oven as it makes the entire house hot. So I made the batter and we made waffles instead. AMAZING!!! Even my picky son liked them!
Oooh, I love the waffle idea. Thanks for sharing!
Hi,
Just made the recipe with a mini muffin pan for my toddler…each one deflated in the middle. I used agave instead of brown sugar (didn’t have any), almond flour and Greek yogurt instead of buttermilk. Any thoughts as to what could happened? Did I mix too much? I tried to lightly do each step. Thanks!
You changed a lot of the ingredients so that is why the recipe didn’t turn out. I haven’t tested the recipe with the ingredients you listed.
I substituted buttermilk with a cup of Greek yogurt as someone suggested below as I didn’t have Greek yogurt and the batter seemed really dry. So then I added a couple splashes of milk. I made mini cupcakes and baked them for 16 minutes.
They came out quite dense and stuck to the liners. Not sure where I went wrong.
Thanks in advance for your feedback!