These easy zucchini brownies come out rich and chocolatey and stay moist for days (although they don’t last that long in my house). They’re topped with a quick and easy homemade 1 minute frosting for a perfect dessert!
Every year I end up with tons of zucchini which is great for me because I really love it! It’s perfect grilled on it’s own or breaded to make oven baked zucchini fries but I do think it’s especially good in baking. It just adds so much moisture and it seems that baked items with zucchini are even BETTER the next day!
These brownies are super moist and delicious… and you’d never know they have zucchini in them (nor will your kids)! They are rich and chocolatey and just perfectly delicious! Of course these Zucchini Brownies are great the day they’re made but they’re even better on the second day.
One thing you need to know about this recipe is that when you get the flour/sugar combined… just before you add the zucchini the consistency will seem quite dry. Don’t worry, this is expected. Stir in the zucchini and your batter will moisten and as the batter bakes the zucchini releases moisture keeping these brownies amazing. You’ll want to make sure you don’t squeeze or drain your zucchini, you want all of the moisture in there (and no peeling required either)!
I top this with a 1 Minute Frosting recipe that I’ve been using for years! It works perfectly on any cake or brownie recipe that is contained in a pan and requires just a few ingredients you likely already have on hand!
Items you’ll need for this recipe:
* Vanilla Extract * Zucchini * 9 x 13 pan *
Zucchini Brownies with 1 minute Frosting!
Ingredients
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 1 ½ cups white sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 egg
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 ½ cups grated zucchini undrained (about one large)
1 Minute Frosting
- ⅓ cup milk
- ⅓ cup butter
- 1 ½ cups white sugar
- 1 cup chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Grease and flour a 9×13 pan.
- Combine oil, sugar, egg and vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder and baking soda. Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture and stir well. (It will appear quite dry). Gently stir in the zucchini and spread the mixture into your prepared pan.
- Bake 25-30 minutes.
1 Minute Frosting
- While cake is cooling, combine butter, milk and sugar in a small pan. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Allow to boil vigorously for 30 seconds. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate chips. Immediately pour over warm brownies. Let cool completely before cutting.
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
Here are some more recipes you’ll love
Lemon Zucchini Cupcakes
Pumpkin Zucchini Bread with Cream Cheese Glaze
And a couple of zucchini recipes from my friends you’re going to want to check out!
- Zucchini Muffins from Crazy for Crust
- Zucchini Cream Cheese Muffins from Wine & Glue
- Blueberry Banana Zucchini Bread from Averie Cooks
Thank you.
You are very welcome Carolyn!
My end result was something like a cross between a very moist/fudgy cake and brownie- DELICIOUS! Added chocolate chips and they are wonderful- great way to sneak some veggies in, even for the most picky eaters! My 2 and 3 year old loved them, as did my 80 year old grandparents. YUM! Very good dessert… or, if you live in this house, breakfast :)
Yay! So happy to hear your entire family loved it Amanda! Nothing wrong with a little zucchini for breakfast ;)
Doesn’t anybody else feel that this recipe needs salt? Using oil instead of salted butter leaves the entire batch without any salt and to me they taste flat. With 1t. of salt, I think it would be amazing.
We love this recipe as is Diana, but you can definitely add salt! Let us know how it turns out if you do.
I added 1/2 tsp salt to my batter as salt really brings out the sweetness (crazy, but true)
Delicious, I used almond flour instead of flour and Splenda in place of sugar for a diabetic recipe. I also used dark chocolate chips. I can wait to make it again.
Thanks for sharing your tips to make it diabetic friendly Dawn! I am so glad you enjoyed the brownies!
How much splenda did you use ? I am diabetic and these look so good
I have a lot of zucchini round slices left over and want to make something like your brownies, but the recipe calls for grated zucchini. Can I just cut them up really fine, or put them in a blender?
Eleanor, maybe try chopping them in your food processor for just a few seconds? I hope this helps.
I would just like to say that I bake a lot and after making these they turned out perfect !!!
Baking does not have to suggest healthy and nor does the recipe suggest eating the whole pan in a sitting.
This is where portion control comes into play.
I’m writing all this because one of the post written annoyed me. People are supposed to be polite and not ignorant when commenting on these recipes.
I think people need to remember that when you send a email it expresses tone so watch how things are said.
This recipe was wonderfully moist and I will definitely make it my go to.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful experience. ❤️
I’m so glad you enjoyed these brownies as much as my family did!
These look delicious, but, can you really NOT see any shredded zucchini in these brownies? I only ask because my precious little granddaughters insist that they despise zucchini in all and every form. They both have an uncanny ability to spot a shred of green from across the kitchen and down the hall … :) (I’m going to make them, anyway!)
I suppose if you wanted to be absolutely certain of no green, you could peel them… Good luck Chris!
So you don’t drain the zucchini at all?
You’ll want to make sure you don’t squeeze or drain your zucchini, you want all of the moisture in there (and no peeling required either)!
Thanks! Making them tonight
I made these gluten free with 1×1 gluten free flour from Bob’s Red Mill and they are very good.
Do you use semi-sweer chocolate chips or milk chocolate? Sounds amazing!
I use semi-sweet chocolate chips.
So I made these today and thought the batter was too dry, so I added another egg. I ended up with cake like brownies. Also, I didn’t have zucchini, so I used apples. Soooo, I my final product was a cake like brownie/apple with frosting to die for! Thanks for the recipe! It turned out delicious, even with a spin.
Yes, sometimes adjustments make amazing dishes! So glad it turned out so well for you Rita :)
My rule of thumb for a new recipe is to make exactly as directions say. Then if I want to try something different then I make changes. I need that baseline.
Can you use almond or coconut flour?
I have only tried the recipe as written. Let us know if you try the other flours Heidi!
I made this with complete success. Followed it exactly and it was the gooey-est, fudgiest, most decadent dessert. If you really looked closely you could see the bits of green but otherwise the zucchini was undetectable. Would highly recommend this ridiculously good recipe when you need to get rid of the jungle of zucc’s in your garden. Excellent recipe!
Tis the season for these brownies! So glad you loved them!
Thank you so much for the great recipe. I followed the recipe exactly the first time I made them and they were delicious. I just made them again with a little peanut butter in the icing and it was great that way too.
You’re so welcome Lisa, I’m happy that you love them!
Great dessert and quick to make . My brownies were moist .
Really no salt at all?
Amazing! These turned out so moist and delicious. I followed the directions exactly and the results couldn’t have been more perfect. The frosting was to die for. Thank you for sharing your rexipe. I will be making these again for sure.
So glad you liked it!
I used warmed coconut oil as a vegetable oil replacement (something I have done successfully with many other recipes), I found the batter was extremely dry. I had to use my hands to knead the dough, it’s like a dry pie dough. I continued with the recipe as is and pressed the dough into the dish. They baked just fine but I could taste the baking soda (even though I shifted the dry ingredients together before adding it to the wet mix). I found another recipe online that was almost exactly the same except that it called for 1 1/2 Tsp of Baking Soda and it didn’t have this “so-called” one minute frosting (more like 5 to be honest). The frosting is more like fudge, if it wasn’t for the fudge topping these would have been a complete waste. Just because you have mixed Zucchini with a total of 3 cups of sugar, almost a cup of fats and a cup of chocolate chips, doesn’t make this Healthy in anyway. Don’t fool yourself into thinking any brownie is Healthy. If you choice to proceed with this recipe, I suggest you cut the Fudge frosting recipe in half and cut down on the Baking Soda.
This recipe doesn’t make any claims to be “healthy”, it’s a dessert and it contains sugar and fat. Please keep in mind that making substitutions in recipes (especially baking) can alter both flavor and texture in a recipe. If you read over the comments, you’ll see that readers following the ingredients provided in the recipe seem to have good success with these brownies. I hope that helps.
Brownies where Bomb !!!
Glad to hear you loved the brownies Sharon!
wow – how rude.
I made these today and can’t wait to try them!
The batter threw me as it was so dry so I took my rings off and dug in with my hands and then it came together perfectly!
I’m glad you loved the brownies!