Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread – A Couple Cooks

This chocolate chip zucchini bread is moist and soft, with rich sweet chips in each bite! This easy recipe impresses everyone.

Got zucchini? Here’s a tasty, simple way to use up this abundant green vegetable: chocolate chip zucchini bread! The loaf is soft and moist, with just the right cinnamon spiced sweetness. The best part is a generous sprinkling of chocolate chips so you get one in every bite! Welcome to your favorite new baking project (though if you’re a choco-holic you should also consider this double chocolate zucchini bread too!).

Ingredients in chocolate chip zucchini bread

This zucchini bread with chocolate chips is based on our classic zucchini bread recipe: sweet, moist, and cinnamon-spiced. If you’ve got zucchini and chocolate, the remaining ingredients you might already have on hand in your pantry and refrigerator. This recipe is unique because it uses both butter and oil for the most tender crumb, and both brown sugar and white sugar for a nuanced caramel sweetness. Here are the ingredients for chocolate chip zucchini bread:

• Zucchini
• Chocolate chips
• All-purpose flour
• Unsalted butter
• Neutral oil
• Brown sugar and granulated sugar
• Eggs
• Milk
• Vanilla extract
• Baking powder and baking soda
• Cinnamon
• Salt

Tips for baking chocolate chip zucchini bread

Chocolate chip zucchini bread is quick and simple to whip up! There are a few tips that will lead to the best results. Here’s what to know:

• Use an aluminum baking pan for best results. Ceramic and glass pans don’t cook as evenly for quick breads. Use aluminum if you can! We recommend a 9-inch loaf pan, but you can use an 8-inch pan too: just increase the bake time slightly.
• Bake until just set and the top springs back. Overbaking makes for a dry bread. Pull the bread just when the top is set, about 60 to 65 minutes (the internal temperature should be between 200°F and 205°F). With a chocolate chip bread, it’s hard to tell when inserting a toothpick because the chocolate chips can melt onto the toothpick, looking like the bread isn’t done! A toothpick inserted should have only a few clinging crumbs.

A few special notes on cooling

Topping zucchini bread with chocolate chips makes for a nice look. The only drawback? The chips take quite a while to cool and re-solidify! Allow 2 to 3 hours for the bread to cool in the pan. This is important because when you remove the bread from the pan, the warm chips can get very messy.

If you’d like, you can omit the chocolate chips from the top. This allows you to remove it from the pan sooner and you can eat it warm! Otherwise, cool it in the pan for 2 to 3 hours before attempting to remove it. Don’t want to wait? Turn it into zucchini muffins instead (follow the instructions in the linked recipe).

Variation: try chocolate zucchini bread

Want a fun variation on chocolate chip zucchini bread? Try double chocolate zucchini bread! This is our favorite spin because it makes the most delicious, rich chocolate cake layer to pair with the chocolaty chips. Try it and you won’t go back! You can also make them as chocolate zucchini muffins.

Turn it into muffins!

You can also turn this zucchini chocolate chip bread into muffins to make for a quicker bake time and to shorten the cooling time. Simply do the following:

• Scoop the batter evenly into the muffin cups, using about a heaping ¼ cup per muffin. Sprinkle another handful chocolate chips onto the tops of the muffins.
• Bake until the tops are set, rotating the pans halfway through the baking, about 20 to 26 minutes total.
• Allow to cool for 5 minutes, then transfer to a baking rack to fully cool (about 30 minutes to 1 hour). 

Storage info

How to store zucchini chocolate chip bread? This recipe works well made in advance, though it has great flavor the day of baking. It picks up more moisture during storage, so it tastes even more moist and delicious! Here’s how to store it:

• Room temperature (up to 3 days): If you think you’ll eat the bread quickly, store it at room temperature and cover it with aluminum foil.
• Refrigerated (1 week): Refrigerating the bread helps it to stay fresher longer. Eat it cold, or let it come to room temperature before serving.
• Frozen (up to 3 months): To extend the life even further, pop your sliced bread into the freezer in a sealed container. It can last at least 3 months this way.

More zucchini recipes

Got more zucchini to use up? Here are a few great zucchini recipes to try: