Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

If you haven’t noticed…I am all about sneaky veggies. I put zucchini or spinach (or both) into SO.many.foods. I am also big into EASY, healthy breakfast recipes…especially ones that can be frozen, so you can bake once and eat them all week long. These Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins are the whole package. They are loaded with zucchini, full of fiber, rich in protein, and did I mention they’re double chocolate.

This is another recipe that deepens my love for my Vitamix. You can take oatmeal, zucchini and a bunch of other good-for-you ingredients and create muffins that are smooth, slightly sweet, and blissfully chocolatey. Below is a picture of what the batter looks like coming out of the Vitamix. Zucchini, where? Zucchini, who?

The homogeneous* nature of these Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins is especially important if you are going to share them with kids. Absolutely nothing gets past my crew. If there’s even the tiniest trace of zucchini my son will find it and exclaim, “what is THIS mom?” I can’t even put cilantro into tacos without my daughter grilling me until she is 125% sure that she’s eating an herb, NOT another leafy green vegetable that shall remain nameless.

These Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins are some of my kids faves. Using a combination of oat flour and almond meal makes them gluten-free! The addition of Greek yogurt ups the protein power! And a heaping two cups of zucchini means they’re delicious and nutritious.  Plus, you can earn serious coolness points by letting your kids eat chocolate for breakfast. #bossmom.

Print

Double Chocolate Zucchini Oat Muffins

Total Time 35 minutes

Servings 16 -18 muffins

Ingredients

• 2 cups old-fashioned oats
• ½ cup almond meal
• ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 cups shredded zucchini
• ¾ cup plain or vanilla Greek yogurt
• 1 very ripe banana
• ¼ cup coconut sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 TBS honey
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease two 12-cup muffin tins and set aside.
2. Add 2 cups of oats to your blender (Vitamix) and blend until ground into a fine flour. Remove from blender and put in a medium bowl.
3. Mix in dry ingredients (almond meal, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt) and set aside.
4. Add zucchini, Greek yogurt, coconut sugar, banana, honey and vanilla extract to your blender and blend until smooth.
5. Add dry ingredients and blend until combined.
6. Add your eggs and blend on low speed until just combined.
7. Mix in chocolate chips by hand (do not blend)!
8. Pour batter into prepared muffin pan, making sure each well is only 3/4 full.
9. Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes or until the tops are set and spring back when touched. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean or with very few crumbs.
10. Let sit in the muffin pan on a cooling rack for 5 minutes.
11. Run a spoon around each muffin to release from the pan and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

* Here’s a fun fact about yours truly…I used to be a high school Chemistry teacher before my sweet Bethany came into the world! I majored in Chemistry in college and am a nerd on every level. I loveeeed school. Like loved it. I enjoyed going to class and (to fully expose my nerd status) had more fun learning than socializing.Being a high school teacher was awesome, and there are definitely days when I miss my students. I still tutor a little bit to keep myself (and my science skills) sharp. (Plus did I mention I loved homework…so when my students send me their assignments I do them all for fun).

Any who, I bring this up because I’m about to give you a science lesson!! (get EXCITED)!  I use the word *homogenous a lot.  The definition of a homogenous mixture is “a substance that is consistent or uniform throughout its volume.” In other words, you cannot physically separate the parts of your mixture.  Some examples of homogeneous mixtures are:

• air: although it is made of many different molecules (nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, etc.)  it is the same throughout… a clear, odorless gas. You can’t simply reach up and pull out an oxygen molecule (If you can e-mail me. Seriously that’s magic).
• green smoothies: when you perfectly bend all your ingredients together you create a luscious green smoothie mixture that is the same throughout. Once blended, you can’t pick out a spinach leaf or piece of banana.
• coffee: if you fully dissolve a little sugar and cream in your coffee you have created a homogeneous mixture that’s absolutely necessary for AM functionality.

So seriously, this morning when you take a deep breath, have your morning smoothie  and drink your coffee, you’re practically a scientist. Homogeneously mixing your way through life. Just to give you a non-example, (because they are super helpful in learning) things that are NOT homogeneous include, chocolate chip cookies, granola, and black bean brownies.

Just a note…once you add chocolate chips to this mixture it’s no longer homogeneous…but the pre-chip phase is! 🙂

Ok, enough science! But I can’t promise I won’t nerd out on you again. Because I love it.

I’d seriously love to know…what was your favorite subject in school? What did you (or are you) studying in college?