Zucchini Bars
Posted Jul 18, 2022, Updated Feb 17, 2024
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These zucchini bars are most, perfectly spiced and loaded with fresh zucchini. Topped with the best cream cheese frosting, they’re a delicious dessert perfect for using up fresh garden zucchini!
These zucchini bars with cream cheese frosting are easy to make with a handful of simple ingredients.
They’re a cross between a zucchini cake and a blonde brownie (zucchini brownies) in the best possible way. They’re dense and moist, richly spiced and perfectly sweet!
A delicious recipe to use up garden zucchini in the summer!
Zucchini Bars: Ingredients & Substitutions
- Salted butter. Unsalted butter, coconut oil and ghee are good substitutions for salted butter.
- Sour cream. full-fat sour cream is the best for the richest taste and texture. You can use light sour cream or Greek yogurt.
- Granulated sugar. white granulated sugar or organic cane sugar are the best choices.
- All-purpose flour. You can substitute up to half of the all purpose flour with white whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour.
- Zucchini. this recipe uses one medium/small zucchini, which comes out to be about 1 cup after being shredded. If you shred and freeze zucchini in the summer to use all year long, let the zucchini thaw in a strainer in the sink until it’s room temperature. Squeeze out a little bit of the excess water and use in the recipe.
How to Make Zucchini Bars
This recipe is very easy to make, we’ll walk through how to make zucchini bars step-by-step, and don’t forget to watch the video.
Begin by combining flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon in a medium-sized bowl, set aside.
Then, melt the butter gently, stirring until it’s smooth. Be careful not to over-head the butter.
Then, whisk in the sour cream, egg, vanilla and sugar until mixture is smooth.
Next, add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and stir until smooth.
Then, gently fold in the shredded zucchini until itis evenly distributed throughout the batter.
Next, spread the batter evenly in a prepared baking dish and bake in the until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bars comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs.
Let the bars cool completely in the pan.
While the bars are cooling, make the cream cheese frosting!
This frosting recipe makes enough for two batches of zucchini bars, you can cut it in half or just use half and freeze the other half for another recipe.
Spread the frosting over the top of the cooled bars, then chill the zucchini bars until you are ready to serve.
Serve
Cut the zucchini bars into squares and serve. The bars can be served slightly chilled or room temperature.
Store
Store leftover zucchini bars in a single layer in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Freeze
You can either freeze individual squares or you can freeze the entire pan of bars:
Entire recipe. Make the recipe, then chill it until it’s completely cooled, then cover the top tightly with plastic wrap and foil (or bake in a pan with a lid) and freeze for up to two months. Thaw in the refrigerator.
Individual bars. To freeze individual bars, put them on a baking sheet and put them in the freezer until they are hardened (about 1 hour). Individually wrap each bar in plastic wrap and put them in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 2 months. Thaw in the refrigerator.
Zucchini Bars Recipe FAQs
Yes, double the recipe and bake in a 9×13″ baking dish.
No! You don’t have to peel the zucchini. In fact, most of the nutrition is in the skin so I prefer to keep it on.
If you shred and freeze zucchini in the summer to use all year long, let the zucchini thaw in a strainer in the sink until it’s room temperature. Squeeze out a little bit of the excess water and use in the recipe.
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Zucchini Bars Recipe
Ingredients
- ¼ cup salted butter melted
- ½ cup sour cream room temperature
- 1 egg beaten
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 cup zucchini shredded (1 small zucchini)
- Cream cheese frosting
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Grease an 8×8” baking dish, set aside.
- Combine flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl, set aside.
- In a microwave safe bowl, melt the butter.
- Whisk in sour cream, egg, vanilla and sugar until mixture is smooth.
- Add dry ingredients to the wet mixture and stir until smooth.
- Fold in zucchini until evenly distributed throughout the batter.
- Spread batter evenly in the prepared baking dish.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 min or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bars comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs.
- Let cool completely.
- Make the cream cheese frosting (follow this recipe: https://joyfoodsunshine.com/cream-cheese-frosting/)
- Spread it over the top of the cooled bars.
- Chill until you are ready to cut into squares and serve. The bars can be served slightly chilled or room temperature.
Video
Notes
- Salted butter. Unsalted butter, coconut oil and ghee are good substitutions for salted butter.
- Sour cream. full-fat sour cream is the best for the richest taste and texture. You can use light sour cream or Greek yogurt.
- Granulated sugar. white granulated sugar or organic cane sugar are the best choices.
- All-purpose flour. You can substitute up to half of the all purpose flour with white whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour.
- Zucchini. this recipe uses one medium/small zucchini, which comes out to be about 1 cup after being shredded. If you shred and freeze zucchini in the summer to use all year long, let the zucchini thaw in a strainer in the sink until it’s room temperature. Squeeze out a little bit of the excess water and use in the recipe.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
5 stars. Added ground walnuts to batter. Lovely dessert. Light, moist & easy to make. I could see it served alone or with fruit or topped with ice cream for the kids. Best part of serving was the look on my husbands face as he tasted it. He couldn’t believe it was made with zucchini.
These were wonderful, I never got to put the icing on and I trippled the batch.
I’m planning on making these but I’m tripling the recipe..how can it still be baked in an 8×8 pan?
If you are tripling the recipe you can bake it in 3 8×8″ pans, or you can bake a double recipe in a 9×13″ pan or a triple in a 17×12″ sheet cake pan.
These were excellent! I loved that they were baked in an 8×8 inch pan! My husband gave them a 10 out of 10! Thank you! I just found your website and am looking forward to trying more of your recipes!
Thank you so much Susan! I’m so glad you and your husband enjoyed them!