I love Justin’s Maple Almond Butter.  Love.  I buy the jars in three packs, and I always have some single serving squeeze packs with my granola bar stash.  I had two goals in mind when I came up with this recipe.  First, I wanted a recipe that used a TON of zucchini.  Recipes calling for 1/3 cup of shredded zucchini just aren’t solving my surplus zucchini situation.  I also wanted a muffin that wasn’t sweet on its own, since I knew I was just going to top it with Justin’s Maple Almond Butter.  If you’re not making these muffins intending to use them as a vehicle for your maple almond butter (or chocolate hazelnut butter..), I’d recommend either increasing the amount of maple syrup or adding 1/2 cup of chocolate chips.

These muffins are also vegan, so you can taste the batter as you go and figure out if you want to make them a little sweeter.  How sweet they are will also depend on how ripe your banana is.  My version is decidedly not so sweet, but that was on purpose.  Take some nutella or some maple almond butter to these, and I promise you won’t need any extra sweet!

Zucchini Banana Muffins

Seriously, I came up with these muffins to be a vehicle for almond butter.  If you want to eat them by themselves, increase the amount of maple syrup, or add 1/2 cup of chocolate chips!  Otherwise, allow me to recommend that you spread some Justin’s Maple Almond Butter on these and have a wonderful breakfast or snack!

Ingredients

• 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/4 cup chia seeds
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 ripe banana
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 3/4 cup almond milk
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups zucchini

1. Preheat your oven to 350.
2. Sift together your dry ingredients in a large bowl (flour, chia seeds, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt)
3. In a separate small bowl, slice the banana and add the coconut oil.
4. Microwave the banana and coconut oil for about 45 seconds, or until the coconut oil is melted.
5. Mash together the banana and the coconut oil, and stir in the maple syrup, almond milk and vanilla extract.
6. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir to combine.
7. Then, stir in the zucchini until it’s fully distributed throughout the batter.
8. Put papers in your muffin tin, and fill each muffin paper about 3/4 full.
9. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Check out all that green zucchini goodness!

Also check out these other zucchini week posts:

Zucchini Noodle Lasagna

Zucchini Garlic Rolls

Double Zucchini Tamale Pie

And keep an eye out for the next zucchini week recipe … mini molten chocolate zucchini cakes.  I’m still on a sugar high from the recipe testing!