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Thick and Fudgy Zucchini Brownies. Back to the classics with these extra-delicious frosted brownies made with grated zucchini and topped with the most indulgent fudge frosting. Think rich salted butter, melty chocolate chips, a touch of cocoa, and just enough zucchini to keep them extra moist and thick. Once baked, they’re finished with a creamy, old-fashioned chocolate fudge frosting. Simple, classic, and so good!

It’s been a minute since I last baked a batch of brownies, but they’ve always been a family favorite. The other week I had a few zucchini sitting in the fridge, and I knew I needed to put them to good use. This time of year it always seems like there’s either an abundance of zucchini or tomatoes — and I hate to see food go to waste. Brownies felt like the perfect answer.

I was excited to bake these up, especially since brownies are my little sister’s favorite treat. Even with the addition of zucchini, I knew she’d be into them (and she was!). I used one of my tried-and-true base brownie recipes, adding just a hint of lightly toasted butter, which I swear makes all the difference in flavor.

And of course…the frosting. I wanted these to be really special, so I went with a thick layer of homemade fudge frosting — the kind that feels nostalgic, like something your grandma might have spread over her brownies. Classic, rich, and perfectly fudgy. Nothing fancy, just delicious.

These are the details

Ingredients

• Salted butter
• 1 bag of mini chocolate chips
• Instant coffee or espresso powder
• Pure vanilla extract
• Eggs – make sure they are at room temperature and not at all chilled
• All-purpose flour
• Cocoa powder
• Baking powder
• Sea salt
• Chocolate chips – I love to use dark chocolate chips

Ingredients – for the Frosting

• melted butter
• powdered sugar
• cocoa powder
• vanilla extract
• warm milk

Special Tools

 You’ll need a skillet, a couple of mixing bowls, and a square brownie pan.

Steps

Looking for other sweet recipes? Here are a few ideas: 

Baked Apple Cider Doughnuts with Cinnamon Maple Glaze

Brown Butter Apple Blondies with Cinnamon Maple Glaze

Spiced Pecan Apple Cider Doughnut Cake

Mulled Spiced Apple Cider Doughnuts

Double the Streusel Apple Butter Bars

Homemade Slow Cooker Maple Apple Butter

Lastly, if you make these Thick and Fudgy Zucchini Brownies,  be sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating! Above all, I love to hear from you guys and always do my best to respond to each and every comment. And of course, if you do make this recipe, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram! Looking through the photos of recipes you all have made is my favorite!

Thick and Fudgy Zucchini Brownies

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 40 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour

Servings: 16 brownies

Calories Per Serving: 204 kcal

Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.

• 1. Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line a 9×9 inch square pan with parchment paper.2. Add the butter to a pot set over medium heat. Allow the butter to brown lightly until it smells toasted, 2-3 minutes. Remove from the heat. Mix in the mini chocolate chips until all are melted. Stir in the vanilla. 3. In a bowl, whisk the eggs for 1 minute until bubbly on top. Add the melted chocolate and powdered sugar, whisking until smooth, 1-2 minutes. Mix in the grated zucchini. Add the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Stir until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.4. Spread the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until the brownies are just set. They will be thick. 5. To make the frosting. Whisk the butter, 2 cups powdered sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla, and warm milk in a bowl, adding additional warm milk until the frosting becomes thicker, but still drizzly. Taste, adding more sugar if needed. Spread the frosting over the brownies. Let set for 1-ish hour…or slice, snack, and enjoy!

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If you grow zucchini (or are a neighbor of someone growing summer squash), chances are good you’re familiar with zucchini butter. It is popular for a reason. You cook a couple pounds of zucchini down, slowly, into a creamy, jammy spread. It freezes nicely, and can be used in endless ways we’ll discuss to make quick meals.

The Origin of Zucchini Butter

I came across the concept of zucchini butter when someone at the community garden pointed me to a version on the Food in Jars site. At first I thought it was going to be a lot of shredded zucchini and herbs worked into actual butter, but no, that wasn’t it. It was cooking zucchini low and slow into a melty fragrant mess of summertime yum. I realized pretty quickly, zucchini butter is not a new thing, but naming it zucchini butter might be. Historically, cooking zucchini in olive oil or butter, making it into various spreads and condiments is a thing, particularly in a number of regional Italian and French cuisines – as well as others, I’m sure. It wasn’t called zucchini butter, it was just how you cook down an abundance of a seasonal ingredient. Julia Child popularized a grated zucchini and shallot recipe, widely cited online as one of the origins of zucchini butter, another version of the technique was highlighted on Food52 as a Genius Recipe. But my sense is that this technique is rooted in grandma and great-grandma cooking, and whatever you end up calling it, it’s a fantastic technique to use up a couple pounds of zucchini. Here’s how I do it.

Favorite Ways to Use Zucchini Butter

I like to cook a pan of zucchini butter and divide it in half. Half goes in the refrigerator, half goes in the freezer.  Here’s how I use the first half:

• Pizza topping: use it on pizzas in place of another sauce.
• Bruschetta: a big smear of zucchini butter a bit of goat cheese and a drizzle of chili crisp is great.
• Work a big scoop into your favorite frittata or omelette.
• A big smear on a toasted English muffin and an egg is the way to start building a breakfast sandwich.
• Add a good amount of grated Parmesan cheese and toss it with pasta for a quick meal.
• Mezze spread: stir some chopped black olives into the zucchini butter and use it in a mezzo situation as a spread for crackers or flatbreads.
• Work half a batch into a pot of risotto.
• As a layer on heirloom tomato sandwiches along with some ripe avocado and fresh basil.

Zucchini Butter: Variations

The zucchini butter you see pictured here is straight-forward with just a little bit of chopped serrano chile pepper added for some kick. But I like to take the concept into a range of directions, and here are a few that have been, arguably, the most successful.

• Herbed Zucchini Butter: Stir fresh herbs in during the last ten minutes of cooking. A couple teaspoons of thyme is one place to start. Or, 1/2 teaspoon of finely chopped rosemary. Or, a handful of well-chopped cilantro (wait to stir this in after you’re finished cooking). Same deal with chopped basil, add after cooking, or even after the zucchini has cooled. And lots of chives are rarely a bad call.
• Citrus Zucchini Butter: Add the zest of a lemon or orange during the last ten minutes of cooking. Finish with a generous drizzle of lemon or other citrus olive oil.
• Spicy Zucchini Butter: As mentioned, above. I like to add some minced serrano pepper. If you want to keep it relatively mild, start with 1/4 or 1/2 of a pepper, and dial it up from there, to your liking.
• Sunshine Zucchini Butter: Use yellow summer squash in place of green zucchini. Stir in a scant 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric powder about half way through the cooking process along with a good amount of freshly ground black pepper. I also like to finish this one with a kiss of lemon olive oil.

Short-cut

There is a shortcut here. You can use grated zucchini to make zucchini butter. And, if you have a grating attachment for your food processor it makes quick work of taking down this much zucchini. It also cooks more quickly into a spreadable texture. I like the more rustic texture you get by cutting the zucchini into tiny cubes, but this a personal preference, and if you want the grated zucchini approach, by all means!

Here’s a look (above and below) of the ingredients that go into zucchini butter. You can see how I chop the zucchini and the onions as well. I do a blend of olive oil and butter for the cooking fat.

Cooking Stages

I thought it might be helpful to share photos of the zucchini butter as it cooks down over the hour or so it takes to get to an ideal consistency. 
After 15 minutes (below): you can see that the zucchini is just starting to soften up a bit here.

After 40 minutes (below): You can see that the change is pretty dramatic at this stage but there is still quite a lot of structure in some of the pieces and related to the skin. Keep going! You’ll probably need to be addling splashes of water at this point to keep things creamy, and to keep the zucchini from browning.

After one hour (below): This is the stage things really start to collapse, you’re getting close to the texture you’re after. I went another 10 minutes beyond this to get to the stage you see in the lead photos.

More Zucchini Recipes

• Zucchini Bread
• Pasta with Smashed Zucchini Cream
• Simple Sautéed Zucchini
• Grilled Zucchini & Bread Salad
• Zucchini Gratin
• all zucchini recipes

Continue reading Zucchini Butter on 101 Cookbooks

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