I always seem to have overripe bananas at home. I get a bunch of bananas at the store and a few days later, they’ve passed their prime for me to eat. My favourite thing to do with them is bake! The obvious (and delicious) choice is to make banana bread/muffins.

What I’ve made isn’t just a regular banana bread though, this one has shredded zucchini in it! Baked goods are a fantastic way to sneak in veggies. I don’t need to hide my veggies in foods, but this would be great for young kids who may be a little picky. Adding zucchini not only adds extra fibre, but it helps keep the banana bread very moist.

The recipe I used is from Baked by an Introvert blog (link here). It’s supposed to make 14 muffins but I made an 8×8 banana bread instead, and I cut it into 16 squares with a banana chip on each piece. Baking time for my cake was 30 minutes, I tested it with a toothpick to make sure it was cooked through.

The only real change I made to the recipe was cutting the sugar down in the batter. It calls for 3/4 cup but I cut it to 1/2 cup which is 33% less. It just didn’t make sense, with all those mashed bananas, to have such a high amount of added sugar. It was sweet enough for me, plus with the banana chip on top, it was perfect.

I guess I made one more change, but really it is just a note if you want to make that recipe too. Make sure to squeeze the shredded zucchini out a little bit to remove most of the excess water. You don’t want it to thin out your batter or make it gummy. You’d be surprised how much water zucchini can have so just give it a good squeeze with your hands before tossing it in the bowl.

This banana bread was delicious and you can’t even tell there is zucchini inside! The banana chips are a nice touch on top too, added a bit of crunch. I will say though, if you are storing your cake in the fridge/freezer, the chips may change their texture (they get softer) and won’t be as enjoyable. So if you plan on making this ahead of time, maybe just skip the banana chips. But otherwise, this was a great recipe 🙂

Here are some other banana bread recipes I’ve made:

• Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
• Banana Bread Muffins