Summer may feel over after Labor Day weekend, but seasonally many summer veggies are still growing strong here in SoCal, including green zucchini. This season I’ve been growing a bunch of summer squash varieties that I’ve mainly been slicing up and freezing for future meals, but I’ve also used a lot of the green zucchini to spiralize and add to soups like pho, shred up for mixed veggie latkes, and even used the flower blossoms for this stuffed zucchini flowers recipe.
With summer coming to an end soon (seasonally speaking), the one thing I realized I hadn’t made yet was zucchini bread! So I ended up making this double chocolate zucchini bread by my friend Alexis over at Lexi’s Clean Kitchen, and then I wanted to try adapting one of my most popular real food remixed recipes on the blog, homemade raw bread, into a zucchini bread version.
I’ve adapted the raw bread into a rosemary olive bread before (so good if you like olive bread!), so I figured a zucchini bread version should work. It took making this new version a few times to get the consistency and flavors how I wanted it, but ultimately it turned out really tasty and it’s loaded with great, real food ingredients versus the processed flours, sugars, etc. we would typically find in a traditional zucchini bread.
This raw zucchini bread can be sliced thin for sandwiches, used open face for crostini or avocado toast. Many options with it and it’s recipe-friendly:
- paleo
- vegetarian & vegan
- raw
- gluten-free
- dairy-free
- ReBoot Protocol (week 2+)
- 100% real food ingredients
Let’s check it out!
Click here to Pin and save for later!
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cup zucchini, shredded
1 1/4 cup unpasteurized raw almonds, soaked a minimum of 4 hours in water (will plump up close to 2 cups)
7 medjool dates, pitted
4 tablespoon flaxseed (can sub flax meal too)
4 tablespoon psyllium husk (can sub psyllium seed powder too)
4 tablespoon raw hemp seeds
1/2 cup onion, diced
2 tablespoon chia seeds
3 small garlic cloves
Zest of 1 lemon (about 1 tablespoon)
1 teaspoon pink salt
DIRECTIONS
Picture sequence below. Detailed printable directions at bottom.
Homegrown squash/zucchini varieties from the farmacy garden
Shred the zucchini with a grater (use the big teeth pictured above)
Use some paper towels to get as much water out of the zucchini (very important or the bread can fall apart)
Add all your ingredients (except 1/2 cup zucchini) to a food processor
Whaz it all up and place the mixture on a cutting board
Add the 1/2 cup left over shredded zucchini to the mixture
Form the mixture into a loaf
Place on a rack with a baking pan underneath and brush lightly with olive oil to prevent cracking
15 hours later “low baked” at 115 F
Raw bread loaf – aerial view
Raw bread loaf – up close and personal
Raw bread – single slice cross section
Slice it up for sandwiches, crostini, avocado toast and more!
Example: Salmon salad sandwich using raw zucchini bread (salmon salad recipe here)
Salmon salad sandwich shown stacked (personally I like it open face, but you can stack if you want to!)
DIRECTIONS
- After the raw almonds have soaked for a minimum of 4 hours, we need to drain, rinse and dry very well.
- Mise en place other ingredients:
- Shred the zucchini with a grater and place in between paper towels to absorb the water content (see picture above how I do it)
- Measure out all other ingredients so they’re ready for the food processor.
- Add all ingredients (except 1/2 cup zucchini) to a food processor and blend until everything combined well. You may need to start and stop a few times and scrape down the sides with a spatula.
- Pour the mixture onto a cutting board and add the 1/2 cup of leftover zucchini to it.
- Begin pressing it all together in a big ball (like a big dough ball you would flip on different sides and knead). Press and flip on multiple sides over and over until the mixture is nice and compact (you really want it compact or it can crack).
- Once all ingredients are compact, form into the final shape of bread loaf you want.
- Add the loaf to a rack with a baking pan underneath (see picture above: this step is important because we’re turning our oven essentially into a dehydrator to “low bake” the bread and the rack gives us ventilation underneath)
- Lightly brush the bread all over with olive oil to further help prevent cracking.
- Place the pan in the oven at 115F for 15 hours.
- Once it’s done, remove from the oven and you can begin to slice into it or store it in the fridge when you’re ready to use it.
Enjoy!
I’m excited to try this version. I’ve made your original raw bread before and LOVED it!
Glad to hear that Jenny. Hope it turns out great for you!
Yes! I was looking for a zucchini bread to make and never thought about a raw version like this. Thanks for the recipe!
You’re welcome Nina, enjoy!
Thanks for this!
You bet Melanie!
Do you think I could make this with walnuts instead of almonds?
Hmm good question Georgina.. I haven’t made it with walnuts, but usually how I answer a question like this is if it were me and I was pondering the same question, I would definitely go for it. It should work fine.
Have you done this recipe with a dehydrator? Good results?
Hi Julie, I have not, but it should work just fine. Originally when I thought about the different raw bread recipes I was thinking the majority of people don’t have an actual food dehydrator vs. most of us have an oven.. so wanted to make a version/method keeping that in mind. Is your dehydrator temp around 130F? If so, and I were making it myself for the first time, I would probably bring the 15 hours down to 12-13 hours. Hope that helps and enjoy!
Hi Julie,
I just tried this recipe for the first time in my Ecalibur and it turned out really well! I had the temp at 115 F for 15 hrs. I found when I sliced the bread it was still a little moist in the center, so I just put the bread slices back in and dehydrated them for a little while longer and it turned out fine.
Doesn’t baking it for 15 hours use a heap of energy/resources? Looks so amazing, hope there’s a way I can make it in a smaller amount of time? Is there any way I would be able to bake this for more like, say 1-3 hours?
Hi Shriyanka, glad you’re diggin’ it.
You have a great question.. Check out this energy calculator I found: http://www.anycalculator.com/energyuse.htm
it won’t let you change temperature (it’s set at 350 F), but you can see at 10 hours it looks like on average it’s around $0.42 and 20 hours $0.84 at a 350F temp.
Re: other temp/times- you could probably play with it by upping the temperature for less time, but then we’re also defeating the purpose of keeping everything in more of a raw state at 115F or below temps. Our nuts will become more roasted and denatured (fats), flax seeds similar as they’re sensitive to high heat, etc.. so in terms of health, my recommendation is to keep it at the 115F temp or below.
I made this bread yesterday and I can’t believe how delicious it is. I wanted to eat the whole loaf! Absolutely amazing bread!
Happy you enjoyed it Fianna! If you like olive bread, give that version a try sometime too. here’s the link to the post. I used kalamata olives and fresh chopped garden rosemary in it.. really tasty and a great dinner bread option serving a slice with a meal. Buon appetito.
Hi Jon! This looks amazing thanks for sharing! How long would it last in the fridge? Would it be ok/good to freeze for later use? Thanks!
Hi Carina, thank you.. and hmm, I think you should be fine freezing it. I haven’t done so myself, but whenever I answer a question like this typically I just think if I made this and wanted to freeze it, would I… and I definitely would. I think you’ll be fine. As for fridge, easily a good week. That said, once you taste it, it could be gone in a day or two 😉
I’m just eating it now.Yum.. I didn’t have hemp seeds so I used walnuts instead as I was hungry.This is by far the best recipe I’ve found.The previous breads I made were to heavy to eat more than 1 small piece.
That’s great to hear, Monica! Happy you enjoyed it. If you’re an olive bread fan, check that version out too! Search “raw olive bread” and it will pop up for ya.
I love this recipe! About how many calories and grams of carbs are in this recipe? Thanks in advance.
Hey Val, cheers! hmm, I don’t typically count calories for recipes. That being said just looking at the ingredients, your main carbs are going to come from the dates… spread out over the entire loaf, you’re not looking at much per slice. Everything else is mainly high quality fats (nuts & seeds) and fiber (nuts, seeds, veg, etc).
I can’t make my oven go lower than 170 🙁 is there any way to work around that??
Hi Tiana, do you have a dehydrator? That would work. I like to keep this “low-baked” at that 115F mark because of the fats potentially going rancid (flax and hemp especially). Technically you could do 170 F for less time, but ideally you don’t want to when working with ingredients like hemp/flax.
Can you use rice malt syrup instead of dates? as I always find dates so sweet in things.
Hi Nicola, that won’t work because the dates act as a binder for the bread. In sweet, dessert-like dishes that use dates, I can see what you mean.. but in this bread, it’s really not sweet at all. Give it a try and let me know what you think!
This looks delishous I really want to try but the lowest temperature my oven goes down to is 150’f I don’t know how it would turn out, any help would be appreciated thank you.
Hi Venus, hmm.. first, see my comment reply above in regards to higher heat and the health/nutrition of the nuts, flax, hemp… That said, if I had no other choice but to make this at 150 F and I was first trying it out myself, I would probably try it around 8-10 hrs. I’d give it a check at 8, but I’m thinking it would have to go a full 10. Hope this helps you. Enjoy!
Can you recommend a substitute for psyllium husk / seed powder?
Hi Kathleen,
hmm that’s a tough one… If I was going to make it myself without psyllium I’m thinking I would up the chia and flax evenly at first (4 total tbsp for the 4 tbsp of psyllium– maybe 2 tbsp each chia/flax).. you might have to play around with it, but that’s probably what I would try if I were testing it myself. Wish I could give you a more definitive answer.
If you do try that, please let us know below if it works out!
This looks AMAZING!!! But I’m eating clean and raw because I’m going through cancer. I’ve decided to take an alternative route. Isn’t baking it at a low temp considered “cooked”? Do you have any other recipes that don’t require any baking? Thanks. P.S. I can’t wait until I can get some…. Maybe later
Hi Brenda, thank you and I’m sorry to hear about the cancer. The alternative route sounds like a great plan, especially with getting diet dialed in!
Regarding your questions:
1. As for the temps we’re using, technically it’s more dehydrated.. not cooked-cooked. You can go as low as 105F.. could even go lower & longer. See the plain raw bread recipe here for more info on temperature/keeping ingredients in a raw state. Are you on a specific prescribed cancer protocol/diet? If so and dehydrated food is allowed, you should be fine (you can even show the recipe to the health/med practitioner prescribing your diet, if there is one).
2. As for other recipes, search “raw food” on the blog and many more will pop up (there’s an olive rosemary bread too that is delicious).. I also created The Body Transformation Cookbook which has 100+ recipes in it, many raw and designed for individuals with chronic problems. As of now it only comes with my ReBoot Body Transformation Protocol (if you email me here I can send you a sneak peek book with more info and 10+ recipes in it for free)
Hi there. So excited to make this! Want to gift a loaf to my friend whos birthday is in a few days. How long will this loaf keep?
Hi Wendy, great gift idea! keep it in the fridge and you’ll get at least a week out of it, if not longer. In my house it’s typically gone well before that 🙂
thank you for sharing will try this recipe without the dates.
sincerely fatima
Hi Fatima, you’re welcome. Wanted to quick mention: you’ll need something to replace the dates.. the stickiness of them is what really helps hold everything together.
I have been disappointed by many raw dehydrated breads. THIS is my Favorite!! Delicious! I don’t have a working oven and used my Dehydrator. Used 130 for the first 2 hours and then 115 for the rest, about 13 hours or so. I cut it in half once about 2 hours before I ended up finishing it and decided it could use a little more time. Perfect and very Yummy even with just some organic salted butter!! Thanks so much!! Even Slices nicely with my bread knife too!
Awesome Morgine! Glad to hear you enjoyed it! It’s one of my favorite versions to make as well… I’ll try and get a loaf or two made each summer season when I’ve got zucchini growing.
I could not find your carrot bread recipe, although I tried….I don’t know if you ever shared it? So I am going to experiment myself using carrots in place of the zucchini and raisons in place of dates and perhaps adding a “tiny bit” of finely chopped pineapple and chopped pecans for a sort of “carrot cake” like flavor with some spices! I love to experiment myself and will see how it tastes! Perhaps I have to add part zucchini. I ask my intuition and follow along for the ride! Thanks for the Delicious bread and your reply!
Made
this as pieces of bread in the dehydrator! Worked perfectly. Has a great texture and flavor. Thank for the fantastic recipe.
Hi Stacy, you’re very welcome! Happy you enjoyed it.
Thankyou THANKYOU Jon👍🙏
I tried this bread and it looked exactly as in your pics AND more importantly, the taste and texture are unbelievable. I did it in my dehydrator at 145 degrees for the first hr ( which crisped up the outside) and then I left in in at 115 degrees for another 15 hrs. I will be making this again and again, but next time, I will try is more savoury🤗 with maybe some Jalepenos or sundried tomatoes and herbs.
A wee question though…. I sliced a few slices and put them in to ‘toast’ and warm the bread , the rest of the loaf was a little moist inside( which I like) but was yours?…..
Again, appreciate the fab recipes you share.
Kindest regards
Jacqueline
Northern Ireland.
Glad you enjoyed it Jacqueline! I like the herbs/sun dried tomato idea too, I may have to try that this summer with some of my garden tomatoes. Re: toast- I’ve warmed it up in a toaster before, but you’re probably not going to get crunchy toast-TOAST like normal bread.
Can it be placed in the food dehydrator?
Hi Nancy, people have tried that and it worked for them. Just get the timing & temp right and you should be fine.
What a lovely recipe. Tried it following the directions for the dehydrator. Toasted it lightly and topped with goat cheese and frog jam- a local mix what grow in abundance in the swamp -raspberries, blackberries, elderberries, figs and pears. It was awesome and looked so fancy that I served it at Ladies Brunch. Total hit. It was gone before I got a picture. Will make again and send you one. Thank you for sharing.
So glad to hear it was a hit, Adia. And Frog Jam?! I must try, that sounds delish (and with the goat cheese combo as well). I recently transplanted new zucchini into the summer garden, so will definitely dedicate a future harvest to make another batch of this bread and try it with the goat cheese + jam combo.
Hi, this looks and sounds interesting and tasty. Can you tell anything about the nutritional facts? Thanks!
This looks so good! What a great way to sneak in even more veggies to the kids!
Thanks for sharing! Does it keep long?
What can I replace the nuts with, as I am not able to eat nut?