‘Tis the season for zucchini, and if you have a lot of it, chances are you are putting it into everything you can, including zucchini bread. I love making quick breads, but I generally don’t love all the sugar and oil found in many of the recipes. I’ve had two friends share excellent healthy versions of different zucchini breads, which I’ll pass along here. Both these recipes have their own nutritional info posted on their websites, however their serving sizes differ from mine. Whenever I make quick breads, it’s generally in a 9″x5″ loaf pan, and I slice each loaf into twelve slices. (This also means if I want to make muffins out of the batter, instead of bread, I have the same nutritional info per serving.) So here, I’ll post the nutritional info for 1/12th of the recipe.

Most quick breads, including these, can be frozen after slicing – just let them cool completely, wrap the bread well in plastic wrap, and then use a second layer of aluminum foil or a quality freezer bag. Slicing the bread immediately helps manage portions (I mean, a slice could *technically* be as large as we’d like!) and if you track your food intake, the portioning sets you up for accurate tracking. Freezing breads (or muffins) lets you enjoy some the fruits of your labor now, without the need to manage the calories in an entire loaf. The other bonus to freezing is you get to enjoy more of the good stuff at a later date, without having to do any of the work!

So now, the recipes. The first is a Healthy Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread. I think it’s perfectly sweetened as-is, with or without the chocolate chips. I have made it with unsweetened applesauce instead of the oil, but in this case the oil version (as-is) is much better and it’s still fairly low-fat and calories. Personally, I prefer this bread refrigerated. I generally don’t like quick breads with chocolate chips, but this recipe is the exception – it is very delicious whether or not you choose to include them! The second recipe is a Blueberry Zucchini Bread from Skinnytaste, and is also delightful as-is.

Eat WELL!