This zucchini pecan muffin recipe converts even a confirmed zucchini hater into a fan. It provides a heft serving of zucchini hidden inside a rich, moist muffin.

Zucchini Pecan Muffin Recipe

We’re at that point mid-summer when gardeners joke about leaving zucchini on their neighbors’ porches, like the old game of ring and run except with vegetables as the gift instead of a bag of you-know-what.

Poor, much-maligned zucchini. It’s one of my favorite vegetables, probably because it grew so abundantly in my childhood garden. Zucchini must be picked promptly or it can grow so quickly it becomes inedible within days.

Any variety of zucchini will do for this recipe. If you do not have zucchini, fresh summer squash may be substituted.

My mother sautéed zucchini with chopped onions in butter – still my favorite way of enjoying zucchini.

My husband’s mother did the same but smothered the results in tomato sauce. She tended to smother everything in tomato sauce, probably because my father in law, thanks to his time spent serving in the Army during the Korean War, learned to kill the taste of food he didn’t like with ketchup.

Alas, poor zucchini. Some people love you, some hate you, but I don’t want to smother you in ketchup. Instead, I prefer to cook you into delectable baked foods that freeze well, like this zucchini pecan muffin recipe.

How Much Zucchini Do You Need for This Recipe?

Five pounds of zucchini, peeled and shredded, made 84 muffins and two loaves of chocolate pecan zucchini bread. Any variety of zucchini will do for this recipe. If you do not have zucchini, fresh summer squash may be substituted.

Use muffin paper liners to make it easy to bake several batches. Otherwise, if you grease the pans, you’ll end up doing a lot of scrubbing between batches.