Chocolate Zucchini Oatmeal Cookies

Chocolate Zucchini Oatmeal Cookies are surprisingly soft and chewy. That’s how I love my cookies. Plus these have one of my favorite veggies.

I know it’s not summer yet, so we have to wait for the zucchini season. As it’s one of my favorite veggies EVER, I just couldn’t resist when I saw fresh zucchinis at the market the other day. I first made Turkish Stuffed Zucchini for dinner, which is a classic recipe in our cuisine. You can’t imagine how we’ve missed this amazingly flavorful dinner, so it was like a feast to us. When I noticed that we had one extra zucchini in the refrigerator, I came up with the idea of this Chocolate Zucchini Oatmeal Cookies recipe.

It wouldn’t be the first time I hid zucchini in a dessert. Chocolate and Yogurt Zucchini Bread is our all time favorite sweet recipe with zucchini. It is one of the most visited and pinned recipes on the blog too. We finally made a video for it last summer and I’ve received several emails from our readers thanking for this video. You should bookmark it for this summer if you haven’t seen i yet. I don’t know how many times I make it during summer for our friends and they are amazed by the fudgy texture each time.

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Back to these Chocolate Zucchini Oatmeal Cookies, I knew I would end up with some tasty cookies. However, I wasn’t expecting them to be that good. These are beyond my expectations! I’m telling you I fell in love with their chewiness and moistness at first bite.

I adapted the recipe from our Double Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies, which have been described as the game changer cookies by whoever has tasted so far. I think I can try the same recipe with any fruit and have the same amazing result. If these are that good with zucchini, any fruit will possibly work fine as well.

TIPS ABOUT THESE CHOCOLATE ZUCCHINI OATMEAL COOKIES

• Zucchini is a very juicy vegetable, so you might end up with an undesired result if you don’t do anything to prevent it from messing up your cookie batter. The best way I know to remove their excessive juice is to shred zucchini on a piece of cheesecloth, make a bundle and then squeeze. Another way could be squeezing the shredded zucchini in your hands and then pat them dry with paper towel.
• The batter will look very thick and dry before adding shredded zucchini. Don’t worry! That’s how it’s supposed to be. It will get better after zucchini addition.
• Don’t forget to add a pinch of salt in the batter, which has two functions in this recipe: 1) It helps the sweetness stand out better. 2) It gives the batter a little moistness as salt helps shredded zucchini release a little juice, which is not as much as it has before you squeeze. It’s easier to scoop the batter this way.

See our other chocolate recipes here:

Chocolate Zucchini Oatmeal Cookies

Super chewy chocolate oatmeal cookies with hidden zucchini.

• Author: Zerrin
• Prep Time: 45 minutes
• Cook Time: 12 minutes
• Total Time: 57 minutes
• Yield: 4 dozens
• Category: Dessert
• Cuisine: American

Ingredients

• 1 cup (225g) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 and ½ cups granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 and ½ cups all purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 3 cups oatmeal
• ¾ cup milk chocolate chunks, plus more for topping
• 1 cup shredded zucchini, measured after squeezed well

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, cream softened butter and sugar with a spatula.
2. Whisk eggs in a separate bowl and pour it in the butter sugar mixture. Add in vanilla extract and mix it well with a spatula.
3. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder. Add the dry mixture to the wet. Combine well.
4. Fold in oatmeal, chocolate chips and shredded zucchini. The dough will be wet and sticky. Don’t worry!
5. Preheat oven to 350F (175C). Line a baking sheet with parchment and drop cookie dough on the baking sheet using an ice cream scoop. Refrigerate for about 30 min.
6. Bake for 12-14 minutes. Don’t overbake these! They will look uncooked when you remove them fom oven, but they will continue cooking when they wait on the baking sheet.
7. Remove from oven and let them sit on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes or until they don’t look wet anymore. Meanwhile top each cookie with additional chocolate chunks.