Name: Zucchini Bread Overnight Oats
Prep time: 5 min
Yield: 1
Ingredients: 1/2 cup rolled oats (regular or gluten free); 1/4 cup grated zucchini; 1 T raisins; 1 T ground flax; 1 T chopped pecans or walnuts; 1/2 - 1 tsp cinnamon; 1 tsp vanilla extract; 1-2 tsp pure maple syrup; 1/2 cup milk of choice; 2 tsp cashew butter (optional); Dash of sea salt

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Zucchini bread that you don’t have to bake? Zucchini Bread Oatmeal, or “oats” is a one of a kind breakfast recipe that can be prepped in minutes and ready when you wake up in the morning. These zucchini overnight oats are a delicious and healthy way to get in some extra veggies to your day!

If there is one thing I can say for sure after a week on the beach, it’s that there really is NO place like home! I will dive deeper into our trip and some learnings and experiences from that over the next few posts, but I am really excited about my newest overnight oats recipe and I couldn’t wait to get it up here.

Zucchini Bread Oatmeal is Nostalgia in a jar for me!

I have mentioned in the past that I love zucchini bread. Over the summer growing up, fresh zucchini bread was a staple in our house. I couldn’t live without it! I would bake a fresh loaf with my mom and then enjoy it warm with melted butter dripping off of it. Mmmmm.

This summer, my garden has been quite frustrating. Some of my chipmunk friends in the backyard have played a slew of pranks on me and the garden was just not what I had hoped for.

Yesterday I was trying to make some sense of some of the overgrowing plants that had all but taken over and had thrown the garden into pure chaos. As I started to pull and cut and tug, something caught my eye. One zucchini, a huge zucchini at that, was perfectly ripe and ready to go. I was beaming.

This garden that I thought was nothing but waste this year had produced in fact the most perfect, giant zucchini I had ever seen. I cleaned up a bit more and found an entire city of cucumbers hiding under the greenery as well. So maybe my tomatoes, peppers, and other veggies didn’t make it to the end, but it looks like I will have quite the harvest of cucumbers and zucchini this year!

The funny thing is, neither of these plants shot up even close to where I actually planted them. Needless to say, the chipmunks in my neighborhood are quite the schemers.

One giant zucchini means lots of zucchini recipes!

So what do you do with a zucchini the size of my arm?? Well you do lots of things! I know I will get to making my Flourless Zucchini Muffins at some point. I will throw some on the grill this week, get out the spiralizer to make some zoodles and I will still have plenty left.

Right now though, we need to talk about this zucchini bread oatmeal. I have read here and there this concept of ‘zoats.’ Zoats are basically oatmeal prepared along with shredded zucchini. Veggies are not always what I think of when I think oatmeal, but I have told you how much I love zucchini bread so creating overnight oats with the same flavor was surely worth a shot. And this recipe is a certain hit!

One thing worth mentioning is the cashew butter. It’s certainly not a must in this recipe, but when I compared the version with and without the cashew butter, the version with cashew better was where it was at! You can decide on that on your own as well. Almond butter could also work I am sure, but I just love the light sweetness of the cashews.

As always, eat these cold or warmed up. These oats can be made with any type of milk and also with gluten free oats if needed. The other thing about zucchini bread is that every family seems to have their unique recipe.

We always had lots of juicy raisins in ours. I had a friend though that had walnuts and pineapple in hers all the time growing up. Make this one your own! So if you have a big zucchini in your garden or from the Farmers’ Market or even from the grocery, go make some zoats!

What you need to make these Zucchini Bread Overnight Oats:

rolled oats: regular or gluten free will work fine
zucchini: freshly grated!
raisins: we always had big juicy raisins in our zucchini bread. Not your thing? No big deal, just skip them!
ground flax: I always like to add flax or chia seeds to my oats to give them a fiber and protein boost. Totally an optional add in if you don’t have any. Please don’t feel like you have to run out and buy any!
chopped pecans or walnuts: we actually never had nuts in our zucchini bread growing up but when I have gotten zucchini bread at a coffee shop or elsewhere, they tend to have them. I am good either way, but I love the crunch they add to my oats.
cinnamon: don’t make zucchini bread oatmeal, or zucchini bread for that matter without it!
vanilla extract: what I said about the cinnamon!
maple syrup: use whatever your favorite sweetener is–I love maple, like I could drink it. I am not kidding.
milk: use the milk you love best!
cashew butter: if you don’t have any it’s not 100% necessary. I find it adds a richness to the oats like nothing else. I think almond butter would be fine as well.

Check out these other overnight oats recipes:

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