Our 14 Best Quick Bread Recipes

By Food & Wine and Maria Yagoda
Updated April 14, 2020
John Kernick
Without requiring kneading or a long rise, quick breads are easy to make and a great alternative to muffins or coffee cake. These recipes use simple ingredients like bananas, coconut, pecans and shredded zucchini to add extra flavor and texture.
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Carrot, Coconut and Zucchini Bread

Credit: John Kernick
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This not-too-sweet quick bread is jam-packed with vegetables and an irresistible toasted-coconut topping.

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Goat Cheese, Bacon and Olive Quick Bread

Credit: © Chris Court
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Quick breads like this one by star blogger David Lebovitz are very popular in France, where they’re known as savory cakes. This one is packed with olives, cheese and bacon, and infused with cayennne.

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Old-Fashioned Banana Bread

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This extraordinarily simple and tasty banana bread (with a moist center and crispy crust) is a Ritter family heirloom. "The recipe has been in our family for generations," Lisa Ritter says.

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Date Quick Bread with Pecan Streusel

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This date-studded quick bread can be made into mini loaves to give as gifts, or it can be baked as a standard loaf for serving at a meal. The streusel topping uses fresh pecans, a traditional gift in the South.

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Yogurt-Zucchini Bread with Walnuts

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This moist, nutty bread is a terrific way to use up late-summer zucchini. The walnuts in the bread are super-heart-healthy, and the yogurt adds moisture without any fat.

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Triple Coconut-Black Sesame Quick Bread

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This hearty, gluten-free quick bread uses coconut oil, shredded coconut and coconut extract. Black sesame seeds give it a grown-up taste.

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Black Sesame Chocolate-Banana Loaf Cakes

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Blogger Sarah Bolla uses oil and silken tofu to create these deliciously moist, grown-up, dairy-free cakes.

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Strawberry-Pecan Quick Bread

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As this loaf bakes in the oven, the texture of chewy dried strawberries softens slightly. Buy your dried strawberries at a specialty food shop or health food store that rotates its stock frequently to make sure that they're plump and moist.

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Cinnamon-Banana Bread

Credit: PHOTO © LUCY SCHAEFFER
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This recipe is full of potassium-packed bananas. Instead of processed sugar, it calls for agave nectar, a natural sweetener; a little canola oil replaces the usual butter. The bread is an improvement on the one Erin McKenna often made with her mother when she was growing up: "I thought it was so healthy, because of the bananas. I didn't factor in all the sugar and butter."

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Zucchini-Flax Bread

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Flax seeds add additional nutrients to this gluten-free quick bread made with pureed zucchini and healthful spices.

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Cinnamon Raisin Almond Flour Loaf

Credit: © Ian Knauer
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We like using almond flour that has a slightly coarse texture, similar to cornmeal, which adds a little crunch to the finished product.

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Pull-Apart Cheesy Onion Bread

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This recipe is as fun to eat as monkey bread (little balls of yeast dough that are baked in a pan together, then pulled apart at the table) but a lot less time-consuming to make.

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Irish Soda Loaf

Credit: Dan Goldberg
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Baking the bread as a rectangle in a loaf pan as opposed to the traditional round on a baking sheet preserves moistness and makes neat slices.

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Miso Banana Bread

Credit: John Kernick
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The miso in this supremely delicious banana bread adds deeper, robust flavor. The bread is fantastic the day it's made, but it tastes even better the following day.

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By Food & Wine and Maria Yagoda