The best-ever healthy Greek yogurt pumpkin bread bursting with fresh Fall flavors and with tons of healthy swaps.
So call me crazy, but I started experimenting with this bread pretty much when summer started! The first trial run was in May sometime and it was a complete failure. At that point I was trying to make it completely with powdered oats and no flour. Unfortunately I was never able to get a bread that worked with all powdered oats. Ones that tasted good? Yes, actually they did! They just weren’t very “sliceable” and tended to burn around the edges and tops. The insides were absolutely delicious though.
Flash forward many more trial runs to a bread that I am confident is the best “healthier” pumpkin bread ever. And, hey, it doesn’t burn on the tops or sides and slices very nicely. So naturally I have been DYING to share it with you all. I hope you guys love it as much as we do!!
With some of my past pumpkin recipes I’ve found a common thread of errors of people making the recipe. Those two errors? Making the recipe with either pumpkin pie filling (not pure canned pumpkin) OR using the entire can of pumpkin.
So I promise I wasn’t trying to yell at you in the recipe by capitalizing the “NOT”s. I would just hate for the bread to not work out for you if you miss those small little details. Trust me, I’ve been there before! It’s easy to just assume the whole can of pumpkin goes in the bread, but unfortunately your bread will be a pretty wet mess if you do that. I did try a whole can for one loaf and it was just too much!
Also I am totally crazy about combining chocolate and pumpkin. However, this bread is also great with chopped nuts instead of the chocolate. Of course, I’ll always pick chocolate when making it, but if you like nuts better, use those in place of the dark chocolate. Oh, and dark isn’t a MUST it just makes this bread healthier.
There is a fair amount of sugar in this bread, but far less than most pumpkin breads. I tried using other sweeteners (honey and maple syrup) but highly preferred the flavor and texture of the loaves with brown sugar. If you are used to super healthy treats you can probably get away with reducing the sugar amount by 1/4 a cup. If you aren’t, leave it at 3/4ths a cup.
Hooray for pumpkin season!! (And now I don’t feel so weird buying pumpkin at the store like I did back in May :))
- 1 cup pumpkin NOT pumpkin pie filling and NOT the entire can
- 1/2 cup vanilla Greek yogurt or pumpkin Greek yogurt if you can find it
- 1 large egg organic recommended for flavor
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup coconut oil melted
- 3/4 cup brown sugar lightly packed
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 cup flour * white or white-whole wheat
- 1/2 cup oat flour blended oats
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips or chopped nuts optional
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a bread pan and set aside.
- In a large bowl, stir together the pumpkin, Greek yogurt, egg, vanilla, coconut oil (measure in MELTED form), and brown sugar until well combined,
- In another bowl, stir together the baking soda, salt, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg, flour, and oat flour (measure oat flour AFTER blending the oats; to make oat flour, put old fashioned or quick oats in a blender and pulse them until they resemble flour).
- Mix the wet and dry together until just combined (over-mixing will yield a denser bread). Stir in the chocolate chips if desired.
- (If you are a huge spice lover you may want to increase spices - taste the batter to decide!)
- Pour into the prepared bread ban and bake for 55-65 minutes or until a fork when inserted into the center comes out clean or the bread starts to pull away from the edges. If needed, tent the top with tin foil if the top of the bread is baking faster than the rest.
- Err on the side of barely under baking the bread for a softer and denser pumpkin bread.
- Store in an airtight container in the fridge. (I microwave a piece for 10-15 seconds before enjoying). Best eaten within 3 days otherwise tightly wrap individual pieces and freeze.
More delicious and healthy pumpkin recipes:
Healthy pumpkin chocolate-chip muffins
Healthy and flourless pumpkin chocolate chip cookies
Pumpkin Chocolate-Chip Cookie Overnight Oats
Looks so delicious Chelsea 😀 I used to bake with pumpkin quite a lot but haven’t in absolutely ages! This bread looks and sounds so comforting with all the warmth from the spices. Perfect! 😀
I’m so glad you kept experimenting with this bread, Chelsea! It looks amazing! And I’m loving that this healthier version is packed with chocolate chips. Gorgeous pictures, too!
The only thing better than pumpkin bread is pumpkin bread with chocolate–it’s practically a no-brainer!
So happy to see some pumpkin action! Bring on the fall baking! And I love that you really took the time to test this bad boy, because it looks perfect! Pinned!
This looks delicious- so moist! And I really appreciate all the testing that went into it 🙂 Pinning!
There was no recipe – just the blog! How do I get to the recipe???
The recipe is at the bottom of the blog post after you scroll through the pictures and text. Is that what you mean? It is outlined in a box 🙂
Wow, you’ve worked hard on this recipe, but no doubt it’s perfect! Those melty chips look amazing!
Crazy? No. Genius? Yes. I’m ready to try any kind of healthy pumpkin bread…I can’t get enough of pumpkin! The exact same thing happened to me when I made my first pumpkin bread (funny story there, my oven’s gas was finished..*covers face*) but I can tell from how amazing this looks that this bread tastes GREAT!
Love healthier versions of baked goods — everything in moderation I think! And I am SO ready for all the fall flavors!
All your hard work paid off because this looks like one awesome loaf! I’ll have to try a healthier version even though I’m partial to my super sugary loaf 😉
Haha the super sugary loafs are always such a fun treat! 🙂
Yay for fall baking. This looks fantastic and it’s healhty too, YUM! Pinned!
How pumpkin should be prepered before stiring ? 😀
I’m sorry, not quite sure I’m understanding your question..
This looks amazing! I can’t wait to try it.
Do you have any suggestions for alternatives to using coconut oil? I unfortunately have a coconut allergy.
Thanks so much!
Thank you Emily! Unfortunately I haven’t tried anything in place of the coconut oil so I can’t say for sure what would perfectly replicate the taste and texture. In some of my other recipes I have had readers comment that canola oil has successfully worked in place of the coconut oil so perhaps that would work here as well too. Sorry to not be of more help! I typically use coconut oil instead of adding something like butter or shortening so those two could perhaps work in place as well, but I can’t say for sure without further recipe testing.
This was lovely! I messed around with the recipe to make it gluten-free. Everything the same except:
2 large eggs
1 1/2 c. Bob’s Red Mill GF Baking Flour
1 tsp. xanthan gum
no coconut oil — I melted it in my microwave but then forgot to add it! The loaf came out lofty and moist even without. (Must have been the extra egg.)
Using a ceramic loaf pan I had to bake for an extra 20 minutes, and I tented with foil after an hour to keep the top from burning.
Thanks so much for leaving a comment and telling others how you made this GF — I’m sure this will help a lot of people 🙂 Glad to hear you enjoyed the bread!!
Oh, almost forgot — also added 1/2 tsp. baking powder.
I loved how this turned out! I was wondering, would this apply to a muffin tin as well or would I have to adjust the time/temperature? I see that you have a {Skinny & Healthy} Pumpkin Chocolate-Chip Muffins recipe, so I probably should just follow that one. Just wondering, why no greek yogurt for that one?
So glad you enjoyed this bread!! I’m not sure about converting the bread to muffins as I haven’t tried it, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. The reason the muffins don’t have Greek yogurt is because they would be too wet/moist with the pumpkin and the yogurt. I haven’t been able to figure out a recipe (yet!) where oat flour can bake well with that much moisture which is why this bread combines oat flour and white whole wheat flour with the pumpkin and yogurt.
Love all the healthy swaps. With chocolate and pumpkin in the mix, what could be better? Thanks for the recipe.
You are welcome!! Thanks for the comment!
Yum! I doubled the recipe and it made 6 mini loaves, great for gifting. I accidentally forgot to double the sugar, and honestly I don’t miss it! I used canola oil and it was fine. Delicious spread with a little cream cheese or goat cheese!
Yeah so great to hear!! And isn’t that the best feeling — less sugar and it’s still tasty?! Thanks for your comment! And yum on the cream or goat cheese!
Looks delicious!!!!! Did I miss the size pan to use?? Thanks so much, cant wait to try!!!!
Sorry for the late response, I just saw this! I use an 8 and 1/2 by 4 and 1/2
Very delicious and moist! I used whole wheat pastry flour (plus the oat flour – thanks for the tip on grinding my own), plain Greek yogurt, and I subbed raisins and chopped walnuts for the chocolate chips and cut down the brown sugar by a quarter cup. It didn’t rise quite as much, probably, but it still had a light texture and a delicate crumb. Not sure if I can wait for breakfast!
Yeah!! So great to hear! 🙂 Isn’t oat flour the easiest?! And raisins + walnuts sound amazing. Thanks for the comment Amanda!
I made this bread last night and it was fantastic! I used roasted pumpkin from the garden, subbed white whole wheat flour for the oat flour (I was too lazy to grind oat flour…) and used roughly 1/2 cup of sugar but I don’t think any of those things changed the recipe appreciably. Thanks for putting in the hours coming up with a healthier pumpkin bread recipe that I don’t have to cringe in giving to my littles 🙂
Awe you are so sweet, thanks for the kind comment! So glad you all enjoyed these 🙂
Delicious! My two boys absolutely love these for breakfast! And healthy (well, except for the chocolate chips, but life is short…)!
Hahaha!! I couldn’t agree more with you 🙂 Thanks so much Beth!!
I pinned this recipe along several others a while. I randomly picked this one to try this year- it seriously was delicious. I usually get tired of my pumpkin bread because they are too spicy and it competes with the chocolate or taste more like plain pumpkin (I grow pie pumpkins so make my own purée). This recipe is delicious and dangerous as I’ve eaten half a loaf in 12 hours ?
Oh this makes me SO happy to hear!! I’m thrilled you loved this 🙂 And that is so awesome you grow your own pumpkins!
Can’t wait to make this when fall comes around! I too am a big fan of chocolate and pumpkin. Making this with pumpkin flavored greek yogurt sounds like an awesome idea!
Thanks Collette! I hope you love it 🙂
Awesome recipe!
I did a little subbing because I was out of brown sugar, so I added 1/3 c raw sugar + 2 Tbs maple flavored agave syrup (pure maple would have worked fine I’m sure). I also added 2 Tbs flaxseed. Because I was afraid it would be too soggy I added an extra 1/4 cup flour (I was using BRM white bread flour). It turned out wonderfully!
So thrilled to hear you enjoyed this bread Virginia! 🙂 Your substitutes sound delicious and especially that flaxseed addition, yum! 🙂
I made this last night, we just cut into it this morning, & it’s already half gone! I love baking pumpkin bread every fall but really don’t love that it’s often saturated with sugar & oil. This turned out really good & the natural flavor just shines I think. I used organic sucanat in place of the brown sugar, it worked beautifully. I tried a recipe that called for sucanat recently & liked the results & thought it would work well here. I also decided to leave the dark chocolate chips out to make it as healthy as possible. Delicious pumpkin bread without the sugar crash, yay! Thank you!
I’m so thrilled that you enjoyed this bread so much! Thanks so much for the comment Corrie! 🙂
Look forward to making this! Just a quick question…exactly how much pumpkin should I use? You say not the entire can but I can’t find where you specify how much to actually use.
Thanks!
It says 1 cup in the recipe, sorry its hard to see! Enjoy!
This bread looks and sounds amazing! I love pumpkin at any time of year.