We report successful synthesis of zinc ferrite nanoparticles (ZFs) by a facile low-temperature (90 °C) solution-based process from ferric nitrate nonahydrate and zinc nitrate hexahydrate precursors in presence of hydrazine hydrate. X-ray diffraction analysis and transmission electron microscopy confirmed the presence of ZFs, which were further characterized by Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and thermogravimetric measurements for identification of characteristic chemical bond vibrations and thermal weight loss behavior, respectively. Measurements of magnetic properties at room temperature revealed that the sample showed quite high saturation magnetization (22.0 emu/g at ~19,200 G), implying the presence of less impurities/surface defects in the ZFs. The material also showed zero coercivity as a soft-magnetic material. The protein adsorption performance of the ZFs was checked using bovine serum albumin (BSA) as model protein. Excellent protein adsorption capacity of 210 mg/g (close to the value of 218.81 mg/g calculated using the Langmuir model) for BSA concentration of 0.3 mg/mL was obtained at optimized solution pH of 5. This simple process could be adopted for synthesis of different magnetic nanomaterials for use in biomedical applications.