This banana bread recipe is moist, tender, and packed with rich banana flavor. It’s a great way to use up ripe bananas for breakfast, snacks, or the freezer.
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Holly’s Recipe Highlights
- Flavor: Sweet with brown sugar, cinnamon, and rich banana flavor, baking up soft and tender with a melt-in-your-mouth crumb.
- Budget Tip: This recipe is perfect for using up those overripe bananas so they don’t go to waste.
- Time-Saving Tip: No time to bake and your bananas are turning brown? Unpeel and freeze 4 at a time in a Ziploc bag for easy baking later!
- Freezing: This banana loaf freezes beautifully. Wrap the whole loaf or wrap individual slices for a quick grab-and-go snack.
Banana Basics
- Bananas: Use very ripe bananas with plenty of brown spots for the best sweetness. If using frozen, squeeze out any extra liquid before mixing. How many bananas in a cup? There are about 3 medium bananas in a cup. So for this recipe, you will want about 4 medium ripe bananas.
- Flour: This recipe uses all-purpose flour as the base. You can replace up to ⅔ cup of it with whole wheat flour. Spoon and level the flour for a light, fluffy banana bread.
- Butter: Use unsalted butter in this recipe. If you have salted butter, skip the salt. You can replace some of the butter with oil for an extra moist crumb.
- Sugar: Sugar gives this banana bread its sweet flavor and soft texture, so don’t skip, swap, or reduce it.
Banana Bread Variations
One of the best parts about banana bread is once you’ve got the hang of it there are so many ways to customize it!
- Add nutmeg or swap pumpkin pie spice instead of cinnamon.
- To make it into a banana nut bread, add toasted nuts such as walnuts or pecans.
- Top the loaf with pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds.
- Add mini chocolate chips, raisins, or shredded coconut.
How to Make Banana Bread
It’s easy to make the best banana bread with just a few simple steps!
- Whisk together dry ingredients (full recipe below).
- Cream butter and sugar. Add bananas, eggs, and vanilla.
- Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Combine.
- Bake until a toothpick comes out clean.
How to Store Banana Bread
- For best results, keep moist banana bread in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days.
- Freeze loaves or slices by tightly wrapping them in plastic wrap or storing them in an airtight container for up to 4 months.
- Warm slices quickly in the microwave or pop them in the toaster for a soft, cozy bite.
Ripe Banana Recipes
Did you enjoy this Banana Bread recipe? Leave us a rating and comment below!
Ingredients
- 1⅓ cups mashed bananas about 4 small bananas
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ cup unsalted butter softened, or vegetable oil
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour (or line with parchment paper) a loaf pan.
- Mash the bananas with a fork to make 1 ⅓ cups mashed banana.
- In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.
- In a separate medium bowl, add butter, brown sugar, and sugar. Mix with a hand mixer on medium speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla, and mix well. Stir in mashed bananas.
- Add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture and stir just until combined, do not overmix.
- Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 45 to 60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Do not overbake.
- Cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Remove from the pan and cool completely on a wire rack.
Video
Notes
To ripen bananas quickly: Bake in a 350°F oven for 15 minutes or until the peels turn black. Cool completely before using.
Be sure to measure the flour correctly by spooning it into a measuring cup, not scooping it with the measuring cup.
Do not overbake. Ovens can vary; be sure to check your bread at least 10 minutes early. Remove from the pan to cool completely.
Leftovers will keep at room temperature in an airtight container for 4 days. It will also keep in the refrigerator, but wrap it tightly.
This is also great for freezing. Wrap and keep in freezer for 4 months.
Nutrition Information
Calories: 221 | Carbohydrates: 33g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 9g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Cholesterol: 48mg | Sodium: 269mg | Potassium: 104mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 15g | Vitamin A: 287IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 17mg | Iron: 1mg
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Bread, Breakfast, Dessert
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Best recipe I’ve tried yet!
This came out soo well. I used firm coconut oil instead of butter and it came out soo good. I added chocolate chips and nutmeg. I also folded the wet batter in the dry batter.
Thanks!!
How many loves will u get with this recipe
Hola ya lo hice 6 veces está riquísimo está será mi receta favorita gracias por compartir la receta.
Hi! Recipe looks delish, i couldn’t help but notice how many calories…. are the calories at the bottom of the recipe per slice?
Nutrition information is for 1/12th of the loaf, so one slice.
Could you add peanut butter to the mix?
I haven’t tried this with peanut butter but if you try it, let us know how it works out for you!
They look so good.
Tried it but with wheat flour, came out very nice, moist and soft.
Thanks for sharing.
Just like my grandma’s with 1/2 cup of walnuts tossed in.
Perfect!
I made this recipe today and it is amazing! I added diced Granny Smith apples and it turned out perfect! Thank you for sharing!
I made this bread and it turned out PERFECT. Followed the direction as provided. The bread was moist, not overly sweet ( which is great), has great banana flavor. I put this recipe in my box! Thank you for the great recipe!
Thank you Krista, Glad you loved it!
When baking unripe bananas to ripen them, do you peel them first, or peel after cooling?
You’ll want to peel after cooling.
Hi I was making your banana bread recipe and I accidentally spilled too much cinnamon in the batter. Is there anything I can do to counteract the cement taste I added a little extra vanilla but that didn’t seem that help It tastes like bananas but after you tasted it you seem to have more of a bitter cinnamony taste in the batter. I’m going to make a powdered sugar glaze to go on top since I don’t have any ice cream but is there anything I could have added to the batter to help this? I didn’t mean to add that much cinnamon.When it’s finished baking will the cinnamon taste as strong or will some of it have mellowed out?
Thank you!
I can’t say for sure how the flavor of the final product will. If the cinnamon is too strong you could perhaps repurpose the bread into bread pudding (mixed with regular bread and skip the cinnamon in the bread pudding recipe).
I made this today and it turned out very well, made two small modifications only used 1/2 cup brown sugar and crushed up walnuts and sprinkled on top, made a great crust. I think the banana bread is almost better the second day. Good recipe thanks for sharing
How long am I supposed to preheat the oven for?
Until it reaches 350°F.
it takes about 10 minutes
This is okay. It’s not very sweet (as advertised) but it also doesn’t taste much of bananas. I used less than the full 2 cups of flour and am glad that I did, because 2 cups seemed like too much. That said, I baked the loaf for 50 minutes at 350 and then had to go another 15 minutes at 325, so maybe my instincts were wrong, and the batter with a full 2 cups of flour would not have been too thick.
Also – there was some sort of weird separation when the loaf baked. The bottom 2/3 of the loaf are decidedly browner than the top 1/3, which is sort of odd.
Decent recipe, but could use some tweaks to really taste banana-y.
Hi Darla, the riper your bananas the more banana flavor they will provide for this recipe :) Glad you enjoyed it!
I wish i read the comments first, after mixing in the 2 cups the batter was super doughy and clumpy…this recipe is horrible.
I am sorry to hear that Amy! This recipe works out great for us every time. Just above the recipe, there is a video you can watch to see the texture of our batter before pouring it into the loaf pan. You can also check out this how to measure flour guide to make sure there wasn’t too much flour added to the batter. I hope that helps!
I don’t see mayo on the ingredients list or in the recipe?
For this version we didn’t use mayo, however we love the mayo in our Easy Banana Bread Recipe! It adds the perfect amount of moisture!
Wow! I must say I am very impressed. I never knew you could use mayo for baking and I was getting tired of wasting butter on everything. This recipe turned out awesome. Moist, soft, light, perfectly balanced. I added vanilla and cinnamon for flavour, and a bit chia seeds for some nutrition. Mine was actually done in 30 min since I used a wider, shallower pan (didn’t have a loaf pan on hand), so they are brownie-shaped.
Thank you for the recipe!
So glad you enjoyed this recipe Vera! We love baking with mayo, it gives it the perfect moisture!
I made your banana bread recipe for the 1st time Saturday and I’m sorry to say I ate the whole thing by Sunday. I did give 1 slice to my daughter. This was delicious. Guess I got a little cocky on Monday and made it again with results not as good. I more or less eyeballed the ingredients feeling sure of myself. If you follow your recipe to the letter the result is fabulous. Never made banana bread before and this recipe is the bomb! Thank you…………….
You will have to make a double batch this weekend to get you through till Monday, Kruptyna ;) But I don’t blame you this banana bread hardly lasts in my house too!
Yummmeeee
When making the classic banana nut bread what kind of flour are you using? Is it all purpose or self rising? I’m thinking all purpose since you’re adding baking soda and salt. Can’t wait to try. Thanks
You are correct. For this recipe, we use all-purpose flour :)
What I like best about this recipe is that it’s not too sweet. I am definitely not a baker, but I followed the recipe exactly and it turned out great. One question: can the butter and sugars be blended in a food processor as opposed to a hand mixer? Thank you!
I haven’t tried it in the food processor. Let us know if you try it Marion!
Hi! Can this recipe be use to make muffins? Thanks!
Hi Tiffany, we haven’t tried this recipe as muffins but it should work. We do have a tried and true banana muffin recipe we love as well!