Very Banana-y Bread

There’s a lot of banana bread out there, but slices of truly great banana bread are few and far between. Here, I present a recipe to change that. Great banana bread should be fairly simple to prepare while also having incredible banana flavor. And while “bread” is in the name, it shouldn't be bready-y or tough at all. It should be buttery, rich, and tender, yet hold together when sliced and be hearty enough to pick up a slice without it crumbling apart.

If you'll allow me to extrapolate from internet search data, many of you are making banana bread, but you're still on the hunt for the perfect banana bread recipe: Since 2004, Google searches for banana bread have steadily climbed, hitting an all-time high at the start of the pandemic in April 2020. That year, banana bread was the number one searched recipe in the U.S., according to CNBC. While in 2024 it’s not the top searched recipe overall, it is still the most searched bread on the internet. It’s easy to understand banana bread’s popularity: It’s fairly simple to prepare (mash, mix, bake), it relies on ingredients you probably already have in your pantry, and it’s a great way to use up a bunch of bananas slowly turning spotty brown on your countertop or stashed away in your freezer.

Even if you are already making banana bread regularly, I’m willing to bet that it could be better. (The fact that you clicked on this banana bread recipe indicates that you might indeed be hankering for a better loaf.) For starters, most banana breads don’t even taste that much like their namesake fruit. The banana flavor often seems to disappear during baking, leaving a bland loaf that needs an abundance of cinnamon ,nutmeg, chocolate chips, or walnuts to punch it up.

Serious Eats already has Stella’s amazing classic banana bread recipe that delivers on flavor, but I wanted an easier banana bread recipe that relies on basic pantry ingredients with a simple preparation that doesn’t require a stand-mixer or any specialty appliances. I’ll still make Stella’s banana bread when I have the time and energy, but after rounds of testing, I’ve created my new go-to banana bread. This banana bread is easy to make, has just the right sweetness, and (most importantly) is heavy with the aroma and flavor of bananas. The key to this? Packing six whole bananas—that’s double the bananas than most recipes—into one loaf with the help of a quick stovetop technique. Here’s how to do it.

Tips for the Best Banana Bread

Choose ripe bananas. Great banana bread starts not in your mixing bowl, but in your fruit bowl. The ripeness of the fruit has a large impact on banana bread’s texture and flavor. Bananas are climacteric, meaning they are picked from the tree when they are fully formed, but ripen after harvest. This is because picking triggers the release of ethylene gas, which is what ripens bananas, as well as many other fruits such as avocados, apples, and peaches. Ethylene gas triggers a number of changes in fruit. The three main changes it produces in bananas are a decrease in acid, which leads to a milder tasting fruit; the breakdown of chlorophyll, which changes the banana’s color from green to yellow; and the conversion of starch into sugars, which sweetens the banana.

Underripe or green bananas are so high in starch and low in sugar that they lack sweetness and well developed banana flavor. They taste vegetal and slightly astringent due to the abundance of acids and starch. On the other end of the ripeness spectrum, bananas that are completely black are overly sweet and their lack of starch and abundance of fructose creates a dense gummy texture in banana bread. So, when it comes to making banana bread, patience is a virtue—don’t even think about baking with your bananas until they’ve got plenty of brown speckles. At this stage of ripening, the bananas have a mix of sugar and starch that will produce banana bread with a welcome light texture and sweet, well developed banana flavor. 

If you find yourself with underripe bananas, you can speed ripening by a day or two by putting them in a paper bag to trap their ethylene gas. To accelerate the process even more, add a ripe banana or any other ripe ethylene-emitting fruit to the bag (avocados, apples, and oranges all work well). Or if you have no fresh bananas on your counter, this recipe works well with frozen ripe bananas. Just be sure to thaw the bananas on the counter for about 15 minutes before cutting into them.

Cook the bananas for a light texture and deep banana flavor. As mentioned above, this banana bread fits six whole bananas into one loaf, while most banana bread recipes call for a max of three. I initially tried baking a loaf with six raw mashed bananas folded into the batter to double down on banana flavor, but the bread was gluey, dense, and stuck to the roof of my mouth from the excess moisture. My tests helped me understand why so many recipes use three or fewer bananas in their bread—it’s to ensure the bread isn’t stodgy, like my six fresh banana loaf was. 

I wanted to keep all those bananas in the batter for the biggest banana flavor possible, but I wanted to get rid of the excess moisture. While I was working at America's Test Kitchen, I learned from Andrea Geary’s Cook’s Illustrated banana bread recipe that you can cram more bananas into banana bread without creating a wet texture by cooking the bananas to reduce their liquid. While that recipe calls for microwaving the bananas, my solution is cooking the bananas in butter on the stovetop. Cooking the bananas this way accomplishes two main things: It evaporates excess water from the bananas and develops a rich deep caramelized banana flavor that imbues the loaf.

Brown the butter, and cook the bananas even further for a deep banana-toffee flavor. Once I realized how caramelizing the fruit deepened the banana flavor in the bread, I decided to also use brown butter in the loaf. Brown butter is one of the most versatile flavor-boosting ingredients around, and it makes most baked goods taste better, including banana bread.

The key to this bread’s rich banana-forward flavor is the combination of brown butter and caramelized bananas. The three key stages to making the brown butter and caramelized banana mixture is searing the bananas, browning the butter, and frying the bananas in the brown butter until it forms a homogenous, deep brown, syrupy mixture. It’s important to brown the butter on its own—if you try to brown the butter with the bananas, the solids in the butter will never brown properly due to the moisture from the bananas. This flavor-boosting technique takes only a few minutes on the stovetop, and is well worth the effort.

Add fresh bananas for ultimate banana flavor. While this loaf’s flavor revolves around the cooked banana mixture described above, it’s still important to mash fresh bananas into the batter. A ratio of four cooked bananas to two fresh ones works best. The fruitiness of the fresh bananas balances the richness of the brown butter and caramelized banana mixture. You can use a potato masher or even just a large fork for mashing. It’s OK if a few larger chunks of banana remain—they’ll dissolve into the bread while baking and add a welcome fresh fruity flavor.

Don’t overmix the batter. This batter is thick and lumpy, but once the flour is added, do not be tempted to try to whisk or stir those lumps away. Overmixing the batter will cause unwanted gluten development, which will make the loaf tough and chewy, so stir the batter until the flour is just combined. It’s even OK if a few dry streaks of flour remain—they will be absorbed while baking. It’s better to under-mix than overmix with this quickbread batter.

Skip the spices. This is banana bread, not a spiced bread. I know a lot of banana bread recipes rely on warm spices like cinnamon and nutmeg to season the loaves. In theory these spices enhance the banana flavor, but in practice warm spices often overpower the banana flavor, especially if that fruit flavor is already dull. So skip the spices and let the rich and fruity banana flavor shine in this loaf.