With more than 8 million page views and hundreds of FIVE STAR reviews, this super moist, EASY, and delicious, really is the Best Banana Bread recipe ever! It’s one of the most popular recipes on my website for a reason and our favorite way to use up overripe bananas and it freezes really well too!
Table of Contents
- You’ll love this Easy Banana Bread Recipe
- How to Make Banana Bread
- How old can bananas be for banana bread?
- Best Banana Bread Recipe Tips
- How to store Homemade Banana Bread
- Can you freeze banana bread?
- How do you keep banana bread moist?
- How to Make Banana Bread FAQs
- More Quick Bread Recipes You’ll Love
- Best Banana Bread Recipe Recipe
My family goes in spurts of eating so many bananas that I’m always having to go to the store for more, or completely ignoring them so I end up with a bunch of overripe, spotted bananas sitting on the counter. When that happens, the first thing I think to make is homemade banana bread!
This happens more often that I would like to admit, so sometimes we switch things up with coconut lime glazed banana bread or by adding walnuts and making banana nut muffins. But this easy banana bread recipe is definitely my go-to when I’m up to my eyeballs in bananas that I don’t want to go to waste.
Banana bread is as delicious as it smells and this easy banana bread recipe will have your tastebuds salivating while it’s still baking in the oven. A slice of moist, warm banana bread fresh from the oven with a little butter on makes a great snack, breakfast food, or treat.
If you have lots of overripe bananas, this bread is a winner! Or try our delicious Banana Bars with Penuche Frosting. Some of our other favorite banana recipes are Old-Fashioned Banana Cream Pie and Homemade Banana Pudding!
You’ll love this Easy Banana Bread Recipe
This is a classic, moist banana bread recipe that is perfect for using up those spotty brown bananas that are lingering on the counter. It can be made by hand in one bowl with one spoon in under 10 minutes. Kids love to help with this one by peeling and mashing the soft bananas, measuring, and stirring. And it’s easily customizable by throwing in chocolate chips, walnuts, or cinnamon chips.
If you need any more convincing, just read the dozens of 5-star reviews after the recipe. Once you have tried this easy banana bread recipe you will never go back to any other.
How to Make Banana Bread
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and prepare a loaf pan by spraying it with nonstick cooking spray and lightly dusting it with flour. This will help your loaf to not stick to the pan when baking. You can also use Baker’s Joy (affiliate link) cooking spray, it has flour built-in, saving you one step and a little mess.
- Peel and mash bananas with a fork in a large bowl.
- In a large bowl, combine your melted butter and mashed bananas using a large wooden spoon.
- Stir in your sugar, eggs, vanilla.
- Over the top of your batter, sprinkle the baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and flour, then stir to combine.
- Add in nuts or chocolate chips last, stirring just until there are no more dry spots of flour and everything is well combined.
- Pour your batter into the prepared loaf pan and sprinkle the top with more walnuts or a little sugar if you want a sweeter crust.
- Bake for 50-55 minutes, until a toothpick, comes out clean and then remove from oven.
- Allow the loaf to cool for about 10 minutes before removing from loaf pan and transferring to a cooling rack.
- Best served warm or enjoy at room temperature.
How old can bananas be for banana bread?
The best banana bread is made with overly ripe bananas. You can tell bananas are overripe when they turn deep yellow and get brown giraffe spots all over them. Even almost completely black bananas are still good for banana bread. My family can handle eating fresh bananas with just a few spots, but once they start looking like this, I know nobody is going to touch them.
Bananas ripen and darken as the sugars inside of the flesh begin to break down, making the banana sweeter in the process. So the riper the banana you use, the sweeter the banana bread becomes.
You can speed up the banana ripening process by placing several bananas and an apple inside of a brown paper bag, closing the top and letting them sit on the counter for a day or two. The gases released will speed up the banana ripening process using this method.
Or if you don’t already happen to have ripe bananas on hand and can’t wait for your underripe (or perfectly ripe, depending on your point of view) bananas to ripen fully, you can help the process along by sticking the bananas in the oven for a little bit. Just place them whole (with peel intact) on a baking sheet and bake at 300 degrees F for about 20 minutes, then cool, peel, and use in this banana bread recipe as normal.
Best Banana Bread Recipe Tips
- Don’t overmix. No need to break out your hand mixer for this recipe. You can just use a large spoon to mix everything together by hand, which keeps the banana bread from turning out dense or dry from overmixing.
- Bake until a skewer comes out clean. A toothpick really isn’t long enough to accurately test a loaf of banana bread. A wooden skewer or sharp knife is a better testing tool to tell whether the banana bread is done all the way through.
- Make it your own! Feel free to add your favorite mix-ins or sprinkle the top of your banana bread with chocolate chips or a streusel before baking to change things up.
How to store Homemade Banana Bread
Store your banana bread in a ziploc bag or in another airtight container on the counter for a few days. Refrigerating it will help it last a day or two longer. But after about 5 days banana bread starts tasting stale, even if it has been wrapped tightly or kept in an airtight container in the fridge.
Can you freeze banana bread?
Yes! You can freeze banana bread! You can either slice it first and freeze the slices individually so you can easily enjoy banana bread whenever you want, or you can freeze entire loaves for later consumption.
Like I mentioned earlier, sometimes I am left with bunches of overripe bananas, so I will double or triple this recipe and make multiple loaves at a time. Sometimes I give them to friends, but often I will just set some aside in the freezer for later.
To freeze a loaf of banana bread, let it cool completely, then wrap it in plastic wrap and place it in an airtight container or freezer-safe ziploc bag, then stick it in your freezer. That’s it!
To freeze individual slices of banana bread (something I like to do because it makes it easy to stick into school lunches or give the kids for breakfast on busy days), lay individual slices flat on a baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Freeze for 1-2 hours, then transfer to a freezer-safe ziploc bag and stick them back in the freezer.
For best quality, enjoy it within 2 to 3 months, although honestly I’ve dug a loaf out of the freezer 6 months down the road and it’s still pretty darn good.
How do you keep banana bread moist?
With this moist banana bread recipe, you shouldn’t have to worry about your loaf coming out dry unless you overbake it. If that happens, you can cut off a few slices and warm them in the microwave with a damp paper towel to help steam them back to freshness.
You can also prevent your easy banana bread from going dry during storage by keeping it sealed in an airtight container.
But generally speaking, the amount of bananas in the recipe will help keep the banana bread nice and moist for days!
How to Make Banana Bread FAQs
There are usually 2 medium bananas in a cup of mashed bananas. Ultimately you want about 2 cups of mashed banana for this recipe, which is usually 3 big or 4 medium bananas, but it’s a pretty forgiving recipe and I never bothering measuring an exact amount of bananas any more.
Sure, if you have bread flour that you want to use for banana bread you are welcome to use it and the recipe will turn out just fine without any modifications.
My banana bread recipe cooks in 50-60 minutes for a loaf made in an 8×4-inch pan. Slightly different pan dimensions might require a slight time adjustment, but generally speaking it will take about an hour to bake a loaf of banana bread.
More Quick Bread Recipes You’ll Love
Did you make this recipe?
Let me know what you thought with a comment and rating below. You can also take a picture and tag me on Instagram @houseofnasheats or share it on the Pinterest pin so I can see.
Best Banana Bread Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3-4 ripe bananas mashed
- 1/3 cup butter melted
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg beaten
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup chopped walnuts or chocolate chips, plus extra for topping if desired
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease and flour an 8.5×4.5-inch loaf pan or spray with baking spray.
- In a large bowl, combine the mashed bananas with the melted butter, then add the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Stir well with a large wooden spoon.3-4 ripe bananas, ⅓ cup butter, ¾ cup granulated sugar, 1 large egg, 1 teaspoon vanilla
- Sprinkle the baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt over the banana mixture. Stir to combine.1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon baking powder, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, ⅛ teaspoon salt
- Add flour and walnuts or chocolate chips (if desired), and stir just until no streaks of flour remain. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan.1 ½ cups all-purpose flour, 1 cup chopped walnuts
- Bake for 50-60 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely. Slice into 10 thick slices and serve.
Video
Notes
- Baking time: If your bread pans are larger or smaller than mine, your bake time might be on the shorter or longer side, respectively.
- Muffins: This banana bread recipe can also be made as muffins. Just divide between the cups of a muffin tin and bake for 20-24 minutes until muffins are done and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.
I saved this recipe a long time ago and it has become my go to banana bread recipe. My kids absolutely love it and found out that the reason my kids would ask me to buy bananas and then NOT eat them was so that I would make banana bread with them! The favorite version his when I add 1/2 cup of walnuts and 1/2 cup of chocolate chips and then sprinkle more chocolate chips on top.
Ha ha that’s funny. What clever kids 😉 Your favorite version is also my favorite version.
I’ve been making this recipe for 4 years now, and it is everyone’s favorite! I make it as a neighbor/mail carrier/pastor/teacher/whoever gift at the holidays and every year someone new asks for the recipe! I’ve found it to be so forgiving and adaptable – we’ve tweaked it to be “free of” many different things (dairy, egg, gluten, refined sugar, etc – sometimes all at once!) and it still turns out and stands out as a delicious banana bread!
That is so good to hear! I am glad so many have benefitted from your delicious bread!
The best banana bread ever. So moist & flavorful & light. It’s a definite 10+
Thank you Trish!
Absolutely delicious!
Thank you!
Excellent each time. Received great compliments thanks to you.
Thank you! That’s great!
Can I use a Bundt pan for this?
Can I use a Bundt pan?
Yes that should be fine. I would bake it for 60-70 minutes.
I used a Bundt pan for this and it turned out pretty good after 60 minutes. It was a little difficult to cut and keep its form though. I’m trying again right now, and cut the baking powder in half hoping it would make the bread more “dense” I’ll follow up when I’m done. (Hopefully I remember!)
SO GOOD! I baked for about 50min because I prefer the center slightly underbaked. PERFECT! Will me using this recipe again
Great! Thanks Courtney!
Made it today. Wonderful recipe. Used 3 bananas , 1 tbsp less of sugar ( less next time.
Roasted the walnuts before using it( 5 to 7 minutes in the oven).
And will bake minus 5 minutes n ft time.
Tastes fantastic.
Next time with both chocolate and nuts.
Thanks a lot too share it.
,,,,,,,❣️❣️❣️
Great! Thank you! I love adding chocolate chips!
I made a double batch and had no chips or nuts meat and it still came out perfect! I cannot wait to try this with add-ins!
Great!
Am I missing something because I have read this several times and there is no measurements that I see. I see the ingredients and it’s looks pretty simple but no measurements of how much of each item used.???
I will always post measurements for the ingredients. There is a “Jump to Recipe” button at the top or you can scroll to the end of the post to find ingredients, measurements, and directions for the recipe.
I added some apple sauce as I only had 2 bananas. But it came out great. Super easy recipe!
It’s a pretty forgiving recipe. Glad you enjoyed it!
This taste amazing! I will definitely make it again!
Thank you!
These were delicious and so easy to make. I made cupcakes sans chocolate chips and forgot to add the vanilla but they came out perfect. Baked for about 23 minutes. Will definitely make again.
Great!
Very good and easy to through together. Thank You
Thank you!
Banana Bread
Love this recipe. I’ve made it plain, with chocolate chips, and with chocolate chips and walnuts. Delicious all ways! I like to sprinkle the top with course sugar. It adds a little crunch and makes it look so pretty!
Great! I also sprinkle sugar on top. I’ll even mix cinnamon and sugar together to sprinkle on top and it’s so good!
I pretty much have this recipe memorized. It’s been my go to recipe for several years now. I never follow recipes exactly and always add my own little twists, but this is my base recipe for what has become my family’s fave banana bread recipe and it’s so easy! My twists: I sub 1/2 c brown sugar for the white sugar, and 1/2 cup quick oats in place of the remaining 1/2 c flour. I almost always add a small handful of chocolate chips as well. I just made a batch and added some pumpkin pie spice to the mix, see if it adds a lil fall flair to it. Just wanted to finally say thank you for this wonderful and easy recipe after all these years!
Thank you! I am so happy you and your family enjoy this recipe. You have some fun substitutions, the pumpkin pie spice would be fun to try!
Love this recipe!!! Made is several times and sub’d for gluten free flour and it’s always delish! Family loves it as well! Thank you for sharing!
Thank you for making it! I’m glad the gluten free flour works great!
Amazing tasting banana bread, I had never added cinnamon before however did this time and my family was glad….they all agreed that this has been my best banana bread desert ever!! So thank you ❤️
Oh I love adding cinnamon as well. Glad your family enjoyed it!
I have been using this recipe for a while now and it is an easy winner!
Great! It’s delicious!
Made this today and it was delicious!! Thanks so much for sharing this wonderful recipe!! 🙂
Great! I am glad you made it!
Perfect recipe! Easy peasy and super yummy! 🍌 ❤️
Thank you!
I chose to make this recipe with four bananas and it turned out to be so moist and everyone loved it. But it only took 30 minutes to make, and I even kept off a little bit of the batter to make a few muffins out of it and it still was not 55 minutes.
Great, you might have just had less batter so it didn’t take as long.
I’ve made this many times now, and it’s the best recipe ever!!! My husband begs me to make it. We sprinkle Turbinado sugar crystals on top for a pretty touch.
Thank you! Ooh that would be yummy with the turbinado sugar crystals. Sometimes I will sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top. It’s delicious.
This recipe is so easy and produces a delicious banana bread. Instead of walnuts, I add dried blueberries. It goes together in a large mixing bowl, then pour into bread pan.
Dried blueberries sound great!
The best easy recipe, every one loved it, I made it twice, one with walnuts and one with chic. Chips, both came out great.
It was so easy and delicious! The texture was just right. My family and company loved it. There’s only a few slices left! Thank you so much for sharing this recipie it was a lifesaver for cleaning 😅👌
Thank you! Making it all in one bowl definitely makes easy clean up. Glad everyone loved it.