Banana Bread
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This banana bread recipe bakes up light and tender, with rich banana flavor and a crisp, golden crust.
If you prefer your banana bread light and tender rather than heavy and dense, this banana bread recipe is for you. Creaming the butter and sugar gives the loaf an almost cake-like crumb, while very ripe bananas provide plenty of banana flavor and moisture. The outside bakes up beautifully golden with a crisp crust that’s especially good against the soft interior.
You can add walnuts or pecans or chocolate chips if you like—see the recipe card notes for the details. And if your bananas aren’t quite ripe enough, I’ve included an easy trick for getting them ready to bake with. If you have leftovers, try a slice lightly toasted; it’s one of my favorite ways to eat it, and it brings that crisp crust right back.
“I feel like I’ve tried every banana bread recipe on the internet and none even comes CLOSE to this one. Usually banana bread is too dense or too sweet for me, and this one is just right.”
What You’ll Need To Make Banana Bread
- All-purpose flour: Spoon it into the measuring cup and level it off rather than scooping directly from the bag; too much flour can make the bread dry and heavy.
- Baking soda and baking powder: Work together to give the banana bread plenty of lift and a light, tender crumb.
- Unsalted butter: Make sure it’s softened so it creams properly with the sugar, incorporating air into the batter and helping create that light texture.
- Very ripe bananas: Provide moisture, natural sweetness, and plenty of banana flavor—the riper, the better. Look for bananas that are heavily spotted or even fully brown. If yours aren’t quite ripe enough, bake them in their peels at 300°F for 15 to 20 minutes, until soft and blackened. Extra-ripe bananas also freeze well; see my post how to freeze bananas for baking for details on freezing and thawing.)
- Fresh lemon juice: Provides acidity to react with the baking soda and help the bread rise; you won’t taste lemon in the finished loaf.
- Vanilla extract: Rounds out and enhances the banana flavor.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
How To Make Banana Bread
Mix the dry ingredients: Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. This distributes the leaveners evenly, so the loaf rises uniformly.
Cream the butter and sugar: Beat the softened butter and sugar until noticeably lighter in color and fluffy. This step incorporates air into the batter and helps give the banana bread its light, tender crumb.
Add the eggs and bananas: Beat in the eggs, followed by the mashed bananas, lemon juice, and vanilla. The mixture may look a little curdled or separated at this point—don’t worry; that’s normal.
Finish the batter: Add the dry ingredients and mix just until no streaks of flour remain. Avoid overmixing, which can make the bread heavier and tougher. If you’re adding nuts or chocolate chips, gently fold them in now.
Bake: Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth the top. The bread is done when it’s nicely golden and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Let it cool briefly in the pan, then turn it out onto a rack to cool completely.
Variations
If you’re in the mood to mix it up, try marbled banana bread, chocolate banana bread, banana coconut bread, or chai-spiced banana bread.
Video Tutorial
More Quick Bread Recipes you’ll Love
Banana Bread
Ingredients
- 1¾ cups all-purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled-off
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
- ¾ cup sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup mashed very ripe bananas, from 2 to 3 large bananas
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, from 1 lemon
- 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Butter and flour a 9 x 5-inch (23 x 13-cm) metal loaf pan.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the mashed bananas, lemon juice and vanilla extract and mix well. It will look a little curdled at this point; that’s okay.
- Add the flour mixture and beat on low speed until just incorporated. Do not over mix. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
Nutrition Information
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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Delicious! Easy to make, moist and full of flavor. I thought I had the perfect banana bread recipe but this one is by far the best recipe I ever had. Thank you, Jenn, for sharing your recipes. I also love your cooking book.
How many small loaves does this make???
Hi Matie, I haven’t made this in mini loaf pans but I would guesstimate that you could get 2 – 3 loaves out of it. Hope you enjoy if you try it!
I used a multi loaf mini pan (8 for 1) and got 8 decent sized mini loaves out of it.
This banana bread is easy and delicious. But, after 45 minutes my banana bread was not cooked all the way through. I left it in for an extra 5-10 minutes at 350. I love all of Jennifer’s recipes! So good!
Great recipe, I substituted egg whites for the eggs and used natural applesauce and 1/8 C canola oil for the butter.
I like to use very ripe bananas, the darker the better
Thanks.
Wow! I loved this banana bread. I wasn’t sure if I would since it was so simple. My other recipe uses a lot of spices like cinnamon and nutmeg. But this was so delicious and easier to make. A slice warm from the oven with a little butter—amazing. It was really moist even though I overbaked it a little. Just made the top a little crispy, which I liked anyway
This is my go to recipe for banana bread. I even wrote it down in my notebook in case I wanna make it but no internet. I sub the regular sugar with brown sugar and it smells so good 10 mins into baking. I feel like it also add more moisture to the bread. But one thing I could of swear from copying the recipe down to my notebook, was that this recipe used to call for melted butter. I still use the melted butter cus it’s just easier without having to wait for it to soften.
I’m a new baker and this is the first banana bread recipe I’ve ever tried. It’s is now my go-to; I even baked a lot of loaves as giveaways last Christmas and got many compliments. I love chocolate so I usually add chocolate chips. Even my picky nephew loves it.
I loved the bread. I added chocolate chips and it seemed the inside was a bit wet after 49 or 50 minutes of cooking. Would adding the chocolate chips increase moisture?
I bought your book last year. I love it and think you could do a second one for just your baked goods. 🙂 🙂 Thank you so much.
Denise
Hi Denise, thanks for buying the cookbook and so glad to hear you like it! 🙂 The banana bread should bake for 60 to 70 minutes so it makes sense that after 49 or 50 minutes it was still not fully baked inside. Did you let it go for the full 60 to 70 minutes?
Jenn, the recipe says to cook for 40-45 minutes @ 350*. I love this recipe! Just thought it was my oven that caused the problem.
Jenn, this looks amazing & I can’t wait to try! could you clarify, above you state longer baking time than indicated on the recipe instructions. Which do you recommend?
Sorry for the confusion! It should bake for 40 to 45 minutes. Hope that clarifies. 🙂
After shovelling 2 driveways I felt I deserved a treat. I’ve been using the same banana loaf recipe since I left home for university-36 years ago. No more. This will be my new go-to. Added milk chocolate chips and made as muffins. For some reason these are particularly light and airy. Very very good. Nailed it again Jenn.
Hi Jenn,
Today I made your banana bread. One of my bananas was from the freezer and very wet so I reduced the lemon juice to one tablespoon and used powdered lemon for the other. Also I opted for two smaller metal pans as I only had glass pans in the larger size. I added pecans. It turned out perfectly. We both agreed that the lemon added a pleasant brightness to the recipe. Thank you for another hit!
Hello, I have made this delicious bread so many times and it’s always a hit. The only issue I have is that every single time I make it no matter what I adjust the edges are always slightly too crisp/almost burnt. What am I doing wrong? I have a fan oven so I have adjusted the temperature down to 160 degrees Celsius.
Hi Sadia, glad you like the bread. You may want to decrease the oven temp by just a few more degrees, or you could loosely cover the loaf pan for about the last 10 minutes of baking to keep the edges from browning more than you’d like. Hope that helps!