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
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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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Will almond flour and GF AP flour work in this recipe?
Hi Serena, Out of the two, I think you’d have the best luck with a gluten-free flour. A lot of readers comment that they really like this King Arthur version. Please LMK how it turns out if you make it!
Hi Jenn,
We were mixing this recipe together and the lemon curdled our egg and butter mixture pretty much immediately. Any suggestions on what might have gone wrong?
Hi James, That is normal and won’t affect the finished bread. Once you add the flour, it should work itself out. 🙂
Hi Jenn,
Thanks for sharing all of the amazing recipes.
I tried this banana bread recipe but the center was still raw even after baking for 60 minutes. What size loaf pan do you use? What am I doing wrong to cause the middle to not cook?
I appreciate your help.
Hi Sandy, I use a 9 x 5-inch loaf. I’m sorry you had a problem with this. Did you make any adjustments to the recipe?
Hi Jenn, thanks for your recipe. I’ve made it a bunch of times and it’s turned out well at 45-50min. I’m wondering if there is a substitute for vanilla. Any suggestions?
Thank you!
Hi Anne, glad you like this! If you have another extract on hand, like almond or maple, you could use one of those. Here are some other potential options to choose from. Hope that helps!
Hi Jenn,
This is my first bread and first Banana bread. Yum! Yum!! YUMMY!!!
Thank you for the recipe.
The best banana bread recipe I’ve ever tried – thank you!
Hi Jenn, I added half a sliced banana on top, but the loaf came out super wet under the banana. Was it just not enough time in the oven or the added banana added too much moisture? I had to carved out everything in the middle cus of the wetness and almost raw batter.
Hi Serena, I do think the banana may have added too much moisture.
If I wanna try this again, should I reduce the banana in the bread mixture or what would you suggest I do?
Hi Serena, I probably wouldn’t add the banana to the top. Sorry!
THE best banana bread recipe ever! My loaf turned out exactly as noted; tender bread with crispy crust. Thank you Jenn!
Hi Jenn I love your recipes and this banana bread is great too, however the recipe would be more consistent if the measurements especially for flour was by weight not cups.
Hi Gillian, So glad you enjoy the recipes! This recipe actually has weight/metric measures as well. To view them, scroll down to the recipe and immediately under the recipe title on the right side, you’ll see a little toggle. If you move it from “cup measures” to metric, you’ll see measurements that will work for you.
Can I replace lemon juice with apple juice
Hi Dee, the lemon juice reacts with the baking soda in this recipe to help the bread rise. You can make it without it, but the bread may be a little flatter/heavier. Some other readers that commented that they didn’t have lemon juice and used orange juice or apple cider vinegar successfully. Hope that helps!
I love this recipe! It turned out great even though I used 2 glass loaf pans (all that I had) as I doubled the recipe. I used a gluten free flour mix substitute (Namaste from Costco) which I always use for any king of recipe calling for flour. I did need to bake for a full 50 minutes at 350F. Outside got a bit dark but I like the crispiness and it was really delicious. Will become my “go to” banana bread recipe. Thanks Jenn!
I made this for a bake sale at work and just got handed a certificate from a manager for the Best Banana Bread EVER. I only looked at this site for the perfect recipe. Jenn never lets me down!
I never got a chance to try it, but I still have plenty of bananas left and will likely make a full-sized loaf for myself now. One recipe filled a mini loaf pan that holds 8. I baked them for 20-22 minutes ( a bit of experimentation there).