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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my first time making banana bread from scratch and every time i make something from scratch it usually fails, but i love how clear you made all the instructions it turned out amazing. my family loves it so much. thank you, it’s one of the best banana bread recipes i’ve ever tried, loved it.
Hi Jenn,
I tried the banana bread recipe today. I added walnuts at the end. I had to bake it for an extra 20 minutes before I got the toothpick clean. But it turned out heavenly! This is the second recipe I have tried. Yesterday, I had made the blueberry muffins – again to die for! I am definitely going to try more recipes. Thank you so much for sharing these. God bless!
Love,
Rena
Hi Jenn,
I attempted this recipe and it looked like one corner of the banana bread was sort of “sunken in” and after flipping (once cooled in pan for 10 min) that entire corner broke off. The piece that was stuck in the pan was very greasy..the butter I used was partially softened but not fully. Is that what could have caused this? I also used raw turbinado sugar in place of regular white sugar as that was all I could find in stores. Otherwise I was very careful in my measurements and used the spoon and level technique for measuring the flour. Any feedback would be appreciated to avoid this from happening again 🙁
Hi Sam, Sorry you had a problem with this. I think the different sugar as well as the butter both contributed to the problem but the butter probably was the primary issue. If it wasn’t fully softened, there may have been some chunks of butter left in the butter-sugar mixture which is likely what you encountered in that corner of the bread. Hope that helps!
Hi Jenn, thanks for your feedback 🙂 Will definitely be using this recipe again and fingers crossed it will come out in one piece!! lol
This was the best tasting banana bread! Alas I have bananas but no flour 🙄. I do have a small bag of self rising, what do you think?
Hi Sharon, This is best with all-purpose flour, but I know that it’s hard to come by right now! Self-rising flour will works in recipes using about 1/2 teaspoon (and up to 1 teaspoon) baking powder per cup of flour, so if you feel comfortable doing the math, feel free to give it a try. 🙂
This was a simple recipe to make and the result was very good. Good balance on dry vs wet so the bread was light and yummy.
Thank you
Jenn – Thank you for all of your amazing recipes! So far, I have made the following: Asparagus soup, Crusty Artisan bread, banana bread, Curry Thai chicken soup, to name a few. All have been amazing!! My husband (who is still working) is loving coming home to all the cooking smells! My neighbors are loving the bread I’ve been making and sharing.
Next week, I plan on trying my hand at the Challah bread and the Cinnamon Bread. Thank you so much, Jenn! We are all going to get through this and come out the other side with a lot of new recipes!
Delicious, but wait for it to cool it tastes much better. I tried a slice right after I took it out of the pan and it tasted too buttery. I then tried it after it cooled and it seemed like all the flavors just melded together perfectly. It was delicious with my tea. Great way to use brown bananas.
Delicious! I made this bread this morning and my husband asked where I got the recipe. I said “it’s one of hers.” He knows what that means! Once Upon a Chef. He dove right in and helped himself twice.
🙂
It will still taste good!
Delicious and recipe easy to follow and, more importantly, I didn’t have to out to get ingredients.
Hi Jenn, I am not a baker. I just made your classic banana bread while at home. It was delicious! So easy and very moist.Thanks for sharing so many wonderful recipes with us. Siobhan