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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Our family loves this recipe! Whenever I make it, my 5 and 2-year-olds gobble it up. I’ve started adding lemon zest in addition to the lemon juice for an extra lemony flavor, and I cook for about 36-37 minutes instead of the 40-45 min. It’s super moist and a perfect way to use up our over ripe bananas!
Absolutely love this banana bread! So yummy. It’s also very forgiving if you add too many bananas…
I would like to try adding oatmeal to this – do you have any tips?
Hi Krysten, I’ve never put oatmeal in a quick bread, so I can’t say from experience, but I suspect it will work (though the bread will definitely be a bit drier and more dense). I’d replace the flour with an equivalent amount of oats (and I’d suggest keeping the oats to no more than 1/2 cup). Hope that helps — I’d love to hear how it turns out if you make it this way!
Favorite banana bread recipe !!!
What temperature for the oven?
350°F/175°C. Hope you enjoy!
Just put 2 more loaves in the oven. This is a great basic banana bread recipe that comes out perfect every time. The only thing i do different is double the recipe and use half white and half brown sugar. I stop using the mixer when i add the flour and mix by hand to keep the air bubbles out. At the end i fold in a cup of chopped walnuts. Love your recipes and have tried so many. They all come out great. You make me look like i actually know what I’m doing. Thank you
Love this easy recipe. It is moist and tasty. I am not accurate with measuring so I’m surprised it turned out so good. I always add my own touch like raisins and or nuts or some other fruit. It all works out great. Thank you for this great easy recipes
Delicious banana bread that is moist and not too sweet. I added 3/4 cup of toasted walnuts and loved it so much that we ate the entire loaf in less than 2 days. We have loved all of the recipes that we made in your fabulous cookbook! Some of our favorites are Thai Chicken Soup with Rice Noodles, Peruvian Roast Chicken with Green Sauce, Baja Fish Tacos and French Apple Cake. Recently, our friends devoured the Peruvian Chicken meal with your suggested sides and thought it was so good that they ordered your cookbook that very night.
Jenn, thanks for providing such wonderful recipes that are easy to follow, can always be counted on to taste delicious and make us shine. Please publish another!
So glad you like the recipes, Catherine!! I actually am working on another cookbook – you can read more about it here. 💓
Hi Jenn, made this and it was the best banana bread I have ever made. Soft and light but still moist. Can I replace butter with canola oil and if so do I need to reduce portion ?
Thank you
So glad you liked it! Canola oil won’t work here, but a few readers have commented that they’ve successfully used coconut oil with good results. Hope that helps!
I haven’t made banana bread in years, but I found myself with a bunch of overripe bananas. I let them go for several more days, knowing the riper the better, and then tried to decide which of many recipes to use. Then I thought of this website since I’ve never been disappointed with a recipe from Jennifer. This one was no exception. The bread was moist and flavorful–my husband said the best banana bread he has ever eaten. I have enough bananas for another loaf and had planned to try a different recipe for comparison, but why fool around with perfection? The only change I made was to add 1/2 cup of chopped toasted walnuts as I like a little crunch in my banana bread. I cooked it in a convection oven at 325 degrees and ended up taking it out after about 33 minutes as it was nicely browned and a toothpick came out clean. Thanks once again, Jennifer!
I have been making this banana bread for a few years now it is an excellent recipe that’s works every time not too sweet lovely with a strong coffee at any time of the day ….thank you so much for sharing ….
Great recipe as always. Made as directed and added chocolate chips.