Banana Bread
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Say hello to your new favorite banana bread. This easy recipe bakes up with a tender crumb, rich flavor, and an irresistibly crisp crust. It’s a keeper.
On the hunt for the perfect banana bread recipe? Look no further—this is the one. Moist, fragrant, and just the right amount of sweet, it’s phenomenal fresh out of the oven and just as good toasted for breakfast the next day. My family loves it plain, but you can easily add nuts (I’m partial to walnuts) or chocolate chips if that’s your thing.
If you’re in the mood to mix it up, I’ve got plenty of options: marbled banana bread, chocolate banana bread, banana coconut bread, chai-spiced banana bread—and don’t forget banana nut muffins and banana chocolate chip muffins. After all, you can never have too many banana bread recipes!
“Best banana bread I’ve ever made! But it’s dangerous—I steal a slice each time I’m in the kitchen! Next up is Jenn’s pumpkin bread.”
What You’ll Need To Make Banana Bread
- All-purpose flour, baking soda & baking powder: These dry ingredients give the bread structure and lift. For best results with the flour, scoop it into your measuring cup with a spoon and level it off with a knife.
- Unsalted butter, sugar & large eggs: This trio brings richness, sweetness, and structure. The butter should be close to room temperature so that it’s soft enough to blend with the sugar. The eggs help bind everything together.
- Ripe bananas: Provide moisture, natural sweetness, and big banana flavor—the riper, the better. They should be dark yellow with lots of brown spots, or even fully brown. (Pro Tip: To ripen quickly, bake bananas in their peels at 250°F for 15 to 20 minutes until soft and blackened. Extra-ripe bananas freeze well too—just peel and store in a freezer bag until you’re ready to thaw and mash.)
- Lemon & vanilla extract: Lemon juice brightens things up and helps with lift, and vanilla adds a warm finishing note.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
Step-by-Step Instructions
Step 1: Mix the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Whisk to combine. It’s important to whisk thoroughly; this distributes the leaveners evenly, so the loaf rises uniformly.
Step 2: Cream butter and sugar. In the bowl of an electric hand mixer (or a stand mixer), beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Creaming incorporates air into the batter, which helps the bread bake up light instead of dense.
Step 3: Beat in the eggs. Add the eggs one at a time and beat the mixture well after each addition.
Step 4: Add the bananas and flavorings. Mix in the mashed bananas, lemon juice, and vanilla extract.
Step 5: Mix in the dry ingredients. Add the flour mixture and beat on low speed until just incorporated. Don’t over mix. (Overmixing develops the gluten and can make the bread tough instead of tender.)
Step 6: Bake. Pour the batter from the mixing bowl into the prepared loaf pan, using a rubber spatula to get everything out of the bowl. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until a tester or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Step 7: Cool and store. Let the bread cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Banana bread will stay fresh for 2 to 3 days; freeze for longer storage.
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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Delicious! Very easy to follow recipe instructions. This is my third time making it and it comes out great every time!
This banana bread is amazing! I made this recipe vegan by replacing butter with vegan butter and the eggs with 2 flax eggs and it’s amazing! Even my non vegan family members loved it. We make a lot of banana bread and honestly I just find a new recipe each time but this is a keeper. Thanks for sharing!
poorly written recipe
tried this recipe once, it was great! just have one question: does the “1-3/4 cup of flour” refer to one AND three quarters or one TO three quarters? Same goes with the vanilla extract.
Hi, Glad you liked it! Those measurements refer to 1 cup plus 3/4 cup of flour (and the same format for the vanilla). For some reason, the back end of my system makes me include that hyphen. Sorry for any confusion!
That’s funny because I always have the same question. It is a bit confusing with the hyphen.
What an excellent recipe! I deviated slightly from the recipe in that I took Julia Childs advice and used jumbo eggs. Sugar reduced to 1/3 cup. I’m not a sweet fan, plenty of sugar in the bananas. Flour was spooned and leveled in measure, bananas were cooked for 8 min in a non-stick skillet to reduce the moisture, 3/4 cup pecan pieces added. Bread pulled at 200 deg F on an instant thermometer. P E R F E C T !
Yes, I gave this a shot. Tried to make banana bread about 20 years ago during the dot-com crash when I went from high-paid engineer to Mr. Mom. Not so good. Rephrase. Horrible. About a month ago, my wife and I tried another recipe. OK, but not great. Today, I tried yours. Far superior to my last efforts. Thank you, m’lady.
This really is the best banana bread EVER! I think I could eat the entire loaf myself. This is like my only banana bread recipe now
Excelent recipe!I have made it as is many times and it’s always eaten and enjoyed by all. I have a gluten free family member and have now made this recipe 3 times using Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 GF flour–each time a success! For the GF flour, I have found I need to increase baking time. Otherwise, I followed the recipe as is and it’s great.
I’ve also added chocolate chips to the recipe and that’s a kid favorite.
We love this recipe in our home. I’m wondering how I could convert it to a muffin or mini muffin recipe..?
Glad you like it, Beth! It should work nicely for muffins. I’d keep the oven temp the same and start checking them for doneness at about 18 minutes for standard muffins and about 12 minutes for minis. Hope that helps!
Can you make this with gluten-free flour, and if so what brand/kind do you recommend? Thank you!
Hi Martha, I haven’t made a gluten-free version of this but other readers have and have been happy with the results. Please let me know how it turns out if you make it!
Try Bob’s Red Mill 1-1 GF Flour Blend. Already has xanthan gum so don’t add any. I use this and King Arthur’s Measure for Measure GF blend (also has xanthan). Of the two, I lean more towards Bob’s, but do know that the KA blend is enriched. The only one that I know of in the market that has that. Tip: I always add a bit more leavener. If recipe calls for 1 tsp bkg pdr, I’ll add another 1/8th tsp. ALSO: Allow batter to sit in the prepared pans for about 5 mins or so. This allows flours to “hydrate” but do know that I use only double acting bkg pdr.
Good luck! And ENJOY!
FORGOT TO ADD: I replace 1/2 cup of the flour with Bob’s Superfine Almond Flour or the Unblanched Superfine Almond Flour. Of the two, I prefer the results with the unblanched (comes out a bit firmer, which I prefer). I use homemade brown sugar and reduce the amount called for to 2/3 c or use equivalent Truvia Brown Sugar Blend. I also play with the butter because that is just too much when you are watching calories. Recipe works well with replacing eggs with liquid eggs. Hey, when you have to watch A1C and cholesterol, you do what you gotta do so you can still enjoy a treat!
I’m not rating since I did not follow recipe as written.
I actually prefer Cup4Cup gf flour. I find I don’t need to make any adjustments to recipes, it’s really a terrific gf flour (better than Bob’s Redmill, as much as I love them).
I didn’t use Jenn’s actual recipe because I had a lot of bananas to use up and needed one that could absorb at least 4 but I did follow her instructions since all recipes pretty much start the same. The step-by-step photos are so helpful, thank you Jenn! I’m new to baking and had no idea what ‘cream until light and fluffy’ should look like until I read your post. I also panicked initially when adding the banana and it looked curdled, so also appreciate your extra note there. Thanks again!