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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This is truly the best I have ever tried – it cooks evenly, it’s delicious and moist! Perfect mix and quantities of ingredients.
Hey Jenn, I’m dying to try this recipe after trying out your Pumpkin Bread one. I was looking through the comments to see if anyone else had asked this, but is it okay to add chocolate chips to the recipe or will that mess it up?
Hi Cassandra, I do think it would work. Please LMK how it turns out if you try it.
I ended up trying it and everyone loved it!!
I would use about 1/4 to 1/3 of a 24oz bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips per batch, and it was the perfect amount!
At the very end, after you stir in the dry ingredients, mix in the chocolate chips by hand with a spatula. I would do just barely enough so that they would be incorporated throughout.
So glad it came out well with the chocolate chips; thanks for taking the time to report back!
Made with three very ripe bananas, and I added one finely chopped apple and 1/2 cup each chopped walnuts & pecans, no alterations to the base recipe amounts. Made 12 large muffins. Absolutely delicious, wonderful texture.
Time is off. Needed to bake for over an hour. Otherwise five stars!
I am going through the website and keep making all sorts of these bread recipes first. This banana bread is super moist and delicious. I added a layer of walnuts across the top. I live in a tiny condo and used my “mini Breville” oven to bake. Perfect recipe.
I have lots of bananas that I froze when they were turning brown. Can I use them for this recipe or would it be too “ watery” once thawed?
Hi Kristen, it’s perfectly fine to use thawed bananas. Just drain off any liquid they give off while thawing. Hope you enjoy!
So flavorful! I’ve made this many times. I put a brown sugar icing on and it took away from the flavour . Best as is !
Love this have made it a few times!!
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.
I made two small loaves and baked for 30 minutes. Delicious!
Best banana bread ever! In the past, I have tried multiple recipes. Some came out fluffy, but dry. Some came out moist, but too heavy. For this recipe, I was dubious about eggs in banana bread, and about lemon juice in banana bread, and where was the milk or buttermilk? However, Ms. Segal has never steered me wrong, so I went on faith, and it was not misplaced! This banana bread came out JUST RIGHT! It’s fluffy enough and moist enough and just the right amount of sugar!
I used soft, old bananas whose skins had darkened. They were perfect. Followed recipe implicitly.
It took me 54 minutes for perfect “doneness,” but it was great. Will make this again and again!