With its super-moist and buttery texture, banana and brown sugar flavors, soft crumb, and 1,000+ reviews, this is a delicious AND undeniably popular banana bread recipe. You need 4 ripe bananas.
One reader, Michele, says: “Perfectly delish every time! Absolutely foolproof. Nuts, no nuts, smidge more or less of sour cream—no problem… bigger bananas, smaller—no worries, perfect, beyond delicious EVERY time. ★★★★★”
This is my favorite banana bread recipe, one that I’ve cherished for years. It’s one of those classic recipes that you start to know by heart, just like a good pie crust or chocolate chip cookies recipe. This bread comes to mind first when I have leftover spotty bananas on the counter, and it’s the bread that’s on constant rotation in my freezer stash.
It’s one of the most popular recipes I’ve published on this website, out of over 1,200.
One reader, Tricia, says: “I have this recipe on speed dial. LOL. It is so tasty and is always a crowd pleaser. My kids and entire family love it!!! ★★★★★”
Yes, I have this recipe on speed dial too! 😉
I’ve tried dozens of banana bread recipes over the years, and when I baked and originally published this recipe back in 2013, I never looked back.
Why You’ll Love This Banana Bread Recipe Too
- Mega banana flavor (from 2 cups/460g mashed bananas)
- Not overly sweet, so banana flavor shines
- Dense, but still quite tender & soft
- Buttery & stays moist for days
- Straightforward, simple recipe
- Freezes wonderfully
- Excellent plain or with nuts or chocolate chips
This bread uses more mashed bananas than similar recipes. Add 2 whole cups (460g) of mashed banana, which is about 4 large bananas. More banana = more moisture and flavor in the finished loaf.
How to Mash Bananas
Did you know you can use your electric mixer to mash bananas? Break or slice the spotty bananas into large pieces and place in the bowl of your stand mixer—or use a regular mixing bowl and your hand mixer. Begin beating on low, then gradually increase to medium-high speed as the bananas break down into mashed banana. Transfer the bananas to another bowl and use the mixing bowl for the butter and sugar. (No need to clean it—some mashed banana remnants is fine.)
I do this when I mash bananas for banana muffins and banana chocolate chip breakfast cookies too.
Other Banana Bread Ingredients
- Butter: Use softened butter for a soft texture and irresistible butter flavor.
- Brown Sugar: Use all brown sugar in this recipe. In the headnotes for this chocolate chip cookies recipe, I explain that brown sugar yields soft and moist cookies. Well, brown sugar works that same magic in banana bread, too. It also adds wonderful flavor.
- Eggs: Eggs supply cakes, cupcakes, breads, doughs, and cookies their stability and structure, as well as a tender texture. You’ll need 2 large eggs for this.
- Sour Cream or Yogurt: Sour cream or yogurt adds even more moisture to this banana bread. (You can use the 2 interchangeably in most baking recipes.)
For banana nut bread, add 3/4 cup of chopped nuts to the banana bread batter; I like using either pecans or walnuts. If you’re nuts for nuts (LOL), you’ll enjoy the toasty slight crunch nestled inside the soft crumbs. If you’re not a nut person, feel free to leave them out or replace with chocolate chips. For a whole wheat version, try my whole wheat banana bread.
Can I Use Frozen Bananas?
Yes and I do this often. Thaw the frozen bananas at room temperature. Drain off any excess liquid, mash, then use as instructed in the recipe below. See How to Freeze & Thaw Bananas for Baking. Try not to mash too much or else you’ll be left with 2 cups of banana-y liquid; some chunks are great.
Can I Turn This Into a Banana Bundt Cake?
I recommend using my extremely similar, scaled-up recipe for chocolate marble banana Bundt cake instead. You can leave out the chocolate swirl in that recipe.
How to Freeze Banana Bread
Freeze banana bread using these instructions to preserve its fresh flavor and texture for months:
- Cool baked banana bread completely.
- Tightly wrap the loaf or slices (individually or grouped) in 2–3 layers of plastic wrap or aluminum foil.
- Place wrapped banana bread in a large freezer-friendly storage bag or reusable container.
- Date the bag and freeze for up to 3–4 months. Thaw wrapped or unwrapped in the refrigerator or at room temperature. All methods work like a charm!
I like to freeze the quick bread in slices because slices thaw much quicker than a whole loaf.
Overall, this is an easy recipe for classic banana bread. The batter takes about 10 minutes to throw together, the bread stays moist for days, and nothing beats the smell of fresh banana bread in the oven. (Except for, maybe, zucchini bread or pumpkin bread… try those next!)
Other Favorite Banana Recipes:
- Banana Cake & Banana Cupcakes
- Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread
- Banana Cream Pie & Banoffee Pie
- Banana Muffins or Healthier Chocolate Banana Muffins & Blueberry Banana Muffins
- Banana Chocolate Chip Streusel Muffins
- Peanut Butter Banana Muffins
My Favorite Banana Bread
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 65 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours
- Yield: 1 loaf
- Category: Bread
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
With its super-moist and buttery texture, banana and brown sugar flavors, soft crumb, and 1,000+ reviews, this is a delicious AND undeniably popular banana bread recipe. You need 4 large ripe bananas.
Ingredients
- 2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 cup (8 Tbsp; 113g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 3/4 cup (150g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1/3 cup (80g) plain yogurt or sour cream, at room temperature
- 2 cups (460g) mashed bananas (about 4 large ripe bananas)
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- optional: 3/4 cup (100g) chopped pecans or walnuts
Instructions
- Adjust the oven rack to the lower third position and preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C). Lowering the oven rack prevents the top of your bread from browning too much, too soon. Grease a metal 9×5-inch loaf pan with nonstick spray. Set aside.
- Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- Using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, beat the butter and brown sugar together on high speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. With the mixer running on medium speed, add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Then beat in the yogurt, mashed bananas, and vanilla extract until combined.
- With the mixer running on low speed, slowly beat the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until no flour pockets remain. Do not over-mix. Fold in the nuts, if using.
- Pour and spread the batter into the prepared baking pan. Bake for 60–65 minutes, making sure to loosely cover the bread with aluminum foil halfway through to prevent the top from getting too brown. The bread is done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean with only a few small moist crumbs. This may be after 60–65 minutes depending on your oven, so begin checking every 5 minutes around the 60-minute mark.
- Remove bread from the oven and allow the bread to cool in the pan set on a wire rack for 1 hour. Remove bread from the pan and cool bread directly on the wire rack until ready to slice and serve.
- Cover and store banana bread at room temperature for 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. Banana bread tastes best on day 2 after the flavors have settled together. See post above for freezing instructions.
Notes
- Special Tools (affiliate links): 9×5-inch Loaf Pan | Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Silicone Spatula | Cooling Rack
- Butter: If needed, you can use salted butter in this recipe with no other changes needed. I’ve also successfully reduced the butter down to 6 Tablespoons (85g) with no issue (just as tasty).
- Brown Sugar: This is not an overly sweet quick bread. If you want a sweeter banana bread, increase to 1 cup (200g) brown sugar. Feel free to replace some or all of the brown sugar with regular white granulated sugar.
- Cream Cheese Frosting: This banana bread also tastes fantastic with cream cheese frosting on top! To make it, beat 4 ounces (112g) of softened cream cheese and 1/4 cup (60g) of softened unsalted butter together on medium speed until smooth. Beat in 1 cup (120g) of confectioners sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt until combined. Spread on cooled loaf.
- Banana Bread Muffins: Use this banana bread recipe to make 15 banana bread muffins. Spoon the batter into a lined or greased muffin pan (fill each to the top with batter) and bake for 5 minutes at 425°F (218°C); then, keeping the muffins in the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 350°F (177°C). Bake for an additional 16–17 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The total bake time for the banana bread muffins is about 21–23 minutes. The initial burst of hot air helps those muffins rise nice and tall! Or try my quick & easy banana muffins.
- Brown Sugar: Feel free to substitute the same amount of regular white granulated sugar or coconut sugar. I do not recommend any liquid sweeteners.
- No Sour Cream or Yogurt? Feel free to use 1/3 cup mashed banana (in addition to the 2 cups), unsweetened applesauce, or even canned pumpkin puree.
- Frozen Bananas: You can use frozen bananas here. Thaw the frozen bananas. Drain off any excess liquid, mash, then use as instructed in the recipe. See How to Freeze & Thaw Bananas for Baking. Try not to mash too much or else you’ll be left with 2 cups of banana-y liquid; some chunks are great.
- Chocolate Chips: I love this bread with chocolate chips, too. Feel free to add 1 cup of your favorite chocolate chips. No need to leave out the nuts if you add the chocolate chips. Chocolate chips and nuts are both optional.
- Can I Turn This Into Banana Bundt Cake? There isn’t enough batter. I recommend using my extremely similar, scaled-up recipe for chocolate marble banana Bundt cake instead. You can leave out the chocolate swirl in that recipe.
I made this banana bread this morning and OMG Delicious! Love it. Thanks for sharing the recipe!
Sally, I love the texture of this bread but love the additions from the Nutella swirled loaf you have too. Wondering if I could add a Nutella swirl into this recipe or if it would be too dense to bake properly?
I haven’t tried it with this particular recipe but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. Let me know if you try it!
This is delicious! Being from Germany banana bread isn‘t really widely known. It sounded interesting though and I love bananas!
Added walnuts and a few raisins.
Kb, I’m going to guess that you were looking more for the taste of a banana cake, than banana bread. If your bananas weren’t ripe enough, or if you didn’t pack the brown sugar into the cup to measure (instead of loose), that would definitely impact the flavor of the bread. As written, it’s very sweet if all ingredients are ripe and accurately measured.
I used this recipe for my special exam in cooking class and results turned out so good, everyone loved it! It was perfect from the moisture to the right amount of sweetness. 11/10 would recommend!!
Doubled the recipe and added some raisins…. am here after three or four years and yes still ur recipes r winner…
The fact that your boys didn’t want to eat it because it wasn’t sweet enough is a testament to your lousy parenting, not the recipe itself. Maybe stop feeding them overly sweet and processed junk food and they might learn to appreciate something as delicious as banana bread.
Its banana bread Laura, calm down.
First time I follow an online recipe and it turns out perfect! Well done Sally for a fabulous website! Made 2 loaves already this week and will be looking for more of your recipes to try out. Keep doing what you’re doing xx
Such fabulous recipe! The grain of bread was like wow..no other recipe other than this for banana bread ever..
The name says it all. Delicious! I have never met one of Sally’s recipes that steered me wrong. Her recipes are always a hit. Sally, you are my go to for desserts! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I made this bread with ss chocolate chips instead of nuts and in a bundt pan. We are some tonight and I’m dreaming of it for breakfast in the morning!
Thank you so much for this recipe!
This is pretty much the recipe I have always remembered my Nana making.
Nana dosnt quite remember ever making banana bread but the whole family has been so thrilled with this recipe and its just as delicious as they remember.
Spectacular! Moist light delicious!
I baked this banana bread today so it just cooled enough to slice! It is absolutely delicious! This will be the recipe I use from now on! Thank You!!!
Thank you for a wonderful recipe! Every time I search for a recipe on Google and see “Sally’s Baking Addiction” I know I’ll have a winner.
The banana bread was moist and delicious! I used semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of nuts. I stuck with the plain Greek yogurt recommendation. The bake time was on point. I will definitely make this again.
I made this recipe tonight & I really loved it! Thank you. I used sour cream because I was out of yogurt. Super moist, not too sweet. It was great!
Made a double recipe yesterday (one as a gift and one to keep). It was a hit with everyone… next time I’ll try it with the cream cheese frosting!
What about making small loafs?
Hi Sarah! You can use this banana bread batter to make smaller loaves in a mini loaf pan. Bake at 350F. The bake time depends on the dimensions of the loaves. Keep a close eye on them.
Thank you for this awesome recipe! I substituted the Greek yogurt with coconut yogurt and then also the butter with oil. Although instead of the creaming method, I used the pudding method and I gotta say this recipe is BALLS TO WALL! So good!❤️
Love this banana bread! Anyone who eats this asks for the recipe. Can I double this recipe?
Hi Margaret! So glad you love this banana bread recipe! You can double the recipe or make two separate batches.
Hi Sally! I have made this so many times – we always keep a few overripe bananas in the house – and every time my family begs me for more……several of whom have never before liked any banana bread/cake recipe!!! Thank you Sally!
Love the texture of this banana bread!
I’ve never had any success with baking banana bread until this recipe. Perfectly moist and tons of flavor! I love cinnamon, so I add 1/2 tablespoon to my bread. My kids devour this bread plain, no mix-ins! It’s become a weekly staple here.
YUM! This is such a forgiving, PERFECT recipe. I only had 2 super overripe bananas and about 3 tablespoons of yogurt, no fresh eggs, no nuts, and no brown sugar. But I forged ahead and made it anyway for breakfast, just to use up those bananas – and I even did it the LAZY person way, throwing all the wet ingredients into the mixing bowl with the salt, cinnamon, dried eggs and sugar…but it STILL came out PERFECT and INCREDIBLY moist and DELICIOUS! Note: I never use fresh eggs in baking, I only use the dehydrated whole eggs with the obligatory 2T water to 2T powdered egg. And I never buy brown sugar…I always make my own by mixing molasses with white sugar. But I didn’t have any premixed brown sugar on hand so I added 1/2 T molasses to the wet mixture and beat it all up with my hand mixer. Then I added the 2 C flour, threw the baking soda on top and used my spatula to mix it until it was all moistened. Then I used the hand mixer and beat it on high for about 1-1/2 minutes. It was so thick I thought it was going to be a dud. NOT SO! After 40 minutes of baking, I tented the pan with foil and baked another 15 minutes. It was PERFECT! I’ll never use another recipe to make banana bread again, and I’ve tried probably 50! THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS RECIPE! 🙂
AMAZING!!! Mom is diabetic so I used 1 C whole wheat flour w 1 C all -purpose. Also brown sugar splenda. This banana bread was SO delish! Thanks for the recipe.
This is literally THE BEST banana bread ever! Soooo moist, rises beautifully, and pairs perfectly with walnuts, or chocolate chips, or cream cheese frosting or just on its own!!! The 30 minute mark for the foil is perfect timing, the bread browns just the perfect amount. I’m pretty sure it tastes best on day 2 but there’s nothing left after day one, it’s too delicious!
Made this one today. It’s half gone. My 7 year old said it’s the best banana bread I’ve ever made. His school buddy said it’s even better than his mom’s. Love it!
Just made this recipe and it’s the best banana bread I’ve ever had!. Thank you Sally!
I was looking for a gluten free banana bread recipe for my husband and daughter but decided to use this one, substituting Red Mill 1 to 1 flour. I made no other substitutions except sprinkling in some ground ginger, cloves and nutmeg with the cinnamon. It turned out perfectly!! I checked it at 55 minutes and it was just right. I dont know if that was my oven or because of the gluten free flour. This recipe is a winner!! Thank you, Sally!
Thank you Brenda. I was going to ask about using a gluten free 1-1 flour. Now I am ready to give it a try.
Great recipe, made a loaf last night….my family had it for breakfast this morning and loved it, better than my old recipe :))) This is now my favorite BB go to recipe. Thank you!!!
This banana bread was just perfect!
Moist. Soft. Beautiful ripe banana flavours. Crunchy walnut bites throughout.
My oven is somewhat on the hot side so bearing this in mind I did have to lower the temp to 150 degrees Celsius Fan and keep covered with foil after 20mins.
I normally wouldn’t dare say “The best ever” about anything, but this one really is. It’s simply the best banana bread I have ever tasted.