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):Â 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.
My first ever banana bread. Came out great, moist, just the sides could be a bit lighter. Everyone loved it, even the members of my family who never eat banana bread.
The perfect banana bread recipe doesn’t exi……wait. THIS IS IT! It’s perfect! I’m not even a good baker, but I managed to make this recipe come out to absolute perfection. *chef kiss* This is the keeper.
I am using a dark colored metal loaf pan. Do I reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees to bake?
Hi Lynn, If your pan is very dark then yes, you can lower your oven temperature. Your bake time may be longer so just keep an eye on it and if you notice the top of your loaf getting brown before the center is fully baked, you can cover the top with aluminum foil.
I use half cup stevia and 1/4 brown sugar and 1/8 cup molasses. Comes out perfect.
I’ve been making this banana bread recipe for years, it is my favourite! I always double it up, and add chocolate chips! Yummy!
I was really hopeful with this recipe and I followed everything to a T, including covering it at 30mins. I am not sure it my oven was overheated, but my banana bread turned out very dry :/ Any suggestions to improve this would be appreciated!
Hi Rory! A dry quick bread is almost always caused by over-baking. Make sure to keep an eye on it in the oven. We always suggest using an in-oven thermometer to ensure you’re oven is the correct temperature as well. Also be careful to spoon and level (instead of scooping) when measuring your flour to avoid packing in too much flour into your measuring cups – or use a kitchen scale. You can read more about properly measuring baking ingredients in this post.
I suggest that you add 1/4 cup of Milk, and a Tbls. of Olive Oil to the batter. I also add 1 tsp. of Baking Powder to help it rise a bit more.
Best banana cake I have ever made.
It is moist and delicious
Loved this bread. It is very moist, and had a wonderful banana flavor. Will make this again soon.
Very easy and very yummy! I made two small loafs and they lasted two days! I will definitely make this again!
I bake frequently and was looking for a new banana bread recipe. A friend recommended your baking site. I made this banana bread exactly according to directions. I do not think I overmixed the batter as I only mixed until ingredients were just incorporated. I checked the cake several times in the last 20 minutes of baking and removed from oven after baking for a total of 45 minutes. The taste of the cake was good but the top and sides were tough. Can you suggest a reason or a solution for this tough exterior? I would like to try the recipe once again to improve the outside texture.
Hi Lisa, was your oven rack low enough? Also did you loosely cover the bread with aluminum foil after 30 minutes to help prevent the top and sides from getting too brown? Let us know if you try those things if you give this bread another try.
Finally, a banana bread recipe that is amazing! Perfection. Thank you for this delicious recipe.
Instead of making sour dough this pandemic, I’ve turned to banana bread, a longtime favorite for me and my family. I went through countless recipes and this one is BY FAR THE BEST!
I am a sloppy cook with three small children and kind of read the recipe as I assemble ingredients. I used half-melted butter, three bananas, maple syrup instead of vanilla (where the hell did I put that?) and this was…..
INCREDIBLE!!!
Should mention I cannot find loaf pans so I made muffins. Still. I haven’t felt this happy since my mom was alive and baking this for breakfast. This recipe inspires my childhood heart and will be my go-to forever.
This (and other sallysbakingaddiction) recipe is my go to, and everyone loves it! I don’t have any plain yogurt now. Any thoughts on using vanilla yogurt and decreasing/eliminating the vanilla? Thank you!
Hi Katy, the bread may be a bit sweeter, but that should work in a pinch.
This is really good! I used cane sugar (as that is what I had) & decreased the sugar a little bit to between 1/2 & 3/4 cup. At the end, mixed in 1/2 cup or chopped pecans and 1/2 cup of mini chocolate morsels. It did need to be baked about 7 minutes longer than indicated in the recipe. Everyone really liked this banana bread. It is definitely a repeat!
Just delicious. I had some old bananas that I couldn’t eat any more and finally found the time to make it. Great recipe and easy to make.
You are right, waiting a day makes the tastes meld but I could not resist grabbing a slice after it cooled right out of the oven and it tasted great then too. I used smaller pans, 9×5 inches lined with parchment paper sprayed with cooking spray. This worked like a charm and made two good sized loafs. The baking time of 60 minutes was perfect.
I put walnuts in it, which I love and that added great texture and taste to the bread. I rewrapped it this morning to store it and the delicious banana smell permiated the kitchen. I also grabbed a few slices of it this morning and put some butter on it and had it with my tea. I have missed my mother’s banana bread for years and this brought me back. Tastes like this are not to be missed, thank you so much for this recipe!
Hi Matty, thank you so much for sharing! We are glad you love this bread and that it brings you happy memories.
As always, another recipe well done. Some have mentioned the bread is a bit bland. Add a little more salt & cinnamon. I added 1tbsp & for us, it was really good. I toasted the walnuts about 5 minutes in a pan on the stove & that always increases flavor. We didn’t add the cream cheese frosting but I can see that also adding to the wonderful flavor.
This bread is indeed moist. I used sour cream (tons left over from Christmas) & that was delicious but we’ve also made this with Fage plain & Siggy’s vanilla. Both are really good & the texture is wonderfully moist. The bread itself is dense but not overly thick & certainly not airy & dry like some we’ve tried. I didn’t need anything to drink with it. We all spread a little butter over a slice. It took 5 medium bananas to get 2 cups.
I don’t have a hand held mixer. Can I use melted butter or oil instead?
Oh my god, this recipe is amazing!! I just made this for New Year’s morning and it took everything in me to not eat it all before everyone woke up. I did the recipe as followed, but swapped out the yogurt for sour cream and folded in 1/4 cup of walnuts and pecans each. The foil trick is new to me but worked like a charm and kept the bread from browning too soon. I have a nutty streusel (almonds, walnuts, pecans, brown sugar, and cinnamon) I throw into the food processor to top my loaves off with and it complimented this one perfectly; the crunchy nuts go really well with the soft loaf. Amazing recipe and will definitely become my go-to!
So I’ll be honest i was very skeptical to make this recipe because it has ingredients I’ve never used in my banana bread before, but I wanted something different and gave it a shot. Wow was i ever surprised! It is amazing I’m so glad I tried it out! I also added crushed heath and white chocolate on the top because I’m extra like that but thank you for sharing this recipe because it will now be my go to!
I loved this recipe! I actually had the plain yogurt in my fridge… perfect! I used Splenda instead of brown sugar because my father-in-law wants to cut down on his sugar and they came out great!! I made muffins instead of bread , I also used 6 small bananas because that’s what I had. I’ll definitely be making them again soon.
Hello Sally,
How can I change quantities if I have 3 bananas ?
Hi Shilpa, mash up the bananas you have then add enough unsweetened applesauce or canned pumpkin puree to yield 2 cups. Or try our banana muffins recipe which calls for 3 large bananas.
Where was this recipe all my life!! I’ve always had issues with my banana loaf getting extra crispy on the sides! Lightly adding foil did the trick! Thanks so mcub
I’m newly married and not much of a cook, but your recipes are easy, healthy, and very tasty! Everything looks delicious and so far, everything that I have tried off your site is fantastic! I’ll continue to spread the word of your wonderful site and It was definitely a recipe to keep for a long time. Loved it!
Just made this recipe a few hours ago for, well, it was supposed to be for Christmas morning but we already had a slice after it cooled down a little. We all loved it! It’s the best bread I’ve made without completely messing it up. I’ll be using it again for sure. Merry Christmas!
Hi Sally,
Thanks so much for the baking tips and recipes! Can’t wait to try! 🙂
I was wondering if I could substitute the yogurt/sour cream with heavy cream instead? Have some leftover cream and not sure if that would work
Thanks! <3
Hi Yanthi, The next best liquid substitute would be buttermilk instead of yogurt or sour cream (same amount), but the batter will be on the thinner side and, as a result, the baked bread will end up a little squat without as much rise. Best to stick to the recipe.
Great recipe! The only thing I’m struggling with is that the top is always undercooked. I’ve tried leaving it in there for 65-68 minutes.
Hello Sally,
Your recipes are certainly the best! This banana bread is delicious, and I love the whole wheat one as well.
Just wanted to know whether buttermilk can be substituted for the sour cream/yogurt.
Thanks for all your baking tips and recipes. Merry Christian to you and yours.
Hi Julietta! You can use buttermilk instead of yogurt or sour cream (same amount), but the batter will be on the thinner side and, as a result, the baked bread will end up a little squat without as much rise. Best to stick to the recipe. Thank you so much for making our recipes!
I lost my banana bread recipe from my grandma so I’ve been on the hunt for one that tasted like hers. This is spot on. My family loves this bread and it’s a great addition to my dessert platters for the holidays!
I have for years made your Pumplin chocolate chip bread. I have nothing but rave reviews.
I take it to businesses with which we do business. They look forward to it every year.
I am going to try this recipe for banana bread. I’m sure it will be as wonderful as the Pumkin chocolate chip recipe. Thank you!
I just tried this recipe and it came out great. We have a problem with the overly that it won’t go over 300 degrees but I put the batter in a 9×9 glass baking dish and it came out wonderful. I added blueberries and walnuts. My boyfriend says it’s the best dessert ever and I didn’t even add the cream cheese frosting.