With its super-moist and buttery texture, banana and brown sugar flavors, soft crumb, and 1,300+ reviews, this is a delicious AND undeniably popular banana bread recipe. You need 4 medium or 3 large ripe bananas.
I originally published this recipe in 2013 and have since added new photos and a few more success tips. It’s one of the most popular recipes I’ve published on this website, out of over 1,200. This recipe is such a fan favorite, that it deserved a spot in print! You’ll also find this recipe in my cookbook, Sally’s Baking 101.
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.
One reader, Tricia, commented: “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 many years ago, I never looked back.
Why You’ll Love This Banana Bread Recipe Too
- Mega banana flavor
- Not overly sweet, so banana flavor shines
- Dense, but still quite tender & soft
- Buttery & stays moist for days (tastes best on day 2, just like peanut butter chocolate chip zucchini bread)
- Straightforward, simple recipe
- Freezes wonderfully
- Excellent plain or with nuts or chocolate chips—or a swipe of cinnamon butter
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. Or for a chocolate version, try my double chocolate 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 1 and 1/2 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
- Baked Banana Oatmeal
- 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. This recipe is also in my cookbook, Sally’s Baking 101.
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 Greek yogurt or full-fat sour cream, at room temperature
- 1 and 1/2 cups (345g) mashed bananas (about 3–4 ripe bananas)
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- optional: 3/4 cup (90g) chopped pecans or walnuts, or 1 cup (180g) semi-sweet chocolate chips
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 9×5-inch loaf pan with nonstick spray. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon together. Set aside.
- In a large bowl using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and brown sugar together on medium-high speed until light and creamy, about 3 minutes. (Here’s a helpful tutorial if you need guidance on how to cream butter and sugar.) With the mixer running on medium speed, add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in the yogurt, vanilla, and mashed bananas until combined.
- Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and beat on low speed just until combined. Do not over-mix. Fold in the nuts/chocolate chips, if using. The batter should be thick.
- Pour and spread the batter into the prepared baking pan. Bake for 60–65 minutes, making sure to loosely cover the pan 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. Cool the bread in the pan set on a cooling rack for 1 hour. Remove the bread from the pan and cool it directly on the rack until ready to slice and serve.
- Store wrapped tightly at room temperature for up to 3 days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Special Tools (affiliate links): 9×5-inch Loaf Pan | Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Silicone Spatula | Cooling Rack
- Update in 2025: With enough reader feedback stating the bread can often be too moist and dense, and therefore not bake properly, my team and I retested the bread multiple times over the past 2 years; we slightly reduced the amount of mashed bananas from 2 cups to 1 and 1/2 cups.
- 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 what is called for in the recipe), 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 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.
Reader Comments and Reviews
OH EM GEE!!! 5 STARS for sure!!! This was so moist and delicious and will be my go to recipe now!!!
I used greek yogurt, added chocolate chips and I only had 3 bananas on hand. I also used the Pampered Chef 8×8 stone cake pan to bake in and baked for 40 minutes. I did not have to cover the top with aluminum foil. I have a bunch of frozen bananas so I look forward to making more. 🙂
Thank you for this recipe!
Delicious bread.
My family enjoy it a lot
Winter provisions were low on nuts, so I used 3/4 cup Cascadian Farms coconut/cashew cereal and replaced the vanilla with rum. Voila: tropical tea loaf.
I made this with half oil and half butter to cut costs, used sour cream and added 3/4 cup of mini chocolate chips. Turned out perfect. Still tastes buttery. I loved this and will make it again.
Turned out very Moist and the texture was perfect, it didn’t have as much banana taste as I would like? I used some frozen bananas (thawed out) but could that have something to do with it?
Love your site and always helpful
Thx
Hi Christian, Frozen bananas thawed at room temperature and drained of any excess liquid should work great in this recipe.
Christian, I used to save a lot of bananas in the freezer to use for bread, but found that they seem to lose a lot of the banana flavor, so I stopped doing that. That could’ve been what you observed and experienced as well. I just use heavily ripened bananas now.
This recipe is awesome though. I added raisins and pecans.
Christian, maybe the bananas weren’t ripe enough before they were frozen. I’ve learned the hard way
over the years they should be overripe to get the best banana flavor.
Delicious and easy to make!
I just made this delicious banana bread and it tastes amazing!!!!! Thank you for posting the recipe!
Made this bread came out perfect I will be making another one soon
This is the best banana bread I’ve ever made. It’s so flavourful and the cream cheese frosting is so good in top. I will never bake another banana bread. Thank you for such a delicious recipe Sally!
Hi Caitlin, Thank you for trusting our recipes. So glad you love this one!
Pro tip, substitute some of the sugar for one package of vanilla pudding mix…you wont be disappointed! 😉
Good I guess shut SUPER dry even with the yogurt
This is the best banana bread I have ever made! I added black walnuts, hubby loved it. I know I can always count on your recipes!! Thanks!
This banana bread is delicious! I just bit into the first slice with an afternoon coffee, mmm. I have tried a lot of banana bread recipes and this is by far the best, probably because of the high quantity of bananas. I added about 1/3 cup of sultanas to my recipe as my husband loves them – it still turned out perfectly!
I made this today, but was short on butter so added a little oil to make up the difference. It’s so moist and delicious!
Won’t last 2 days 😉
I’ve tried lots of recipes but this is my favorite. My second time making it. I made muffins just didn’t have plain yogurt so I used chobani honey yogurt. It wasn’t until I took them out of the oven I realized I baked them wrong. Totally missed the bake for 425 for five minutes part. I did the 350 for 17 min. Somehow thy still came out great.
Hi Sally,
I always love your recipes. Planning to bake some banana bread tonight. My baking pan size is smaller – is 6×6
Can I half the recipe? How about baking time? Should i go with 35 mins? And put foil on probably 15-20 mins in?
Thank you 🙂
Hi Tem! Yes, you can halve the recipe. We are unsure of the exact bake time you will need so keep an eye on it and use a toothpick to test for doneness.
I LOVE this banana bread recipe!! I’m ALWAYS trying new recipes and, unfortunately, they seldom turn out good. But, THIS recipe turned out FANTASTIC! It was a BIG hit with everyone in my house. Thank you!!
just made this and it’s amazing!! but do i need to refrigerate leftovers?
Hi Holly! Cover and store banana bread at room temperature for 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Good recipe. Kids used up the vanilla extract last week so I used rum extract because that’s what I had, and still delicious. I used 1 cup walnuts and baked it in 2 smaller loaves because I’m impatient so waiting an hour to bake is out of the question. Your recipes are always good and easy to follow.
I am a huge fan of banana nut bread .. and yesterday I used this recipe adding 1/3 c. pumpkin in place of sour cream/yogurt as well as a pinch of nutmeg to go along with the cinnamon .. I like my banana nut bread with pecans instead of the traditional walnuts used in many other recipes ..and.. the final product is absolutely delicious!! This recipe makes a very dense and heavy bread that did require the full 65 minutes plus 5. Something noteworthy, although I did use a toothpick that came out clean, I decided to recheck using a knife and toward the middle to bottom of bread it was not quite done, requiring the extra 5 minutes. I also made the cream cheese frosting and I am Over-the-Moon in love with the taste, it’s perfect and not too sweet!! This recipe will now be my go-to!!
So many times I’ve saved bananas only to just throw them away because I was too lazy to make banana bread. I finally got it together and so glad I found this recipe! It was delicious and super moist – it was not as sweet as I usually like but still so good. I actually used 4 bananas and it only made 1 cup so I added 3 more for a total of 7 bananas (two were very large the rest were average) and that made 2 cups. We made a second batch and added chocolate chips and that helped sweeten it up a bit. I also sprinkled brown sugar on the top before baking which added a nice sweet crunch. I made small breads and muffins and just kept checking to make sure they were not getting too dry. The small bread pans I baked for 35 min and the muffins for 20 (including the extra hot 5 min at the top – really puffed them way up!) Thanks and I’ll be back to make more!!
My 17yr old son and I bake together. We loved making this. We used an iron skillet instead of a loaf pan. It’s still in the oven.
I’m not sure what happened. I did follow the recipe to the letter, including covering after the first 30 minutes. But and 1:05 minutes didn’t cook it through. I have a beautiful Carmel crust, but what looks like uncooked bananas and yogurt inside. No bread consistency at all. Help. What would cause this?
Hi Lynn! This is a large bread recipe and all ovens are different – we recommend baking until a toothpick comes out with just a few moist crumbs when inserted into the center of the bread – you can check every 5 minutes or so until the bread is done. Thank you so much for giving this banana bread a try!
Loved this Banana bread recipe I didn’t have brown sugar so instead I used 3 generous tablespoons of honey and crossed my fingers it would work it turned out beautifully so moist and the family loved it so much I had to bake another one a couple of days later
Another great recipe! Thank you, Sally 🙂 I did a half portion, and also added a bit of flax seeds and cocoa powder – yum!
I love your recipe. With everything I always take a bit of liberty with what I have in my house. But not even 24 hrs later and i have 2 small slices left! I used applesauce instead of yogurt. Since I had light brown sugar I added 2 teaspoons of molasses. Then I actually had 6 to 7 medium bananas that yielded 2.5 cups of banana (I really wing it with baking). I do feel like organic bananas have more flavor than others. I have made banana breads for over 20 years. I am keeping this recipe and using it in the future. I read some of the reviews. Not sure how thiers turned out poorly unless there are elevation issues or the bananas were small.
This was my first attempt at banana bread (bb) and it came out great! Based off of others bb, I do believe my household prefers it to be slightly sweeter. Am I able to add a touch more sugar without having to adjust the other ingredients? I know all baking is a science! Thank you!!
Hi Taylor! You could add more sugar if desired. We also have a sweeter banana cake if you’re interested in that!
Sweetness can vary greatly by banana variety, country of original,
time of year, and especially ripeness
Made this for the first time yesterday and wow it was delicious! All kids loved it and said how moist it was! Thank you for the recipe will definitely make it again and maybe add corn chocolate chip next time 🙂
Can I use an 8×8 pan and this still turn out alright? If so should I bake it for a shorter amount of time?
Hi Kelsi! I fear this would be too much batter for an 8×8 pan. You could always fill the pan 2/3 full, then make a few muffins with the leftover batter. Bake time will be shorter, so keep an eye on it in the oven and use a toothpick to test for doneness.
Tried this recipe today and it turned out great! Ommited the cinammon, as my family are not fans, but the end result was VERY tasty! I’ll need to make another one tomorrow…..I only got one small slice
Loved this! Even better with dark chocolate shavings mixed into the batter before pouring into the pan (approx. 50 grams of chocolate shavings.
Well there are over 1,200 rave reviews so it’s obviously something on your end. It’s January and the bananas I just ate were completely flavorless. So I’d start there. Don’t ignore the numbers.