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
Soooo good! The only thing is, the middle is slightly mushy and i even used 3/4 bananas.
Exceptionally moist!
Can I use milk instead of yogurt or sour cream?
Hi Lori, You can use buttermilk (not regular milk) 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. We recommend sticking to the recipe for best results.
It’s perfect!!! Seriously, the best I’ve ever made! I didn’t change a thing. I baked it in a
Pampered Chef clay pan for 70 minutes. THANK YOU
This is my go-to banana bread recipe, I’ve used it a dozen+ times and it always turns out well. (Even when I’ve forgotten to cream the brown sugar or set the oven to 375 instead of 350!) Most of the time I use my mini-loaf pan and get 4 mini-loafs from the recipe – takes about 35 mins to bake.
This is the best banana bread I’ve ever made. I use less sugar so its not too sweet for my toddler. She’s super picky and even she loves it. I make this regularly
I didn’t have eggs so I used applesauce instead (per 1 egg = 1/4 cup apple sauce so double that for this recipe )
I added a bit more butter, a bit more cinnamon and a bit more vanilla extract and it came out wonderful 🙂
The best I have ever had!
This recipe is great as it stands. I didn’t change anything at all. I love to weigh my ingredients and everything was spot on. Super moist and delicious. Not too many bananas, perfect amount of walnuts. The only change I made was I made 6 mini breads instead of one solid one, as I have a tray that can do 6 at once. Filled them half way up. Changed bake time to 35 minutes.
I’m sorry but I think it was a little bland and not quite sweet enough. I did use plain Greek yogurt so maybe that’s why. I don’t think I’ll try this recipe again.
Always a wonderfully delicious banana bread! Yesterday I used thawed frozen bananas. Prior to freezing the bananas over a period of time, I noted the gram weight of each. When I had 503g in the freezer, I thawed the bananas, drained the fluid, and weighed them again to discover that I had 290g of bananas! Is this a typical weight loss when draining the fluid?
Since I had no more bananas and everything else was ready to go, I assessed what was available to me: zucchini, applesauce, and pumpkin. I chose to add enough pumpkin to equal the 460g. I also simmered and reduced the banana fluid (as a previous baker mentioned) – adding 1 TBSP of it to the dough – hoping to increase the banana flavor now that I was seemingly making pumpkin banana bread! I utilized my instant read thermometer to determine when the bread was fully cooked (65 minutes). My husband announced it to be be VERY DELICIOUS at breakfast this morning! Thank you Sally and Team! Your site not only gives me GREAT recipes, but it has given me a growing confidence to “adjust” a recipe when I have to. You have certainly taught me more about baking in specific and cooking in general than my previous 50 years of baking and cooking! Just thinking about you makes me smile!
Hi Tricia, thank you for your kind words! We are so glad to hear that Sally’s recipes and detailed explanations have helped you grow in confidence as a baker. And to answer your question, yes, draining the fluid does decrease the weight quite a bit. I usually leave a little bit of the fluid in with the bananas instead of draining them thoroughly, just for a little extra moisture, but I recommend testing it out a couple times with more or less fluid, and see what gives you the best result in your banana bread.
I think this recipe has too many bananas in, I’d recommend using a few fewer bananas.
I have made this bread many times. We all love it!! Anyone who tries is instantly hooked and I am always being asked when I will make this next!! Time and time again, it passes the test of flavour, texture, perfect amount of sweetness and density. Once when I made them, Almost the entire loaf was gone in about half a day. When I checked back at the end of the day, I found only a few crumbs left on the plate! LOL!
Can I use plain Greek yogurt in place of regular plain yogurt?
Yes, you can. Enjoy!
Can I use a Pyrex loaf pan?
Hi Sheila, yes, you can use an oven-safe Pyrex loaf pan. Bake time may be a few minutes longer. Keep a close eye on it and use a toothpick to test for doneness.
Great recipe, but this is the second time the non-stick bread pan has faded spots all along the interior sides and bottom, and the bottom of the loaf is still slightly soggy. Any idea why and how I can avoid this? I don’t want to throw away any more pans!
This recipe is so perfect! I used Indonesian Lady Finger bananas, which are tender and fragrant. I ran out of brown sugar, so I used half a cup of Sally’s salted caramel, and a quarter cup of plain white sugar. Will make again.
I loved this bread
Can I replace the butter with vegetable oil
Hi Rose, in place of the butter, you could try solid coconut oil. You need a fat that is solid at room temperature so that it can be creamed together with the sugar, so vegetable oil will not work here.
Just made this with my 3 year old daughter, we had fun making this bread! Great recipe. We were just shy of the 460grams of mashed banana (400g banana) so we added 60g of strawberry jam. You will definitely need a 9×5 bread tin for this recipe, it yields a lot of batter. My toddler decided we should add all the batter to an 8×4 tin, came out perfectly fine, but be ready for possible spillage during baking.
I used an 8×4 loaf pan to make this because I had already made the batter and then realised that actually my pan was too small. Anyway, I just filled it and it went RIGHT to the very top. I actually had to leave a bit of batter inside the bowl. When I put it in the oven to bake, it completely came out of the pan and a LOT spilled onto oven floor. Luckily I had one of those small disposable metal loaf tins so I used that to catch any more spillages. the bread still tasted AMAZING but it did take a long time to try to clean the oven! I think a good idea would be to bake in two separate batches to prevent things like this from happening!!!!
I’ve just made this with my toddler! Super easy to make and absolutely delicious…we only had 3 medium bananas (about 275g) so added about 200g frozen blueberries (coated in flour so they don’t sink!) to the mixture at the end and they’ve turned out amazing we also did have a loaf tin big enough so have done a smaller loaf (still took about 60 mins) and 12 small muffins (took about 17 mins).
Hi Sally
I tried this bread.It tastes great but it is so soft that the slices keep crumbling from the sides. How can I fix this problem? I would love to hear from you.
I wonder if it is under-baked? A little more time in the oven could help.
Waiting for the banana bread to cool and it smells to good! I love that it’s not overly sweet. This recipe is a keeper!
I made with my 5-year old granddaughter She loved the mashing (had to do by hand); the mixing of the dry and wet ingredients separately; and then the combining. It is all about the mixing.
We baked the bread in a tray with 8 mini-loaf pans. They were done to perfection in 30 minutes.
Great recipe!
Tried this out and my entire family loved it. Want to make it have more of a peanut flavor with the nuts in the bread was wondering if adding some peanut butter for a more peanut flavour make the bread more dense/not as good or would that be a negligible difference?
Hi Zia! Adding peanut butter would require some testing. Let us know if you try anything!
I love this receipe, I didn’t use butter though but it came out delicious
I made two loaves. Can these be frozen?
You bet! See post above for freezing instructions.
Came out like a brick. 1 teaspoon of baking soda really doesn’t seem enough.
If your banana bread did not rise, your baking soda could be old – we would try again with fresh!
By far the BEST banana bread recipe I’ve ever tried. Baking is not my strength … directions were easy to follow (thank you for adding the extra tips – like what spooned and leveled means and why!) and my bread turned out perfectly! Moist, but not wet; top was slightly crunchy, but not dry. We don’t care for overly sweet sweets – this was perfect for my house! Husband and son had it gone in 2 days!
Question – I don’t have enough bananas at them moment for the full 2 cups – but I DO have some strawberries that are past their prime. Can I sub in strawberry puree?
Hi Amy, we’re so glad you enjoyed this banana bread! Strawberry puree will be a bit too wet for this recipe, but you can sub applesauce, pumpkin puree, or even crushed pineapple in place of the missing banana.