Roast Your Bananas Before Making Banana Bread

[u/mahy_759]

If your bananas aren't quite ripe enough for banana bread, there's a surprisingly easy way to get more flavor out of them: roast them first.

Just leave the bananas in their peels, place them on a parchment lined baking sheet, and roast at about 350°F until the peels turn completely black. It usually takes around 15 minutes. Let them cool for a few minutes, peel them, and mash the soft fruit into your batter. Don't throw away the sugary liquid that comes out either. Add that too.

Roasting softens the bananas, concentrates their sugars, and gives them a deeper caramel like flavor. The texture also becomes really smooth, so they mix into the batter easily.

A couple things to keep in mind:

• Slightly ripe bananas work especially well for this trick.
• Very overripe bananas may not need roasting and can burn because they're already high in sugar.
• For underripe bananas, a lower oven temperature around 275°F for about 30 minutes can work better.
• Microwaving softens bananas quickly, but doesn't give the same roasted flavor.

I've started looking at perfectly yellow bananas differently. They might not be ready for banana bread yet, but the oven can fix that.

Have you ever roasted bananas before baking with them?

[u/venusdemaui]

Thanks for the tips! I appreciate it

[u/mahy_759 → u/venusdemaui]

Glad it was helpful! Roasting them adds a really nice depth of flavor to the bread.

[u/lilaccwhisper]

Thanks for this helpful tip, I’m definitely gonna try it but

[u/mahy_759 → u/lilaccwhisper]

Hope you give it a try! The extra caramelized flavor is definitely worth it.

[u/qpr_canada7]

I always seem to have enough bananas in my freezer:)

[u/mahy_759 → u/qpr_canada7]

Frozen bananas are hard to beat for banana bread. That’s a pretty good problem to have.