When I inevitably wind up with lots of overripe bananas, the best option for using them all is making my Classic Banana Bread with Oats. It's sweet yet hearty, dense, tender and moist, and I make it slightly healthy!
What makes this recipe great? It's a simple, one-bowl recipe made with oats, yogurt, and half whole wheat flour, giving us a delicious, healthy-ish bread with lots of flavor.
Banana bread isn't my personal go-to snack, but I love how much it makes. Kids love it at playdates, and it's great to have around the house. We sometimes even eat it for breakfast!
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Ingredients
I've adapted this recipe from the Betty Crocker Cookbook (affiliate link), making it slightly healthier by adding in some whole wheat flour and oats!
We all know banana bread as an excuse to use up overripe bananas. Recipes first appeared during the Great Depression, as a way to use up bananas that would otherwise be tossed. (King Arthur Baking actually has a deep dive on banana bread recipes, decade by decade, which I found informative.)
But nowadays, why use overripe bananas? Because they're starchier and hold more moisture than perfectly ripe bananas, which helps your bread stay moist. They're also easier to mash.
The original recipe took only all-purpose flour. I swapped in some whole wheat flour and rolled oats to make it more wholesome. This makes it 60% whole grain! You don't taste the swap. Both quick cooking and old-fashioned rolled oats work fine, but instant oats will make the bread gummy, and steel-cut oats won't cook right.
The recipe originally took butter, but I swapped in vegetable oil to make it a one-bowl, mixer-free recipe. I don't miss the flavor.
I use plain yogurt in the batter because I always have some around, but you can use buttermilk, or milk with 2 teaspoons of vinegar/lemon juice instead. You can also use soy milk plus vinegar to make the banana bread dairy-free!
Walnuts go very well in this bread when I decide to add nuts.
Hint: Banana sizes vary. My bananas usually weigh 19 ounces/546 grams (just over a pound) before peeling, and 12 ounces or between 360-400 grams after peeling. If they're small, you will need more bananas. By volume, aim for 1 ½ cups if you don't have a digital kitchen scale (affiliate link).
Equipment
I weigh my ingredients with a digital kitchen scale (affiliate link) when I bake.
It's important to mash the bananas before you mix them with the other wet ingredients; they won't break up well otherwise. You can use a fork, but a sturdy potato masher (affiliate link) is more efficient. I use mine for mashing avocados for guacamole as well.
As always, a wire whisk (affiliate link) blends the wet ingredients better than anything else can, but I do prefer a rubber spatula for mixing in dry ingredients because I don't like the way the thick batter clumps inside the wire whisk when I add flour.
You can bake this in a 9x5 inch loaf pan (affiliate link) or two 8 ½ x 4 ½ inch loaf pans. I prefer shiny, natural aluminum. Banana bread bakes for a long time, and a dark metal pan or a glass pan can overbake the crust. If that's all you have, reduce the baking temperature to 325F and start testing for doneness at 60 minutes.
It's also great as muffins! When making banana bread muffins, I recommend using paper liners.
Using a serrated bread knife (affiliate link) to cut the bread will give you the neatest lines and fewest crumbs, but a butter knife works adequately.
Instructions
In addition to swapping out a few ingredients, I converted it to a one-bowl recipe! Not using a mixer makes it even easier to make banana bread.
The first step is lowering your oven rack to the bottom position before you preheat the oven. Why? This 9x5 inch loaf is so dense, it bakes best close to the heating element. I'm not always such a stickler, but don't skip this.
Next, grease the bottom only of your loaf pan.
- Mash the bananas with a potato masher (affiliate link). You want them more creamy than lumpy, but I usually have some lumps.
- Use a wire whisk (affiliate link) to mix in all the wet ingredients.
- Use a rubber spatula to mix in the dry ingredients, stirring until just combined. Smooth out any lumps you find, but don't overmix.
- Stir in the nuts, if using.
- Scrape the batter into the greased pan.
- Bake for around 75 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cover the top with aluminum foil if it seems to be browning too quickly; I probably should have done that here, but it still tasted good.
Let the bread rest in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool the rest of the way. If you leave the bread in the loaf pan, it may become soggy.
Hint: If you rotate your pan halfway through baking time because your oven cooks unevenly, be sure not to jiggle or bump the pan too much, which may cause the middle of the loaf to be dense and gummy.
Storage
Cool bread for a few hours before serving. If it's evening and you don't want to cut it until morning, place the completely cooled bread back in the loaf pan and cover with a clean, folded kitchen towel. (Mine has never dried out from storing it this way, because it hasn't been cut.)
Banana bread stays moist for days. I usually cut mine and store the slices in an airtight container at room temperature. The top crust softens so it loses its delightful crunch, but otherwise the bread is still delicious.
This dense, moist bread is slightly sweet and full of flavor. I eat it plain; some people serve it with a dab of butter on it. You also couldn't go wrong with peanut butter or hazelnut spread, as my family does!
FAQ
My banana bread recipe uses vegetable oil instead of butter as a great first step toward making dairy-free banana bread! I haven't tested it in this recipe, but I've had a lot of success using soy milk and vinegar instead of yogurt or buttermilk in baking, and believe it will work here.
My banana bread recipe is already 60% whole grain, and you don't even notice. Since this loaf is so dense and sweet already, I think you could swap in whole wheat flour for the rest of the all-purpose flour. I do this with my 100% whole wheat zucchini bread recipe, another sweet loaf bread.
I always use a digital kitchen scale when I bake because it measures flour most accurately; the weight of scoops of flour can vary. For banana bread specifically, it tells me if I need to add extra banana if my bananas are small.
If you don't have quite enough mashed banana, you can make a half batch of my banana bread and bake it in a 8 ½ by 4 ½ inch loaf pan. If you're just a little short of the 1 ½ cups of mashed banana, top off the measuring cup with extra yogurt.
If your one banana is particularly large, make a half batch of my banana bread! Bake it in a 8 ½ by 4 ½ inch loaf pan, or make a batch of 12 muffins. If you're a little short on how much banana you need, top off your measuring cup with extra yogurt.
Usually when I have just one overripe banana, I peel it, stick it in a freezer bag, and freeze it until I have enough bananas for a full batch.
Alternatively and for a change of pace, you can make my Yeasted Banana Sandwich Bread, which takes only one banana!
I often use frozen bananas in banana bread! Remove them from the freezer to thaw at least an hour in advance; still-frozen bananas don't mash well. Bananas that are still cold will also affect how the bread bakes.
You'll find that frozen bananas will release liquid; this is normal and okay. Just include it in the banana bread with the rest of the bananas.
Always peel your bananas before you freeze them; frozen banana peel is tough to remove. (Ask me how I know! 😆) Place the bananas side by side in a freezer bag and squeeze out the air before you freeze them. If they're touching too much, it will be hard to separate them when frozen. Remove however many bananas you need, and thaw in your mixing bowl before using.
When my bananas become overripe, I stick them in the fridge, where they will keep for a few extra days without ripening much more. If I haven't used them by then, I peel them and store them in a freezer bag. Then I can thaw them to use whenever I'd like.
You can also place ripe bananas in the fridge, but the peels will become uniformly brown when they're in the fridge. This will look different from bad spots, and is normal, but may put off anyone who wants to eat the banana fresh.
🍌More Banana Recipes
Enjoy these great recipes that use up your other leftover bananas!
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📖 Recipe
Classic Banana Bread with Oats
Equipment
- 9x5-inch loaf pan, preferably light-colored
- Potato masher (affiliate link)
- wire whisk (affiliate link)
- Digital scale (optional)
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups bananas (mashed) (360 grams) (3 bananas, but see notes)
- 1 ¼ cups sugar (250 grams)
- ½ cup vegetable oil (112 grams) (can use melted butter for flavor)
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup yogurt (113 grams; may use buttermilk, or 1 ½ teaspoons vinegar + ½ milk)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla (5 grams)
- 1 cup all-purpose flour (120 grams)
- 1 cup whole wheat flour (120 grams; can use all-purpose flour)
- ½ cup rolled oats (40 grams; may use ½ cup flour instead)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon table salt
- 1 cup walnuts (120 grams, chopped) (optional)
Instructions
- Lower your baking rack to the bottom position in the oven (if using a 9x5-inch loaf pan). Preheat oven to 350℉. Grease the bottom only of your loaf pan.
- In a large mixing bowl, mash your bananas using a potato masher (affiliate link) (preferred) or a fork, until relatively smooth.
- Add sugar, oil, eggs, yogurt, and vanilla. Use a whisk to mix until thoroughly combined, although you may still have lumps of banana if your mashed banana wasn't smooth.
- Use a rubber spatula to fold in the flour, oats, baking soda, and salt. Mix until just combined; be sure there are no clumps of dry flour, but don't overmix. Your batter won't be smooth. Stir in nuts, if using.
- Pour batter into the prepared pan. Bake on the bottom oven rack at 350℉ for about 75 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. If the top is getting too dark, cover it with aluminum foil while it finishes baking. (Rotate your pan if you must while the bread bakes, but don't jostle it or it will deflate and be dense and a little gummy.)
- Let the bread cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then turn the bread out onto a wire cooling rack to let it release remaining steam (or else your bread will be soggy). Cool at least 2 hours before cutting. Cut with a serrated bread knife (affiliate link).
- Store in an air-tight container at room temperature for 3-5 days.
Banana Bread Muffins
- Divide batter into 24 greased muffin cups, filling about ⅔ full. Bake at 350F for 15-18 minutes, checking at 15, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool for about 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack. (Leaving them in the muffin tin will cause the bottoms to become soggy.)
Notes
[Originally published September 12, 2019. Revised and restructured on June 19, 2025.]
Leona Konkel says
This recipe is still a keeper. I've clarified a few things as of June 2025. I hope you find it as easy to make, and just as satisfying, as we do!