The Shockingly Easy Way to Make Banana Bread 10x Better

Angel Albring

20 January 2025 at 8:00 am·3-min read

I love banana bread. I don't eat it as often as I'd like, but when I do I want a loaf with a strong banana flavor. If it doesn’t smell like a tropical fruit stand while baking, is it even banana bread?

While I appreciate the classics, I don’t always love banana bread with nuts. Sure, walnuts add a nice crunch, but sometimes I want to let the bananas be the star of the show. That said, I’m always game for experimenting with new recipes, especially if it's a recipe that can get my family on board with banana bread.

While I adore banana bread, my family isn't so keen on it. Good banana bread needs to have a naturally sweet, deep banana flavor and a moist but not gummy, light but rich texture. Even when that happens, my family turns their noses up at the delicious treat, leaving me to enjoy it by myself, which isn't always a bad thing!

I recently ran across a way to make banana bread even better, and it's so easy to make. I know I have to give it a try! Maybe this will be the ticket to getting my family to love this fruity quick bread.

The recipe was shared by Joe Yonan of The Washington Post (adapted from the legendary Zingerman’s Bakehouse) and it may seem unconventional, but for a banana-flavor lover like me, it's definitely interesting!

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Why You Should Make Whole Banana Banana Bread

This recipe has you using the whole banana—even the peel—to get a deep banana flavor and zero waste.

To make the recipe, you'll need eggs, vanilla, flour, baking soda, salt, sugar, butter, walnuts and black sesame seeds. Those are two ingredients that I don’t add to my own banana bread recipe, but I'm always ready to try something new.

The recipe also wants you to freeze two whole bananas, then thaw them and use them with the skin intact. Yes, I made a face when reading that, too. That is one way to reduce food waste, but will it taste good? There's only one way to find out.

First, you'll need to clean your overripe bananas before slicing the tops and bottoms off of them. Then, freeze the bananas. It will take them around 8-10 hours to fully freeze, and then you need to place them in the fridge to defrost for a few more hours. This isn't a quick banana bread, but all of these things are easy enough to do in advance with a little pre-planning.

Once the bananas are defrosted, add them—peel and all—to a food processor and blend until smooth.

Now the rest of the recipe resembles a more traditional banana bread. Cream together the wet ingredients, then mix the dry ingredients and add them to the wet ingredients. Toss in the walnuts and mix the batter well. Once everything is combined, add the batter to a parchment-lined loaf pan.

Finally, mix some of the black sesame seeds with turbinado sugar and add that to the top of the batter before baking.

This recipe may take a while, but it's generally very easy. It also looks rich, full of banana flavor and decadent. It also has an interesting dark color, thanks to the black sesame seeds, which gives it an aesthetic appeal.

I can't wait to whip up a loaf!

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