We ran across a great sale on bananas last week so we bought 2 bunches instead of our usual one. Great idea, right? Well, needless to say the bananas ripened quickly and we were left with this:
I am pretty sure we are not the only ones with this problem of extreme banana regret. It kills us to throw away food, so I was just going to whip up some trusty banana bread to use them up. But then it hit me that surely there must be other things I could do with the over ripe bananas than just convert them into my time honored staple of bread.
14 ideas for ripe bananas
- Freeze them for smoothies. Peel them and cut them into chunks so they will emulsify easily in the blender.
- Pancakes – mash them up and add them to your pancake batter
- Cookies – there are literally oodles and oodles of banana cookie recipes available
- Whoopie Pie – it’s easy to create a Whoopie Pie, and it’s just fun to say the name. Check out this easy Go Bananas Whoopie Pie recipe
- Banana Cream Pie – here is a super easy recipe for Banana Cream Pie from Six Sisters’ Stuff
Credit: Six Sisters Stuff
- Add cut up or mashed up bananas to your cereal; especially yummy in warm oatmeal
- Stuffed French Toast – great recipe here from SeriousEats.com
- Banana Burritos – cut the banana in half and lay it inside a flour burrito shell. Sprinkle some sugar and cinnamon and fold it up. Lightly warm in a pan with a little butter. Top with chocolate sauce if you wish.
- Cheesecake – like this yummy Icebox Banana Cheesecake
- Freeze the bananas and make a soft serve style ice cream – Green Lite Bites shared a recipe
- Banana muffins
- Banana popsicles – if the banana isn’t totally mushy you can peel it and insert a popsicle stick in one end and freeze it.
- Banana pudding is easy to make, and yummy too. Here is a recipe from Food.com for Blow Your Mind Banana Pudding
- Banana bread (boring, but oh so yummy)
I’ll share the banana bread recipe with you that we use, it came in a local fundraiser cookbook that we received as a shower gift 25+ years ago. I must admit that being just 18 when we were married (and they wondered if it would last …. Ha!), a recipe book did not exactly send me over the moon with joy. Was I dumb! This little recipe book has become a good friend and I’ve used it many times while working in the kitchen. I am not one who loves to cook; honestly I can take it or leave it. But this book has easy to follow recipes submitted by real people that more than likely have a joy of cooking and many years of experience under their belt.
Here is old faithful:
My 25+ year old cookbook
And here is the Banana Bread recipe I use:
Delicious Banana Bread
3 1/2 cups sifted flour (honestly, I don’t sift mine)
6 ounces butter
4 eggs
1 1/4 cup sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups mashed ripe bananas
Mix the butter and sugar well. Beat in the eggs one at a time and add the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Mix well and then add bananas.
Grease 2 loaf pans with cooking spray and flour bottom and sides. Split the batter into the 2 pans and bake at 350 for 1 hour.
Special thanks to the following websites for their yummy recipes and photos: Taste of Home, Six Sisters Stuff, Serious Eats, Green Lite Bites, The Kitchn, Food.com
