Updated every Tuesday for your culinary convenience!

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Healthy Banana Bread

I LOVE this banana bread! It's moist, dense, and delicious, just like banana bread should be! And since it's made with whole wheat flour, brown sugar, and yogurt, I don't have to feel guilty if I finish off half a loaf!

So here's what you'll need:

That's a couple overripe bananas, 2 eggs, 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour, 1 1/4 cups brown sugar, 2/3 cup plain yogurt or applesauce (I use applesauce now because of Felicity's allergy), 1/3 cup canola oil (you could try substituting the applesauce here, and do a yogurt and applesauce combo!), 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and about 3 tablespoons flaxseed meal. If you don't have flaxseed meal, you don't need it, but it sure is a nice healthy thing to sneak in there!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

If you have a toddler, this is also a good time to get out another bowl, a spoon, and some inexpensive ingredients. Look at the joy on that face!

Mash up 1 1/2 cups worth of banana with a fork. If you have less than 1 1/2 cups total, add some applesauce until it makes 1 1/2 cups.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs, then add the other ingredients. If you want to stir them one at a time, you can, but you can also just dump them all in together and stir them all at once, since the batter isn't terribly thick and is easy to stir thoroughly.

Line two 8-inch loaf pans with a generous amount of foil, because that's SO the way to go, and pour the batter into them.


Don't make the blonde mistake of pouring all the batter into one pan, because that makes a huge, inedible mess in your oven. At least, that's what somebody told me once. I really wouldn't know.

Bake for about 50 minutes, or until a toothpick yada yada yada. Pull them out of their pans to cool completely, then slice. Or, if you're doing muffins, bake them for 20 minutes.

Yum! How scrumptious is that??

I am a total butter fiend (it's the only dairy product I can have while breastfeeding Felicity), but I don't put butter on this, because it's so moist all by itself. Butter would be a redundant waste of calories.

Now get in the kitchen and start baking!

Healthy Banana Bread

1 ½ cups mashed very ripe banana
2 eggs
2 ½ cups whole wheat flour
1 ¼ cups brown sugar
2/3 cup plain yogurt
1/3 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons flaxseed meal

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 8-inch loaf pans with foil.

Stir together all ingredients until blended. Pour into pan.

Bake 50 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes, then remove from pan and place on wire rack. Let cool completely before slicing.




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24 comments:

Beth Cotell said...

These look great! I'll have to give these I try next time I've got some super ripe bananas!

Kathy in WA said...

Jenni!!!! So glad you posted your recipe. I'm going to save this and try it as soon as I can. Looks fantastic! Thanks for letting me know the recipe was up.

Anonymous said...

I needed a healthy recipe for banana bread as I always have old bananas lying around. I did a google search for "healthy banana bread" and this is the best recipe that came up. Gave it a try and we loved it. My 18 month, 3 year and 10 year old were all in agreement that it was good. You're also right, no butter needed which is so great when trying to have healthy snacks. Love the flax seed and will be using this recipe for all our old bananas! Thank you!

Jenni said...

Thanks for your comment, Anon! I'm so glad to hear that you found this recipe and that you and your family love it as much as we do!

Now if I could just figure out how to make it at my new house... the oven temperature is screwed up, and I'm having a hard time compensating!

Laura said...

LOVE these!!! I didn't have any wheat flour so I used oat flour instead and subbed applesauce for yogurt, so great!!!

Susan S. said...

I used half whole wheat flour, half spelt flour, cinnamon applesauce instead of yogurt, added a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips and only a cup of sugar. Came out fluffy and delicious.

Lynn said...

Oh man! Mine's in the oven right now, I only read the paragraph at the beginning of this blog and it didn't mention any sugar. I wound up adding 1/4 agave syrup and 1/4 cup maple syrup. I also used unsweetened applesauce instead of yogurt as we are allergic to dairy. I hope it's sweet enough for the children!

Jenni said...

Wow. Somehow, I never noticed that I forgot to list the sugar in the initial description. Thanks, Lynn, for pointing that out!

Unknown said...

I made these with my 6 year old son. We LOVED them, thank you!! I have to say, I have never made banana bread etc. before (NEVER) and I was afraid of my abilities. I didn't have a bread pan, so I did muffins and just cooked them for a shorter period of time. They turned out fabulous and I felt great knowing they were on the healthier side too as we are trying to adhere to our new year's resolution (at least for a week) LOL
Thank you, Thank you!!!
Julie

gaylaroo said...

Great Recipe! I substituted the yogurt for pumpkin and used flax seek oil instead of canola oil. Super Yummy.

malaria bordeaux said...

Just like everyone else has said, this is soooo good! And so easy! I used yogurt and dark chocolate chips in it. I would never know that it was a 'healthy' version. Thank you so much for sharing!

Anonymous said...

This came out a bit dry for me (even though I baked it for 30 instead of 50 min). possibly due to my applesauce substition for the oil???

Jessica said...

I just googled "healthy banana bread" and come up with this recipe -- it turned out so well! Thanks!

discomedusa said...

yummers! i'm going to try this with my toddler right now! thanks!

JennyCash said...

this looks great........i mixed it up and it only produced enough for one (larger sized) loaf. i followed the directions exactly. do you always get two loaves?

thanks!

JennyCash said...

whoops.....just read through it again and answered my own questions. so far so good in the oven.....we'll see.

i guess blonde highlights count :(
that's what i get for trying to bake with my kids wrapped around my ankles.

Anonymous said...

great recipe! i made a loaf of the bread with half and used the other half of the batter for muffins, which took 21-23 minutes in the oven. also great with some dark chocolate chips!
i used white whole wheat flour for a lighter, but still whole grain, texture.

Rebecca's mommy said...

Fantastic recipe and really easy. I made it today with my toddler. I only had 2 cups of wholewheat flour left so I also added a cup of normal flour. I also only used 1/3 cup of sugar, and I didn't have any plain yoghurt so I used raspberry yoghurt.

The bread turned out delicious and I've put this one straight into my recipe book. Perfect for a healthy after school snack.

Thanks :-)

Erin in Albany said...

I made these with my two kids today and it was delicious!! My husband gave me the eye roll when I told him it was healthy banana bread but he changed his tune when he tried it. I believe he used the words "great depth of flavor". I used 1/4 agave syrup and cut the brown sugar to 3/4 cup. Moist and delicious! Thank you for posting as I have found a new favorite banana bread recipe that the kids love.

The Christensen Family said...

Delicious! I used 1 cup white flour thinking all whole wheat flour would taste to "healthy." Next time I will try all wheat flour. How come you stopped posting recipes? I looked through your blog and want to try several! Those Cowboy cookies look divine!

Jenni said...

Christensen Fam - thanks so much for the kind words! I stopped posting because I was struggling with depression, and life changes have meant leaving the person behind who wrote these things. My daughters and I fled an unsafe home life in July, and now I must confess that I haven't touched a chef knife in 6 months and am living on fast food and macaroni. If I ever start over with another food blog (as I know I could not emotionally handle posting to this one), I will leave an announcement post on this blog letting people know where I'm at. At this point, though, cooking just reminds me of that fear that hit every evening at 5pm, listen for the emergency brake. I'm so glad that my recipes are helping other moms, and I get between 15 and 30 hits a day from Google searches, which is why I have left this blog up. I hope you continue to enjoy my recipes, and I hope that I someday have the strength to make them again.

what to do when pregnant said...

this type of food is really good for the pregnant moms.

Jenni said...

Just did the math - this recipe makes two loafs at 1195 calories a loaf, so cut into 8 slices per loaf, each slice is 150 calories. That is using yogurt and applesauce, no canola oil.

Anonymous said...

Hey Jenni! My mom and I just wanted to thank you so much for putting up this recipe. It's blessed us immensely! We made just a few changes to turn it into a base for all kinds of different muffins (banana walnut, apple cinnamon, blueberry, pumpkin spice, etc.) and LOVE snacking on them, eating them for breakfast, and taking them with us on the run! And just recently, we had to switch to a gluten-free, sugar-free diet and were able to easily adapt it to those requirements. Thanks again! God bless <3