Banana Bread
Classic, moist banana bread with a deeply caramelized top and a tender, ripe-banana crumb — a simple one-bowl loaf everyone knows how to make.
- Cooking spray
- 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 medium bananas, very ripe
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 cup chopped nuts or chocolate chips (optional)
- Arrange a rack in the bottom third of the oven and heat to 350°F. Line an 8x5-inch loaf pan with parchment paper, letting the excess hang over the long sides to form a sling, then spray the inside with cooking spray. If you're using nuts, toast the 1/2 cup chopped nuts in the oven for 10 minutes while it preheats — this brings out much more flavor than adding them raw.
- Melt the butter in the microwave or over low heat on the stovetop, then whisk it together with the granulated sugar in a large bowl until well combined. If you'd rather have a more cake-like crumb, soften (don't melt) the butter instead and cream it with the sugar in a stand mixer until light and fluffy.
- Crack the eggs into the bowl and whisk until the mixture turns completely smooth. Whisk in the milk and vanilla extract until fully incorporated.
- Peel the bananas and add them to the bowl, then mash them into the batter using the end of the whisk or a dinner fork — leave them as chunky or as smooth as you like. For a fully smooth loaf, mash the bananas separately first until no lumps remain, then whisk them in.
- Add the flour, baking soda, and salt to the bowl, switch to a spatula, and stir gently just until no dry flour is visible — overmixing at this stage is what leads to a tough, dense loaf. If using, scatter the nuts or chocolate chips over the batter and fold them in gently.
- Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan, scraping the bowl clean with the spatula, and smooth the top. Bake until the top is a deep caramelized brown with a little yellow interior peeking through and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 50 to 65 minutes — start checking at 50 minutes and every 5 minutes after, since timing shifts with how moist and sweet your bananas are.
- Set the loaf, still in its pan, on a wire cooling rack and let it rest for 10 minutes; this gives the structure time to set, which makes it far easier to remove cleanly from the pan.
- Lift the loaf out using the parchment sling and transfer it to the cooling rack. Let it cool for another 10 minutes before slicing, so the crumb has a chance to finish setting.
Chef's Note: The ripeness of your bananas matters more than almost anything else in this recipe — look for peels that are heavily speckled or even mostly brown, since that's when the starches have converted to sugar and the banana flavor is at its most concentrated. Whether you melt the butter or cream it with the sugar changes the texture in a real way: melted butter gives a denser, more traditional quick-bread crumb, while creamed butter and sugar produces something closer to a banana cake.
Resist the urge to stir the batter too much once the flour goes in — a few visible streaks are fine, and overworking the gluten is the most common reason banana bread turns out tough instead of tender. This loaf keeps well wrapped tightly at room temperature for several days, or wrapped in plastic and foil in the freezer for up to three months, so it's worth baking two loaves while you're at it.
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