Fruit-Sweetened Healthy Vegan Banana Bread

Even my husband who hates bananas loves this super delicious (and super healthy) moist vegan banana bread! Not only is it oil free and fruit sweetened (you can even use banana as the only sweetener), it’s also allergen-friendly – you can make it gluten free and nut free…or not!

There are many vegan banana bread recipes out there, but there are so many things I love about this one. In addition to the amazing flavor and texture, it’s also awesome because it’s so customizable. You can use whole wheat flour or oat flour (hello, vegan banana oat bread!), you can use practically any nut or seed butter or even coconut milk, you can add mix-ins or omit them, you can sub a portion of the bananas with applesauce if that’s what you have, and you can even adjust the sweetness to suit your preference – there’s an option that’s completely unsweetened, or you can opt to include a small amount of date sugar. The unsweetened version of this oil-free vegan banana bread is still delicious, though obviously much less sweet. 

Raisins and chopped walnuts make great mix-ins, and I sometimes like to add unsweetened chocolate chips – they are obviously not sweet at all and are kind of bitter, but I enjoy it and they still add that chocolate flavor that goes so well with banana bread. If this is too adventurous for you, I won’t tell anyone if you want to add regular chocolate chips. 🙂

While ground flax seeds (often in the form of a “flax egg”) are very common in vegan baking, this recipe has no flax seeds, as they are just not necessary; the banana serves as a great binder and eliminates any need for flax or the like.

This dairy free banana bread recipe makes a delicious breakfast or dessert. It’s amazing on its own, but it’s also fantastic with my homemade vegan sunflower sour cream spread on top (like cream cheese!) with some fresh fruit, or toasted with warm fruit compote. It also freezes great, if you can keep yourself from eating it all – my family often finishes the entire loaf in one day!

This super healthy banana bread with oat flour or whole wheat flour is extremely kid friendly and even baby friendly! It’s soft enough for little ones who are teething, great for baby-led weaning, and so nutritious and low in sugar that you can feel really good about giving it to them. You could opt to make it into little muffins for little hands (how cute is a little tiny baby banana bread!). It’s also school friendly because it can be made free of major allergens.

You’re about to learn how to make vegan banana bread, but what if you want to turn this into a banana cake instead? I have also done this recipe just as successfully in a square brownie pan, and you could easily do it in a round cake pan, as well. Just adjust your baking time accordingly – in the brownie pan I usually bake it for about 35 minutes, and I think a round cake pan would require similar timing.

Special Dietary Needs

This WFPB banana bread is suitable for many diets, such as:

Clean eating
Dairy free
Egg free
Gluten free
Oil free
Kosher
Low calorie
Low fat
Natural
Nutritarian inspired (Fuhrman, Eat to Live, ETL)
Nut free
Oil free
Plant based
Refined sugar free
Soy free
Unprocessed/minimally processed
Unrefined
Vegan
Vegetarian
Weight Watchers
WFPB (whole foods plant based)
WFPBNO (whole foods plant based no oil)

Check out my FAQ and Resources pages for more on the philosophy behind this vegan oil-free banana bread and whole-foods-plant-based eating.

Instructions

First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line your loaf pan with parchment paper. Then, mash your banana with a fork, making an effort to eliminate any major lumps. If you don’t have quite enough banana, you can substitute applesauce for up to about half a cup of the mashed bananas. If you have an extra banana and want to use it to decorate the top of the plant-based banana bread, now is the time to prepare it so it will be ready when you need it. Ideally, slice it into four even slices lengthwise, and use the inner two (flattest) slices for the decoration. You can just slice it into two slices lengthwise, but those thicker slices will take a little longer to bake thoroughly, and the batter directly underneath those slices might be a little undercooked.

Next, add your vanilla, cinnamon, salt, apple cider vinegar, and raw almond butter (or tahini or coconut milk, depending on what you’re using), then stir thoroughly to combine. Add any optional mix-ins (raisins, walnuts, etc) and stir to distribute evenly. Now, over the top of the wet mixture, add your flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Then roughly mix just the dry ingredients as best as you can before mixing the entire batter altogether. Do not overmix – mix as little as possible until ingredients are just combined. This helps keep the resulting baked texture soft instead of chewy.

When your batter is just combined, immediately and quickly transfer it to your loaf pan and gently press it into your loaf pan, making sure the batter reaches all the way into the corners of the pan, and smoothing the top evenly (using wet fingers can help with this but isn’t a necessity). The faster you do this after mixing the batter, the better – the batter starts expanding as soon as it is mixed, and the longer you take to get it into the loaf pan, the more you will be deflating it, which means your resulting banana bread will be denser and not as light. In other words, you want to be pressing it into the pan before it has the chance to rise much, so that the rising can occur freely without risk of being deflated.

If you are using a sliced banana for decoration, place the slices face-up on the top of the loaf and press gently into the batter. Alternatively, you can top with an extra handful of walnuts and gently press them in somewhat. Or do both!

Bake for 45-60 minutes – it will be ready when it nice and golden brown on top and is firm when you tap the middle, with very little spring. Let it cool nearly completely before cutting into it – this can take an hour or two. Then slice and enjoy!

Try these other nutritious breakfast ideas:

Healthiest Vanilla Cinnamon Granola

Strawberry Breakfast Bars

Healthy Whole Grain Vegan Apple Bread

Secret Ingredient Breakfast Pudding

 

 

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