Bananas are one of the easiest foods to eat. Not just that, according to BBC, bananas are also full of fibre, and potassium and are great for gut health. However, bananas also happen to be one of the easiest foods to waste. Often, we might get a bunch of bananas with the intention of eating them only for them to ripen on the kitchen counter untouched and forgotten.
Discover our latest podcast
But do not throw away your overripe bananas too soon. These are some of the best ways you can still salvage your bananas.
Frozen bananas
Freezing ripe bananas before they actually go bad is a great hack to stop wasting bananas. Remove the banana peel and cut the fruit into small cubes and store them away in the freezer in reusable ziplock bags.
Frozen bananas are a great addition to smoothies. Another way to consume frozen bananas is to put them in a blender to make easy vegan banana ice cream. You can top this with honey, chocolate chips, shredded coconut or almonds for an extra layer of flavour.
Banana pancake
Instead of making boring regular pancakes, you can also use your ripe bananas to make banana pancakes. Just mash your bananas until smooth and mix them into your pancake batter.
You can add chocolate chips to the mix since chocolate and banana flavours usually complement each other.
If you are feeling particularly adventurous, you can even try a 2-ingredient banana pancake recipe from The Kitchn. This recipe comprises of blending bananas and eggs and using just that as the pancake batter. Cook your batter on a hot griddle and enjoy your gluten-free banana pancake.
Banana bread
Use your ripe bananas to make delicious banana bread. Ripe bananas in general, are great for baking with. These are more convenient to mash and blend into the baking batter. They are also less likely to leave any lumps and are sweeter than bananas which haven’t ripened thoroughly.
Bon Appetit’s banana bread recipe uses dark brown sugar to make the banana bread extra moist.
Banana compote
Banana compote takes only minutes to prepare but it can make for a great dessert to end a meal with. For this recipe, you only need ripe bananas, butter and sugar.
Heat a pan with some butter and add the bananas and sugar. The rich aroma of bananas caramelising will soon fill your kitchen. Your compote will be ready to be served within 5 minutes. This dish can be eaten by itself, topped with toasted nuts or served with a side of ice cream.
Read more:
⋙ Debunking common myths about bananas
