Healthy Banana Bread is made with delicious, fueling ingredients. It uses everyday products and skips refined sugars and butter.
Have more overripe bananas? Try these Healthy Banana Muffins or Banana Pancakes next!
Healthy Banana Bread Recipe
I go through bananas so quickly at my home! My kids love them as snacks or cut up in their oatmeal, I freeze them to use in an Açaí Bowl or this Blueberry Smoothie, and my husband loves them in this Chocolate Protein Shake.
If I have any leftovers at the end of the week, my kids beg for a baked banana treat. They’ll usually request these Banana Cupcakes, but after I made this healthy banana bread a few weeks ago, they’ve consistently asked for it. Score!
Ingredients In Healthy Banana Bread
- Coconut Oil: Melt it for easier mixing and to help the bread stay soft.
- Honey: Acts as a natural sweetener while keeping the bread moist.
- Eggs: Bind the ingredients together, providing structure and moisture.
- Ripe Bananas: The riper the banana, the sweeter and more flavorful it will be!
- Greek Yogurt: Opt for full-fat for a richer texture.
- Vanilla Extract: Pure vanilla extract will give a deeper, more authentic flavor.
- Salt: Just a small amount is enough to bring out the flavors.
- Cinnamon: If you’re a cinnamon lover, feel free to add more.
- Baking Soda: Helps the bread rise and gives it a light, airy texture.
- All-Purpose Flour: Don’t over-mix the flour to keep the bread soft and tender.
- Mini Chocolate Chips (Optional): Gently fold them in to prevent them from sinking to the bottom.
Quick Tip
This bread is packed with delicious ingredients — protein from the eggs and Greek yogurt, vitamins and nutrients from the bananas, a boost in good cholesterol and energy from the coconut oil, and antioxidants from the honey.
How To Make Healthy Banana Bread
- Prep: Heat the oven, grease and flour a bread pan.
- Wet Ingredients: Mix oil and honey, then eggs, bananas, yogurt, and vanilla.
- Dry Ingredients: Directly add salt, cinnamon, and baking soda to wet mix, then stir in flour and chocolate chips until just combined.
- Bake: Pour into the pan and bake until done.
- Cool: Let the healthy banana bread rest in the pan before serving.
Switch Things Up
- Mini Chocolate Chips: Use dark chocolate for a different flavor and more antioxidants.
- Nuts: Add walnuts or pecans, tossed with the flour, to the batter.
- Raisins: Regular, golden, dried cherries, or cranberries, also tossed with flour are delish.
- Spiced Banana Bread: Leave out the add-ins and increase spices with 1/4 tsp nutmeg or a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice or apple pie spice.
Storage
Freezing And Storing Leftovers
- Store healthy banana bread in an airtight container at room temp for up to 3 days.
- For longer storage, wrap the bread tightly in plastic wrap or foil and freeze for up to 3 months.
- To thaw, leave it at room temp for a few hours or heat slices in the microwave.
More Fueling Recipes
- Healthy Fruit Tart Recipe no bake
- Greek yogurt Healthy Blueberry Muffins
- Banana Waffles sweet and spiced with cinnamon
- Peanut Butter Protein Shake tastes like a milkshake
- Healthy Zucchini Bread super simple
Healthy Banana Bread
Healthy Banana Bread is filled with good-for-you ingredients. This recipe uses everyday products and does not have any refined sugars or butter.
Equipment
- Bread pan 9 x 5-inch
- Cooling Rack
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup melted coconut oil
- 1/2 cup honey
- 2 large eggs
- 1 packed cup mashed very ripe banana 2 large bananas
- 1/4 cup honey vanilla Greek yogurt full-fat, I recommend Greek Gods
- 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup miniature chocolate chips optional
- 1 tablespoon old-fashioned oats optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F. Generously grease a 9×5-inch bread pan and lightly dust with flour. Tap off excess flour over the sink and set the prepared pan aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the coconut oil and honey. Add in eggs and whisk until smooth. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas with a fork until well mashed and broken down (see note 1). Pack mashed bananas into a measuring cup and level the top. Add to the wet ingredients along with the Greek yogurt and vanilla extract. Whisk until smooth and combined.
- On top of the wet ingredients, add the salt, cinnamon, and baking soda. Stir. Add in flour and mini chocolate chips (if using). With a wooden spoon, gently stir the chocolate chips to get coated with the flour, then mix the flour into the rest of the ingredients. Do not overmix; stop as soon as the flour is fully incorporated.
- Using a spatula, scrape all the batter into the prepared 9×5-inch pan. Bake in the fully preheated oven for 50–65 minutes or until very lightly browned on the edges and a toothpick comes out clean (or with few moist crumbs) from the center.
- Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a cooling rack. When fully cool, cut into slices and enjoy.
Recipe Notes
Note 1: To quickly and thoroughly mash bananas, remove the peels, break into a few pieces, and beat them in a stand mixer or with a hand mixer until well mashed.
Note 2: While this recipe contains no added sugar, if you add chocolate chips to the batter, keep in mind that most commercial brands contain sugar.
Storage: Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for 2–3 days. Enjoy slices warmed in the microwave for 10–15 seconds. Bread freezes and thaws well.
Nutrition
Serving: 12slices | Calories: 139kcal | Carbohydrates: 16.6g | Protein: 1.3g | Fat: 6.8g | Cholesterol: 31mg | Sodium: 117.9mg | Fiber: 0.5g | Sugar: 14.5g
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I made this bread last night, following the recipe, just added some pecans on top. The bread came out tasty, but very very very dense. Any thoughts?
So glad you enjoyed it! But yes, it shouldn’t be dense! A bit denser than a regular banana bread because there are healthier ingredients and no oils, but not too much. Here are a few thoughts: did you overmix the dough? Over-mixing will make the gluten in the flour start to activate resulting in a tougher or denser baked good. Next, did you pack in too much flour? I recommend spooning and leveling flour because otherwise when you press a measuring cup into a bag of flour you are pressing in way more flour than needed. And did you change/substitute or eliminate any of the ingredients? This could cause a denser bread. Particularly, what flour did you use? A white all-purpose flour should create a much lighter bread. Whole wheat flours will create a much denser bread. I generally use a white whole wheat mixed with white flour. I would recommend trying just white flour. And finally, one other trick I’ve recently started to use with healthier baked goods: remove 1 tablespoon of flour per cup of flour and replace it with 1 tablespoon of cornstarch. This will make it less dense as well. Hope all these tips help you troubleshoot and when you try this again you will be completely satisfied with the taste AND texture! 🙂
I printed your recipe to try, I like that there is not fats used.
Looks forward to taste testing!!
Have a great week!
Awesome!! I hope you love it Karren!! 🙂 You have a great week as well!
Hello,
This recipe looks delicious. I have had banana chocolate chunk muffins for an occasional spoil day breakfast and I would love to make the chocolate banana combination in the form of bread and a healthy one too with healthy ingredients :). I have never had Greek yogurt. I usually use the regular kind like plain yogurt 0 percent or 2 percent in fruit smoothies so I am wondering if this kind of yogurt would work for this recipe too as I have used it to bake a cake before? Thanks:)
I think I will just try it out and see what happens. If anyone has tried this recipe with plain 0 percent or 2 percent yogurt (not Greek yogurt) please let me know if it worked and how it turned out. I am keeping my fingers crossed. Thanks! 🙂
Delicious! I decided to bake one this morning even though I didn’t have enough ingredients (greek yogurt, chocolate chips & oatmeal). So I just used what I have in my kitchen: Turkish labneh to replace greek yogurt (same volume), omitted chocolate chips (replaced with chopped almonds as topping & my last half cup of instant oatmeal. Sorry for tweaking your recipe! Nevertheless, it came out perfect. Husband-approved as well. Thank you!
Yeah!! So great to hear!! And I’m so glad you were able to make some changes to what you had and it still worked out well 🙂 Thanks for the sweet comment!
Did you use 0% fat plain Greek Yogurt or 2%?
I prefer 2%, but I have used both in this bread and they both work out great 🙂
So you don’t use milk IF you use chocolate chips? Same amt for the chips,3/4 cup?
I’m sorry, I’m a little confused by your question; I think you are asking how much should you use if you use milk chocolate chips? Then yes it would be the same 3/4ths a cup. Please let me know if I misunderstood your question!! Hope that helps!
I’ve finally found the ONE, so good!
I dared to try it with GF flour (Cup4Cup) and even my husband loved it.
You’re photos sold me on trying yet another banana bread recipe,
it came out perfectly, thankyou thankyou!
YAY! So glad to hear it worked so well with the GF flour and came out perfectly — so great to hear! Thanks for the comment 🙂
Creamy is the perfect word to describe this bread! Delicious and so easy to make. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
What is the nutrition information on this???
Nutrition Facts
Serving Size 1 Recipe total Servings 12
Calories 164
Total Fat 3.11 g
Saturated Fat 2.08g
Monosaturated Fat 0.81g
Polysaturated Fat 0.22g
Total Carbohydrate 29.6 g
Fiber 1 g
Sugar 15.9 g
Protein 3.6 g
Cholesterol 3.03 mg
Calcium 49 mg
Iron 1.07 mg
Potassium 127 mg
Sodium 178 mg
Zinc 0.5 mg
Thiamin 0.14 mg
Riboflavin 0.16 mg
Niacin 1.04 mg
Folic Acid 24.1 Ug
Vitamin B6 0.05 mg
Vitamin C 0.7 mg
Vitamin B12 0.14 Ug
Vitamin A 30 IU
Vitamin E 0.06 mg
Vitamin K 0.5 Ug
Points 3
Points Plus 4
*The nutritional values are determined by the total ingredients divided by the number of servings for each recipe. Serving sizes may vary. The formula used here for points was obtained from public sources and is an empirical match to Weight Watchers calculators, but it is not an “official”
This was delicious. The yogurt really made it. I loved the texture of the bananas and oatmeal instead of the fat in other recipes.
So glad to hear it – thanks Amanda! 🙂