Stretch Your Food Dollar: What To Do With Brown Bananas
Are you like me? Do you buy bananas each week with the best of intentions to eat them before they turn brown? For me, it never fails. Whether I buy 2 bananas or 6 bananas, I’ve always got brown bananas before the end of the week. So I thought I’d offer a recipe for Vegan Banana Bread for this week’s edition of Stretch Your Food Dollar.
Vegan Banana Bread is a great dish to have in your repertoire. Whether you eat it at home or bring it to a potluck, there’s always someone who will enjoy it. Banana bread is perfect with a cup of coffee for breakfast on the run. You could make several loaves at once and store extras in your freezer. Or you could make mini loaves and give them away as gifts for that upcoming office holiday party, or to a neighbor who watered your plants for you while you were on vacation.
Vegan Banana Bread
(Makes 1 loaf)
1 large banana
6 Tbsp soy milk
2/3 c sugar
1/2 c soft tofu
1/3 c oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 c walnuts, chopped
1. Preheat oven to 350. Lightly oil a 9″ loaf pan and set aside.
2. In the food processor, mix the banana, milk, sugar, tofu, and oil until smooth.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk the dry ingredients together. Add the nuts and banana mixture and stir together gently until just mixed.
4. Pour evenly into loaf pan. Bake 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool for 10-15 minutes before removing from pan.
To make my banana bread extra special, I make a streusel topping to give it just a little something else. Use vegan butter, flour, cinnamon, and brown sugar to make a crumbly topping. Put this on the top of the batter just before sticking your loaf pan in the oven.
On an unrelated side note, I’m a huge fan of putting fruit in my green salads. Orange slices, sliced strawberries, or dried cranberries give my salads a color and flavor. Last night a friend asked, ‘œwhat about bananas.’ Well, sure. If you’re using a Thai Peanut Salad Dressing, bananas would add a wonderful flavor component to your salad. Give your salads a little boost and lest us know how your experiments turn out.
Photo credit: Stock.xchng
hmm… bananas in a salad? i’ll have to give that a try!
brown bananas are also good for homemade smoothies!
I’m a big fan of banana bread and its faster-cooking cousins, banana muffins. Soft bananas also make good smoothies, blended with yogurt and/or (soy) milk.
I love bananas and usually buy a few of them every other week. Unfortunately, I don’t always eat them in time before they turn and I don’t always have time to make banana bread every week. So I put my brown bananas in the freezer until I am ready to make it. I will usually keep the bananas in the freezer up to two months. Also, we will talk them out and let them thaw slightly them put into a yogurt smoothie with frozen strawberries and raspberries too.
If I don’t use them up within two months, I remove from the freezer and add to my compost.
I’ve actually only been eating bananas for about 5 years. I was the pickiest eater ever as a child, dunno how my parents but up with me.
But I love banana bread! And sumthin’ tells me that using soy milk makes the bread taste much better. I can’t wait to try this!
My Mom always put Bananas starting to brown in the freezer as well…skin turns a solid ugly brown.. and she’d eat them straight from the freezer.
They had the consistency of Ice Cream…Banana Ice Cream without the Fat and Calories.
~ Roland
If you’re going to freeze your bananas for smoothies and other things, peel them first. It makes it much easier to use them when you pull them out of the freezer.
I have two brown bananas on the counter at home right now…
Serena: Jeanine and I love bananas too and we typically eat through them before they go brown. But I’ll have to try your bread recipe… I like the fact that there is tofu in them. I have never baked with tofu before…
I agree with Roland… frozen bananas do taste like ice cream! We’ve tried the freezer trick before too.
Great suggestions everybody!
Love the recipe. I am assuming rice milk would work ok, right? My partner has a bit of a soy sensitivity. For some reason Tofu doesn’t bother her but soy milk or soy grits, or soy this or that doesn’t work well & she gets a reaction.
I freeze a lot of bananas & use them for smoothies & baking like many of you already shared…
Paula, absolutely. You can substitute rice or almond milk for soy. The only time you really can’t switch as easily is if you’re making a sauce or gravy. Rice and almond milk just don’t have the right consistency.
Stretch my food dollar? If I have to buy:
6 Tbsp soy milk
2/3 c sugar
1/2 c soft tofu
1/3 c oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 c walnuts, chopped
…then I am spending more money than I am saving by tossing that brown banana!
I buy green bananas and have a banana hook and hang them. They last about 7-8 days. I also fry bananas, somthing from the South.