Moist Banana Bread Recipe

This moist banana bread recipe is light, tender, and super easy! The lemon zest adds a bright, citrus flavor that is a wonderful and welcome change from the usual cinnamon!

The eternal problem: what to do with your ubiquitous over-ripe bananas? This easy and moist banana bread recipe is the answer! It is a light and fluffy quick bread filled with bananas and featuring a hint of lemon. It’s a combination you didn’t know you needed! 

You can also freeze those ripe bananas for smoothies or use them in these banana bran muffins for a nutritious snack. If they’re still in good shape, you can whip up some banana pudding or banana cream pie! 

In the Fall, I switch from this easy, moist banana bread recipe to my pumpkin banana bread and then my pumpkin bread recipe. It’s just as moist and even better than Starbucks!

Ingredients & Substitutions

• All-Purpose Flour: All-purpose flour has just the right amount of gluten to hold all the sugar, butter, and bananas without making a chewy, tough quick bread. You can substitute part of it with whole wheat flour if you would like but I would recommend checking out my vegan chocolate chip banana bread for a better texture with different flour substitutions!
• Baking Soda & Baking Powder
• Kosher Salt 
• Unsalted Butter
• Granulated Sugar: Granulated sugar is here for flavor, but it also aids in leavening, moisture, texture, and stability. You can substitute dark or light brown sugar. 
• Whole Eggs
• Vanilla Extract
• Lemon Zest
• Ripe Bananas: In an ideal world, I choose bananas that are just beginning to spot. I find this to be the peak banana flavor for banana bread or this banana cake with cream cheese frosting. 
• Sour Cream: You can substitute full-fat Greek yogurt or crème fraîche.  
• Walnuts or Macadamia nuts (optional) 
• Ricotta
• Honey: Sweeten your ricotta with honey, maple syrup, or molasses! 
• Easy Strawberry Jam: Make a half batch of my easy strawberry jam recipe! Or you can make a double and use it to make this strawberry pound cake. 

See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.

Variations

• Use the add-ins of your heart’s desire! Add in some raisins, as I do with my brown butter rum raisin bread, or mix in chocolate chips, pecans, butterscotch chips, or dehydrated strawberries! 
• Make them mini or muffins. Bake this bread in mini loaves or as muffins! Just start checking around 15-20 minutes to see if they are done. 
• Crumble topping! Top this bread with streusel topping or the peanut butter streusel from these peanut butter banana muffins! Or use the streusel from my banana crumb bread!
• Add a swirl. Right before baking, swirl in some peanut butter, jam, or Nutella like in this Nutella banana bread! 

Professional Tips for this Moist Banana Bread Recipe

• Mix by hand! The American Heritage Cookbook instructs us to “work butter until soft, then work in sugar, a little at a time, until smooth.” I took this to mean working by hand with a wooden spoon, and it worked fabulously, creating a tender texture. I did try using my hand mixer once, but the batter broke no matter how room temperature my ingredients were. 
• Have your oven and loaf pan ready. The secret to this bread is not letting it sit for too long. Once you mix the batter, you want to get it into the oven as quickly as possible. The longer it sits, the more likely it is that the batter will break, and you will lose that first rise from the baking soda. 
• Find the happy medium with your bananas. Your bananas are the flavor here; you want them to be perfectly ripe. Under- or overripe bananas can significantly alter the flavor of your banana bread. I say once you see some brown spot and you can smell the banana, they are ready! 

How to Make Moist Banana Bread

Use these instructions to make the best banana bread recipe! Further details and measurements can be found in the recipe card below.

Make the banana bread:

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and lightly flour a regular loaf pan. 

I rub a generous amount of butter around every inch of the pan and then spoon approximately a tablespoon of flour into the pan. I then tip the pan and tap to distribute the flour. Rotate the pan and tap. Continue until a light coating of flour covers every surface.

Step 2: Whisk the dry ingredients. Whisk together flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder in a small bowl. Set aside.

Step 3:  Mash the bananas in a small bowl and set aside. 

Step 4: Combine lemon zest and sugar. Grate the peel of half a lemon and combine with the sugar to allow the oils to begin to infuse with the sugar.

Be extremely careful not to get any of the bitter white pith. It will ruin the taste of your bread, and we don’t want that! I am probably overly cautious and would rather use more of the lemon than risk bitter bread.

Step 5: Cream the butter and sugar. Using a wooden spoon, mash the butter around the mixing bowl until it becomes malleable. Then, gradually add in the sugar while continuing to mash it into the butter with the back of a wooden spoon.

Step 6: Beat in the eggs (by hand with a wooden spoon), one at a time, then add the vanilla and mashed bananas.

Step 7: Stir in the dry ingredients alternating with the sour cream. I alternate in three additions, ending with sour cream.

Step 8: Mix in nuts, being careful not to overmix. 

Step 9: Pour and bake. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan or two mini pans and bake in a preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with only a few clinging crumbs. The large loaf should take 45 minutes to 1 hour, while the smaller ones will take 25–35 minutes. Let it cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then remove it to cool completely on a rack.

Honey Ricotta Spread:

Step 10: Whisk together the honey and ricotta. For a completely smooth spread, pulse in a food processor or use a handheld immersion blender. I didn’t blend it for the photos, and it was just as delicious.

Recipe FAQs 

Before You Go

I hope you enjoyed this old-fashioned recipe. Check out our other delicious quick bread recipes like this easy peach cake or these carrot cake scones!