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This easy sourdough discard banana bread takes just a few minutes to mix up. But the taste is anything but simple! This quick bread is a great way to use up some of your sourdough discard … and those brown bananas sitting on your countertop! And this one has a secret ingredient that you add right at the end … it gives it a glossy finish and a decadent, sweet glaze!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Use Pantry Staples – Sourdough discard banana bread uses pantry staples, along with your sourdough discard, to create a decadent banana bread – rival to your favorite coffee shop!
No Fancy Equipment – No stand mixer necessary, just a bowl, a fork and spatula is all you need to make this recipe!
And if you love this sourdough banana bread, why not try this sourdough zucchini bread or sourdough discard pumpkin spice bread – they have a very similar style and are baked in the same size loaf pan.
Ingredients
- Bananas – Always use overripe bananas! They need to be brown and a bit squishy. These brown bananas add sweetness and texture to your bread. Do not use fresh, yellow bananas straight from the store. A little tip – always keep a stash of brown bananas in the freezer – they are great for emergency banana bread making! Just leave them out for 10 minutes to soften before you mash them up!
- Eggs – my eggs are large, around 60g each.
- Vanilla Extract
- Butter – I melt my butter in the microwave before adding to this recipe. You could also use coconut oil if you prefer, but it does change the texture of the banana bread a little.
- Sourdough Starter or sourdough discard – This banana bread is a simple way to use sourdough discard – which is particularly good if you’re going through the process of making a sourdough starter. You can use sourdough discard in this recipe – but active, fed sourdough starter is perfectly fine too. Like most sourdough discard recipes, you can just use whatever you have on hand!
- All Purpose Flour – I’ve used white all purpose flour. You can use half whole wheat flour or even all whole wheat flour, but this will change the texture of the sourdough banana bread.
- Baking Powder – use baking powder, not baking soda.
- Brown Sugar – I’ve used light brown sugar, but you can of course use dark brown sugar if you want a deeper caramel flavor.
- White Sugar
- Salt
- Golden Syrup – this is an inverted sugar syrup and is a by product of refining sugar cane into sugar. You can generally buy it at the grocery store (it’s an Australian staple). If you can’t get it, just use a simple sugar syrup instead, or alternatively maple syrup – or just skip this step altogether!
How To Make Sourdough Banana Bread
This is such an easy sourdough discard recipe to make! It’s my go to recipe when I know we have company calling in for coffee because I know that I can quickly mix it together and have it in the oven ready to serve when they arrive.
Mash the ripe bananas with the back of a fork until they form a puree (a few lumps is fine). Then add the egg and vanilla to the bananas and mix together. Follow this with the melted butter and sourdough starter. Set this aside.
In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients, before adding the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stirring until just combined. Be careful not to over mix the ingredients once you’ve added the wet and dry together. Just like sourdough muffins, over mixing can result in tough bread.
Pour the banana bread batter into a buttered loaf pan. Bake in the oven at 180ºC/350ºF for around 1 hour – or until a toothpick comes out of the bread clean. If you feel that the top of the loaf is browning too quickly, carefully place a sheet of tin foil over the top. This will allow the banana bread to continue cooking, without burning the top of your bread.
Brush with golden syrup while the loaf is still in the pan before allowing to cool for 30 minutes before removing from the pan and transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Kate’s Pro Tip
Overnight Fermentation
You can ferment the mixture of this loaf overnight in the fridge if you want a long fermented sourdough banana bread. The only thing I will say with doing this is that it doesn’t always rise as high as it would if you baked it right after mixing. However, you do get the benefits of long fermentation.
Loaf Pan Size
I have used a USA Pan 1 pound loaf pan to bake this loaf and it fits perfectly! This pan measures 9″ x 5″. It’s also easy to double the recipe if you have 2 pans. I use the same pan to make this sourdough zucchini bread.
Add Ins for Sourdough Banana Bread
While this sourdough discard banana bread is amazing just as it is, there’s always room for improvement, right? Add your extras to the dry ingredients before you mix in the wet ingredients to ensure they are evenly distributed.
Here are a few suggestions on things you can add to take your sourdough banana bread to the next level!
- Roasted and chopped nuts – the easiest way is to purchase your nuts already roasted, but if they’re raw, toast them lightly in a heated pan before adding. You could add up to 150g of chopped walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pecans or macadamia nuts. I prefer them in the mixture as they don’t burn on the top this way. If you love macadamia nuts, try this sourdough Hawaiian banana bread!
- Chocolate – bananas and chocolate are sooo good together! Add up to 100g of chocolate chips or your favorite chocolate chopped. White, milk or dark all work well! Or go all out and make this double chocolate sourdough banana bread!
- Butterscotch or Peanut Butter Chips – these flavors both team up so well with bananas! Add up to 150g of these for a little flavor twist!
- Pumpkin – Give your sourdough banana bread some serious fall vibes with this sourdough pumpkin banana bread recipe.
- Cinnamon – I love adding 3 g of cinnamon to this loaf to give it a cozy flavor, especially in the fall!
How To Store and Freeze
This sourdough banana bread can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days. It will last around a week in the fridge (although I recommend letting it come to room temperature before serving if it has been in the fridge).
It freezes so well! I like to cut it into individual slices and place them into ziplock bags and freeze for easy grab and go snacks. It also freezes well wrapped in aluminum foil and placed into a ziplock bag if you want to freeze the loaf as a whole. Thaw at room temperature.
Want More Sourdough Banana Recipes?
Sourdough Discard Banana Bread
Equipment
- Loaf Pan (1 pound pan around 9" x 5")
Ingredients
- 250 g Bananas, (approx. 3 medium overripe bananas)
- 2 Eggs, (large 60g each)
- 5 g Vanilla Extract, (1 teaspoon)
- 80 g Butter, (Melted – can be salted or unsalted)
- 100 g Sourdough Starter, (or sourdough discard)
- 200 g All Purpose Flour
- 12 g Baking Powder, (2 teaspoons)
- 100 g Brown Sugar
- 50 g White Sugar
- pinch Salt
- 20 g Golden Syrup, (for brushing on after baking)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180ºC/350ºF.
- Mash the overripe bananas with the back of a fork until they are fairly smooth (a few lumps is fine).
- Now lightly beat the eggs and vanilla together and add that to the mashed bananas. Use your fork to lightly mix the eggs through.
- Melt the butter and then add that the egg and banana mixture.
- Now add the sourdough starter to the egg mixture and whisk throughly.
- In a separate bowl, mix all dry ingredients together and ensure that everything is mixed thoroughly.
- Now add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined.
- Pour mixture into a buttered loaf tin.
- Bake at 180ºC/350ºF for around 1 hour. Baking time will depend on the size of your tin and your oven.
- The banana bread is cooked when a skewer is inserted and comes out clean.
- When you take the banana bread out of the oven, brush the top with golden syrup for a lovely shiny, sweet glaze.
- Allow to cool for 30 minutes before removing from the tin.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this? Rate and comment below!
This banana bread was amazing!! I didn’t put in the white sugar and skipped the golden syrup and it was absolutely delicious!!! I didn’t find it overall sweet at all. Perfect sweetness! It is so moist and a perfect way to use discard. I love this recipe over my other non-discard recipe and I’ll be using this recipe from now on!
Ai, we’re out of eggs!
I’ll give it a go without anyway.
Would it be okay to quadruple this recipe and refrigerate for 24 hours?
Came out delicious. Had to cut back time to 35 minutes using a countertop oven. Everyone loved it. Will definitely make again.
I substituted 1/2monk brown sugar and regular brown sugar-skipped the white sugar.
Also added 2TBLSP of Chia seeds
2tsp cinnamon
Brushed with honey
Best banana bread ever!!!
Best
So quick, so delicious!! We are so happy!! I’m going to make a few loaves for friends and family.
I can’t say enough about this Sourdough Discard Banana Bread! I have made it probably a dozen times now and it is foolproof, perfect every time! I don’t add anything to it. I bake it for about 50-55 minutes (my oven runs a little bit hot). It is moist, delicious, and so easy! My husband loves it too. Thank you, Pantry Mama!
I’m so glad you love this sourdough banana bread! Thank you for commenting xo
I am new to the sourbread scene but enjoying learning new baking tricks and styles. One question that is confusing me. Where do the PUFA values shown in the Nutritional Chart on recipes get introduced in the recipe? Thanks!
The absolute best banana bread I’ve ever tasted!
We loved this! I omitted the white sugar and forgot about the golden syrup but didn’t miss it. I added 100g of semi sweet chocolate chips. Delish!!
Followed the suggestion of others and omitted white sugar entirely and left off the glaze as well. This was wonderful. It rose more than I expected but my “discard” was somewhere between starter and my usual discard as I’d fed it 1:4:4 about 12 hours earlier to bake some sourdough (also TPM’s recipe and also came out spectacularly).
I’m excited to try this recipe. Thank you for sharing! But I do have a question. I know it isn’t a yeasted bread, but what is the point of adding sourdough if you don’t let the dough sit for a little and ferment so that the sourdough starter can do its work and make the bread more digestible?
Hi i made this banana bread with Buckwheat flour, same proportions to your recipe – oil – grapeseed no aroma to it,
used flax eggs- added 1 tsp soda and less brown sugar – added cinnamon, and nutmeg
Came out delicious and the color is like a brownie but very happy with the taste.
no glaze – put it in a cake pan and have some squares of it for breakfast – very easy to make!
Thank you
Bread was delicious and moist. A little too sweet for my taste, so I will use half the amount white sugar next time.
This works great, I added some lime to cut the seeet, (skipped all the optional sugar and used maple syrup instead, added a bit of cream,2 extra eggs, and doubled the discard, left out the baking powder, and left it in the counter over night in a 9×14 baking pan. Popped in the oven in the morning. Almost more of a brownie consistency. Fabulous taste. Lots of requests to repeat, though might try adding chocolate next time. Thank you very much for sharing. It is a great base recipe . Takes adjustments (creativity) very well.
Turned out delicious 👍❣️
Fantastic. Doubled recipe and added 1 cup walnuts and 1 tablespoon cinnamon for 2 loaves.
I didn’t have any golden n syrup- I used maple syrup and it worked perfectly – just a small amount brushed on the baked loaf with a pastry brush.
I grease my loaf pan and then sprinkle about a third cup sugar on the bottom before pouring on the dough. It just makes it yummy! Also since I did not have time to make golden syrup, I used maple syrup on baked bread with a pastry brush. It turned out great.
Sounds fantastic, Sue! 🙂
Delicious! Instead of a loaf pan I made mini muffins. 350°F for 12 minutes. I skipped the syrup on top because I made them for my grandkids (toddlers ages 1, 3 and 5). I’ll be making these again and again! Thank you! Pantrymama, you ROCK!
Such a great idea! Thank you for sharing, Laura. So glad they were a hit. 🙂
So good! I think I will omit the white sugar next time I make this as it was quite sweet but STILL amazing!
I subbed melted butter for browned butter as well, and added little chocolate chips 🙂
I shouldn’t say “I”- really my 5 year old son did majority of the work! We took it out of the oven about an hour ago and only have 2 slices left after sharing with our neighbours 🙂
Hello 🙂
I have just made the banana bread and wondered can it be frozen ?
Thanks Kathy
It absolutely can be frozen. Wrap in parchment paper and then aluminum foil and place in the freezer for up to 2 to 3 months. I prefer to freeze as a whole loaf, but you can freeze individual slices in zip loc bags too if you prefer.
Absolutely love this banana bread! So easy to make and my whole family loves it!
Just baked 2 loafs! One plain and one woth chocolate chips! What a delicious delight! ❤️ from 🇿🇦
We love that! Thank you for your comment and review, Joline!
This is my go to banana bread recipe. It’s fantastic thank you so much!
Thank you, Margie! 🙂
I am analysis to coconut, could I just add extra oats?
I’ve tried a lot of banana bread recipes and this one is SO good!! This will now be my “go to” recipe. Yummy!
I’m so glad that you love this recipe! Thank you so much for your review xo
It’s good to know how to use sourdough starter/discard.
Best recipe!!! I add chocolate chips and walnuts. I also do raw cane sugar instead of white sugar.
How long do I cook this for if I make regular size muffins instead of a loaf?
I’d try 30 minutes and see how they go, you’d really need to test this depending on the muffin pan and your oven 🙂 So glad you love the recipe though 🙂
This came out absolutely perfect! Very moist. It was done in 45 minutes but I think my oven is fast. I wouldn’t change a thing in this recipe. I have a bunch of discard that I’m trying to use so will be trying some more of your discard recipes. Thank you for converting the grams into teaspoons for the baking powder and the extract. Very helpful!
I’m new to sourdough baking but thought I’d give this a try & I am so happy with the result. It turned out beautifully. I don’t eat sugar so used a brown monk fruit sweetener instead of brown sugar & white monk fruit sweetener instead of white sugar without any issues. Instead of golden syrup glaze I used Lakanto Malt syrup which added a nice flavour. Everybody loved it & I now have orders coming in from the family! I have found your recipes to be perfect.