Description
Oatmeal banana bread is a fabulously chewy, hearty, and banana-forward breakfast loaf! This recipe is easy peasy to get together with minimal ingredients; the hardest part is waiting for it to bake up! We hope you love this healthy spin on banana bread!
Ingredients
Wet Ingredients:
- 3–4 peeled bananas* note
- 1/3 cup melted butter or neutral flavored oil* note
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Dry Ingredients:
- 1.5 cups oats (to be blended into flour) note
- 1 cup of oats (to fold into the batter)
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
optional 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Mix the wet ingredients. Add peeled bananas to a medium-sized mixing bowl and mash very well. Add vanilla extract and melted butter and mix to incorporate.
- Add 1.5 cups of rolled oats to a powerful blender and process until a very fine flour-like consistency is reached. (In the Vitamix, this took about 30 seconds, scraping down the sides once). Pour the homemade oat flour across the wet ingredients. Add remaining dry ingredients over top (salt, baking powder, baking soda, and sugar). Mix well to incorporate.
- Fold in the remaining 1 cup of whole oats until just combined.
- Line a loaf pan with parchment paper and pour the batter in. If you’d like, scatter a few tablespoons of oats on the top of the loaf. Bake in a pre-heated 350* oven for 35-45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle removes clean and has no wet batter stuck to it.
- If using a 9×5 loaf pan, the loaf will take less time to cook. Begin to check at the 30-minute mark.
- If using a dark metal or glass pan, you may need to dial back the temp 25* as these pans tend to cook up the edges faster than the center.
- If using a large amount of bananas, the loaf will take longer to cook! Banana bread made with oat flour cooks up faster than using AP flour, so begin to check at about 30-35 minutes.
- Leave the loaf to cool in the pan for 15-20 minutes before removing and slicing for best results. The loaf will firm up a bit as it cools.
Notes
On Oats: We are using old-fashioned rolled oats in this recipe. We don’t recommend steel-cut oats or instant oats.
There are two very common loaf pan sizes: 8×4 and 9×5. The 9×5 pans create shorter, wider loaves that cook up a bit quicker. An 8×4 pan takes longer as it’s a taller loaf!
On Bananas: If using 4 large bananas, the loaf may take a bit longer to cook. If using smaller or fewer bananas, you may need to add a small splash of milk to help the batter come together appropriately. Splash meaning 1-2 tablespoons! The batter should be thick but not resistant to incorporating all dry spots of flour.
Oil vs Butter: Melted butter makes banana bread with a better flavor and texture. Using oil creates a very moist banana bread but it may have a gummier consistency.
Optional: Add an egg to the wet ingredients! As this loaf is naturally GF, an egg can help bind everything together but is not necessary. No other alterations are needed if adding an egg 🙂
Keywords: Oatmeal Banana Bread