Name: Simple 6-Ingredient Banana Bread
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 70 min
Total time: 80 min
Ingredients: 375 grams brown bananas ((3 medium or 4 small bananas)); 200 grams sugar ((1 cup)); 240 grams all-purpose flour ((2 cups, loosely scooped and leveled off)); 95 grams shortening ((½ cup)); 2 large eggs ((room temperature)); 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 cup chocolate chips; ½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans; ¼ teaspoon nutmeg; ½ teaspoon cinnamon; 2 tablespoon cinnamon sugar or turbinado sugar ((to sprinkle on top)); 1 tablespoon orange zest

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My recipe for a super simple banana bread will never give you up, let you down, run around or desert (dessert?) you. With just six easy-to-find ingredients, it’s super easy to make and even easier to adapt. You don't even need to pre-mash the bananas!

This is super simple banana bread made with shortening. It has the best banana flavor and a slightly sticky, perfectly cracked-open top, and the crumb is flecked throughout with evidence of the bananas that make up the batter.

An overhead shot of a loaf of banana bread still in the pan. A white napkin sits to the right. The loaf pan is on top of a metal wire cooling rack. — Once you fall in love with this easy banana bread recipe, you'll want to try my double chocolate banana bread recipe!

With just six ingredients, this one-bowl banana bread is so easy to make on busy weeknights and lazy weekend mornings. Shortening is soft and can be stored at room temperature, so there's no fussing around remembering to soften butter beforehand. You can just get right to baking. I like using shortening because it also makes the banana bread "accidentally" dairy-free, which is great for anyone who is lactose intolerant.

I adapted this recipe from one that originally appeared in a booklet that came with an Oster "Kitchen Center Food Preparation Appliance" my parents got as a wedding gift in 1984, and, while the machine crapped out somewhere around 1991, the banana bread recipe has truly lasted the test of time.

Every now and then I try a different banana bread recipe, curious if different ingredients — honey, brown sugar, orange marmalade, bourbon, maple syrup, whole wheat flour, etc. — will produce a superior loaf of banana bread. But this is the banana recipe I always come back to.

The recipe itself is beautiful in its simplicity: Six ingredients, beaten together in a mixer bowl for about a minute, then baked in a loaf pan for 1 hour and 10 minutes.

A photo of the 6 ingredients needed to make banana bread as well as a large silver bowl for an electric mixer. — See recipe card (at the end of the blog post) for ingredient quantities.

If you're a beginner baker, this is an ideal recipe to familiarize yourself with. It's endlessly customizable and incredibly forgiving. Start with these six base ingredients, and you can experiment to your heart's content from there.

I use shortening in my banana bread recipe because it is 100% fat (unlike butter, which is about 80% fat and 16-18% water). Shortening is great for producing very soft, very tender baked goods. I also like shortening because it lets the banana flavor shine.

In the 80s and 90s shortening was popularly promoted as a "healthy alternative to saturated fats." These days it's seen far less often due to an increase in concern about trans fats (just another reminder that what we consider "healthy" is often the result of successful marketing campaigns).

As with just about any ingredient diet culture has championed and/or vilified, shortening does have its place in the kitchen. And it's great for making a super simple, tender quickbread.

This recipe has been so good to me over the years; I have no desire to bend to the whims of diet culture trying to fix something that's not broken. If you'd like a banana bread that doesn't use shortening, there are hundreds of other recipes out there to choose from.

Like I said, this banana bread is infinitely customizable. You can split the batter in half and mix half with Nutella for a marbled banana bread, add chocolate chips or nuts, replace the shortening with creamy peanut butter, swap brown sugar for white sugar, etc. and it will work just fine.

the ingredients for banana bread in a mixer bowl before mixing — I don't mash the bananas before adding them to the bowl. I let the paddle do that for me.

banana bread batter in a mixing bowl after being mixed — Mix until well combined, scraping down the bowl halfway through.

A close up down the length of a loaf of banana bread in still in the loaf pan. The top is golden brown and covered in chopped walnuts. A metal cooling rack is visible under the pan.

Banana Bread Variations

There are so many ways you can take this simple banana bread and dress it up to make it your own. Here are some of my favorite things to do with it:

Loaded Double Chocolate Banana Bread - My double chocolate banana bread recipe uses this simple recipe as a base with a few additional tweaks to support the added chocolate chips and cocoa powder.
Chocolate Swirl Banana Bread - After mixing the batter, pour ⅓ of of the batter into a small bowl, add ⅛th cup cocoa powder, and mix well. Pour half of the plain batter into the prepared pan, then dollop in a layer of the chocolate batter, then cover it with the rest of the plain batter. Insert a knife or a skewer straight to the bottom of the pan, and draw a few continuous figure-8 shapes across the width of the pan to create a swirl.
Nutty Banana Bread - After mixing the batter, stir in ½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans. Top the banana bread with additional chopped nuts before baking.
Chocolate Chip Banana Bread - After mixing the batter, stir in 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips.
Peanut Butter Banana Bread - Replace all of the shortening with creamy peanut butter. Bonus: Add peanut butter chips, too!
Muffin top: Sprinkle generously with sparkling sugar before baking.

Yes, You Can Make Banana Bread Muffins

To use this batter to make 12 banana bread muffins, grease a standard sized muffin tin and portion the batter into the 12 muffin wells. Add any toppings you like (I recommend a generous scoop of sparkling sugar and some chopped walnuts), then bake for 22-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with a few crumbs clinging to it. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

For extra-tall, extra-domed banana bread muffins, leave every other muffin well empty, so you're only baking 6 muffins per muffin pan.

For banana bread mini muffins, I use a #40 scoop (1.5 tablespoons) to portion the batter into a well-greased mini-muffin pan. I can usually get about 36 mini muffins out of one batch of banana bread batter. Bake for 13-15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out with just a few crumbs on it. Let cool in the pan 5 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

💭 Have More Baking Questions?

I've rounded up answers to common baking questions and how-to guides, including:

Ingredient swaps and FAQs
Why my recipes are written in grams and not cups
How to quickly bring eggs and butter to room temperature
Ingredients I use (salt, flour, yeast, etc.)
Step-by-step guides for bread and baking techniques

See my baking techniques & troubleshooting guide and ingredient swaps and FAQs for more!

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