Sourdough Banana Bread

With extra depth from using sourdough starter, this sourdough banana bread is a delicious way to use discard. Bake immediately or refrigerate overnight for a stronger flavour. The banana bread is tender, sweet, and has a slight tang from the sourdough beneath the distinctive banana taste. Use very ripe bananas for the best loaf. This recipe is adapted from Kelly's brown butter banana bread.

Waste not, want not - using discard means you need less flour and milk for this recipe, and you're using something that would otherwise be thrown out. For some more discard recipes that use fruit, try our sourdough peach cobbler, sweet sourdough blueberry muffins, or make a nice on-the-go breakfast with sourdough morning glory muffins.

Ingredients

Ingredient Notes and Substitutions

• Flour: while we prefer all-purpose flour for this recipe to give a bit more structure, you could sub part or all of the flour for pastry flour if you'd like it to be very soft and tender. For a slightly more wholesome option, use half whole wheat flour.
• Starter: you want inactive sourdough starter, or discard, for this recipe. No worries if you only have active starter - just be sure to measure with grams rather than cups in that case (active starter takes up more space than discard).
• Sour cream: substitute full-fat Greek-style yogurt if you don't have sour cream.

Use the JUMP TO RECIPE button at the top, or scroll to the bottom of the post to see the printable recipe card with full ingredient measurements and complete instructions.

Method

Step 1: mix the butter and sugars, then add the remaining wet ingredients.

Step 2: whisk well, then mash in the banana with the whisk.

Step 3: gently fold in the dry ingredients, the transfer to a lined loaf tin.

Step 4: bake until golden, about an hour.

Top Tips

• Refrigerate overnight: for a strong sourdough flavour, mix up the banana bread and refrigerate the batter overnight, tightly covered, before transferring to the loaf tin and baking the next day.
• Use very ripe bananas: the riper the banana, the sweeter the loaf will be, and the stronger the banana flavour. Go for very spotted bananas or even black if you can wait that long. Some grocery stores will move overripe bananas to the back (you can ask for them) or offer them on discount.
• Add extras: consider this is a base recipe for sourdough banana bread, and you can add chocolate chips or chunks, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and extra spices (like pumpkin spice).
• Try binder clips: you can see in the step-by-step photos that Kelly uses binder clips to hold the parchment paper in place. It's a handy little trick but not mandatory - don't forget to remove them before baking if you do try it.

Recipe Notes

If using any of the variations listed below, carefully fold them into the batter before pouring into the tin (with the exception of spices, which should be added with the flour). About 1 cup altogether of any add-ins will be fine.

Sprinkling coarse sugar on top of your loaf will add a crunchy, textural note, but feel free to omit.

Your bananas may not be ripe enough to mash with the whisk, if they're any less than black. If that's the case then mash them with a fork in a separate bowl. You could use an immersion blender in the wet ingredients if you don't want any banana pieces in the banana bread.

How to Store

Storage: cool fully and then store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to three days. Refrigerate for up to a week.

Freezing: place the loaf in an airtight container and freeze up to a month. If you want to store it even longer, wrap well before placing into the container, and it'll last up for six months.

Variations

Here are some great add-ins for sourdough discard banana bread:

• Fruit: fresh or frozen blueberries are excellent, as are dried fruits like raisins, cranberries, and chopped dates.
• Chocolate: use chopped dark chocolate or chocolate chips.
• Nuts: chopped pecans, walnuts, and hazelnuts are all excellent.
• Seeds: sunflower seeds are delicious here, and sesame seeds can be used to top the loaf instead of sugar if you'd like.
• Spices: cinnamon, cardamom, and nutmeg are all excellent and can be used individually or in combination.
• Oats: an older version of this recipe used some rolled oats in the batter. For a little extra texture, add a handful of large-flake oats with the dry ingredients and bump the sour cream up to a third cup.

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