I buy a lot of bananas. I can’t help it. When the lonely onlies are bagged up and on sale, I stock up.
Last week I got 42 bananas for $4!!!
I freeze them, dehydrate them, and bake with them.
There’s always a banana bread recipe on the back of the bag giving you ideas of what to do with all those bargain bananas. And those recipes usually include a stick of butter, a bunch of eggs, and cups of sugar.
Not exactly what you want to be putting in your body every day.
Don’t get me wrong, I love banana bread, most of the recipes you’ll find are more like cake than bread.
Not that there’s anything wrong with cake, mind you, but I really don’t want to eat cake everyday for breakfast.
(I mean, I do want to eat cake for breakfast every day, but I really don’t!)
So I set out to make a version of banana bread without eggs or dairy, of course, but also without any sugar or oil.
Sounds dreadful, right?
I promise you, it’s far from it!
My version ends up with a crackly, crumbly crust and a soft interior busting with luscious blueberries.
If you think about it, regular whole wheat bread is typically sugar-free (or close to it) and is easily made without oil, eggs, or dairy.
I want a healthy banana bread that tastes more like bread than cake, but is still slightly sweet, and a good vehicle for a healthy smear of nut butter for protein and good fat.
And it can be made using just one bowl for easy clean up!
The trick to the one bowl method is to add the baking soda, powder, cinnamon and salt while you are mashing up the bananas. They get evenly distributed throughout the wet ingredients and the flour gets added last.
And if you are already going to the trouble of making fresh banana bread (and it’s really not much trouble), you might as well make two loaves and freeze one. Once they are completely cool, simply slice, put the loaf in a bread bag and freeze.
You can either remove a couple of slices at a time each day to toast up or plow through an entire loaf in a couple of days like my family does!
But I know what some of you are thinking. Banana bread with no sugar? You can’t be serious.
The browner your bananas are, the sweeter your bread will be naturally, but I did add an unexpected ingredient to make sure that the bread still had a hint of the classic sweet flavor:
Apple cider.
Since it’s fall, we happen to have a gallon of cider in the fridge, but feel free to sub apple juice or applesauce instead.
With only 125 calories for a 2-slice serving, you could eat 4 slices and still have room in your breakfast budget for a banana and a good spread of almond butter on each one!
And if you really, really, want a traditional, sweet and cakey banana bread, go ahead and sub the juice for sugar or maple syrup. (I won’t tell anyone!)
Healthy Banana Blueberry Bread
Ingredients
- 6 very ripe bananas
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 2/3 cup unsweetened non-dairy milk
- 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
- 1.5 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup apple cider juice, or applesauce
- 4 cups whole wheat flour or white whole wheat
- 2 cups frozen blueberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray two loaf pans with oil or use silicone pans dusted with a little flour.
- Mix the lemon juice into the non-dairy milk and set aside to curdle a bit.
- In a big bowl, add the peeled bananas, and all the dry ingredients except the flour and blueberries.
- Once the bananas are well mashed (some small chunks are fine), add the cider and the non-dairy milk mixture and stir a bit to incorporate.
- Next add the flour to the wet mixture, stirring just until no dry flour is visible, but taking care not to over mix.
- Fold in the blueberries.
- Divide the thick, chunky batter evenly into your prepared baking pans.
- Bake for 60 minutes until the top is lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Try to resist eating the warm bread right away and allow to cool completely before cutting and serving.
