This Banana Bread is by far the best vegan Banana Loaf recipe I have come up with, and I have made a lot of bread! Eggless and made with wholemeal flour, this delicious banana bread is light, soft, and perfectly sweet. One of my most popular baking recipes tried successfully by many of our readers.
About Eggless Banana Bread
Banana bread is an all-time personal family favorite. When I find myself pressed for time, which happens often, I throw this quick recipe together with overripe bananas and other pantry staples.
It’s no surprise that this vegan banana bread is one of the most popular baking recipes on my blog, alongside my mouthwatering Banana Cake and Chocolate Cake recipes.
About 9 years ago, I started to get requests for an eggless version of the classic banana bread recipe. And I tried — I tried many, many times to make the absolute best eggless banana bread — and I failed at least 6 times before finally getting it right!
Making an eggless or vegan cake or bread is always a challenge, as one wants the best texture and taste in the bread. I succeeded at making eggless and vegan versions, but I was never quite satisfied with the texture of the loaves.
I tried adding vinegar, buttermilk, cornflour and so many other ingredients, but it just never came to that perfect, moist bread. The loaf kept ending up dry and soft, but a bit dense and even crumbly at times.
So one day, I decided that I would simplify my ingredients list and that I would only use items that were easily available in my kitchen.
I even realized that I could puree bananas and use that as an egg substitute — which works perfectly for banana bread. Well, I added just bananas, oil and a few other ingredients from my pantry and the result was (finally) a moist, light, and soft eggless banana bread.
What ingredients should I use?
- Flour: I have made the bread with organic whole wheat flour, but if you want you can make the bread with all-purpose flour or half-half of both the flours. You can also use cake flour or pastry flour.
- Sugar: You can use brown sugar, organic unrefined cane sugar or granulated white sugar — all work well in this recipe.
- Oil: You can use any neutral flavored oil for this recipe. I have made this bread on various occasions with a variety of oils, including coconut oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, rice bran oil and even olive oil.
- Flavorings: I added cinnamon powder, nutmeg, and vanilla extract to this vegan banana bread, but both the cinnamon and nutmeg are optional.
- Sunflower Seeds: I have added sunflower seeds in the bread to make it more nutritious. However, you can easily skip adding them or add your favorite edible seeds or nuts.
How to make Banana Bread
Prep Oven and Make Banana Puree
1. First preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit) for 20 minutes. Next, while the oven is preheating, slice your ripe or overripe medium to large bananas into a mixing bowl.
Tip: I typically use about 4 medium or 2 large bananas for this recipe. In weight, the bananas (with their peels) are 300 grams or 10.5 ounces.
2. Then, add ⅓ to ½ cup sugar, depending on the sweetness of your bananas. Here I have used raw sugar, but feel free to add brown sugar, white sugar, coconut sugar, palm sugar, maple syrup or jaggery (Indian unrefined cane sugar).
With palm sugar, coconut sugar, maple syrup and jaggery the flavors will be different.
3. Next, use a masher or fork to mash the bananas into a smooth consistency. If you prefer, you could also puree the bananas with sugar in a blender.
Tip: There should be no chunks left in the puree. However, fine threads of bananas in the mixture are fine. Additionally, you can use a blender to mash the bananas if needed.
5. Add ½ cup of oil to the mashed banana mixture. Use a neutral flavored oil, so that the after taste of oil is not felt in the bread. I prefer to use sunflower oil.
On various occasions I have also used coconut oil. But with coconut oil, on refrigeration the texture becomes dense as the coconut oil solidifies. So keep a note of this.
6. Now, stir briskly for about 2 to 3 minutes with a wired whisk or a spatula so that the oil mixes evenly with the banana puree.
7. Finally, stir in the following flavorings to your oil and banana puree:
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon powder (ground cinnamon)
- 2 to 3 pinches or ⅛ teaspoon of grated nutmeg or ground nutmeg powder
- ½ teaspoon vanilla powder or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Tip: That being said, both the cinnamon powder and nutmeg powder are optional.
8. Next, combine the flavoring spices and vanilla with the banana oil mixture. Stir and mix well!
Make Banana Bread Batter
9. Sieve 1.5 cups whole wheat flour (about 180 grams), ½ teaspoon baking soda, 1.5 teaspoon baking powder and a pinch of salt directly in the bowl.
10. Make sure the sieved dry mixture sits evenly on top of the wet mixture (pictured below).
11. After that, gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients — don’t mix!
Tip: This folding step is most important — you want the whole bread mixture to be combined into one and mixed evenly, but you also want to avoid stirring because that will deflate the batter.
12. The folded batter should be fully combined but not flat (pictured below) and will have a thick consistency.
Note 1: Ensure that you do not overwork the batter as this will cause gluten strands to form in the batter which result in a doughy texture after baking. The batter should have volume and not look flat or stringy.
Note 2: If in case the batter looks very thick or dry then add about ¼ to ⅓ cup of water or preferred nut milk. Depending on the type of wheat flour, sometimes more liquids will be needed to get the right consistency.
13. This step is optional, but I always like the extra flavors nuts, seeds, or other ingredients add to vegan banana bread.
For this recipe, I included about 2 tablespoons of sunflower seeds, but you can also add chopped walnuts, chocolate chips or any dry fruit or nuts of your choice like I have done in the video.
14. Fold the batter gently once again until the sunflower seeds are fully incorporated.
Bake Eggless Banana Bread
15. Pour the batter into a greased or lined loaf pan (8 x 4 x 2.5 inches) or a round cake pan (8 x 2 inches). Bake at 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit) for 30 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the bread comes out clean.
Tip: The temperature varies from oven to oven, so keep a close eye on your banana bread. Be careful NOT to open the oven until the bread is ¾ done.
When in doubt, use a skewer or toothpick — the benchmark is that a bamboo skewer inserted in the bread should come out clean with no wet or sticky batter clinging on it.
16. Place the loaf pan on a wired rack for the bread to cool. When the bread cools down, then remove the loaf from the pan.
17. Slice and serve your Eggless Banana Bread as is with tea or coffee or as a sweet snack.
The remaining loaf, you can wrap in a cling film or keep in an air-tight box in the fridge for about more than a week. Warm the bread before serving.
Expert Tips
- Warm before serving: If coconut oil is added to the bread, it solidifies when refrigerated, hence the bread also becomes dense when you refrigerate it. So before serving just warm up the bread, and it will have its natural texture back.
- Adjust sweetness: Sweetness of the bread can be adjusted as per your preferences.
- Keep it simple: You can skip adding sunflower seeds.
- Flour options: I have made the banana bread with whole wheat flour, but if you want you can make it with all purpose flour or half-half of both the flours.
- Bake time: The timing varies from oven to oven. Depending on the temperature in your oven and the size of your pan, the bread might take less or more time than what I have listed in this recipe.
FAQs
I have not added any other ingredient besides the usual bread ingredients in this vegan banana bread. I had flax meal but still I wanted to make a bread without flax seed meal as many of us do not have these readily available in their kitchens.
Your banana bread can last 1 to 2 days after baking if properly stored. Simply wrap your loaf in plastic wrap and leave it on the counter. In the fridge it will last for more than a week.
Whisking disturbs the combined ingredients and causes the dough to lose air that helps it to rise. When using the folding method instead, you preserve more of the volume and will have a fuller banana bread.
Banana bread is the perfect recipe to use when your bananas are past eating raw. I generally use overripe bananas — it’s better to mash and make a delicious loaf of banana bread than waste bananas that are too brown to eat!
Banana bread comes under the category of sweet breads. Unlike a banana cake that is more sweeter with a light and soft crumb, a banana bread is less sweeter with a slightly denser crumb.
More Sweet Breads To Try!
Bread Recipes
Bread Recipes
Bread Recipes
Bread Recipes
Please be sure to rate the recipe in the recipe card or leave a comment below if you have made it. For more vegetarian inspirations, Sign Up for my emails or follow me on Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter.
Eggless Banana Bread Recipe (+ Vegan & Whole Wheat)
Ingredients
For making banana puree
- 4 bananas ripe or overripe, medium sized – 300 grams (with peels)
- ½ cup raw sugar or brown sugar or granulated white sugar
- ½ cup sunflower oil or coconut oil or any neutral flavored oil
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon powder (ground cinnamon) – optional
- 2 to 3 pinches grated nutmeg or ⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg powder – optional
- ½ teaspoon vanilla powder or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Other Ingredients
- 1.5 cups whole wheat flour – 180 grams
- 1.5 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 pinch salt – optional
- 1 to 2 tablespoons sunflower seeds – optional
Instructions
Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit) for 20 minutes.
- Grease a bread loaf tin or a rectangular cake pan with oil. You can use the rectangular cake pan of size ( 7.5 x 4 x 2.5 inches) or round cake pan (7.5 x 2 inches).
Making Banana Puree
- Take sliced bananas and sugar in a mixing bowl.
- Mash the bananas well with a vegetable masher or puree them with a hand blender or a regular blender.
- Now add the oil, vanilla, cinnamon powder, nutmeg powder to the banana. Mix thoroughly with a wired whisk or spatula so that the oil is mixed evenly with the banana puree.
- Sieve the whole wheat flour with baking soda, baking powder, salt directly in the bowl containing the mashed bananas.
- Now fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Do not mix. Do this cut and folding technique properly, so that all the ingredients are mixed evenly.
- This folding step is important as you want the whole bread mixture to be one and mixed evenly.
- Keep in mind not to overwork the batter as this will result in gluten strands being formed in the batter, that will make for a doughy texture in the bread. The batter should have volume and not look flat or stringy.
- If the batter looks very thick or dry then add about ¼ to ⅓ cup of water or preferred nut milk and gently fold again.
- Lastly add the sunflower seeds and fold once again.
- Pour the bread mixture into the loaf pan.
Baking Banana Bread
- Bake at 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit) for 30 to 40 minutes or till a toothpick or a bambook skewer inserted in the bread comes out clean.
- The timing varies from oven to oven. Depending on the temperature in your oven and the size of your pan, the bread might take less or more time than mentioned here.
- So take your call and keep an eye on the bread. However don't open the oven untill the bread is ¾ done.
- The benchmark is that a tooth pick inserted in the bread should come out clean.
- Place the loaf pan on a wired rack for it to cool. When the bread cools down, gently remove the banana bread from the pan.
- Slice and serve banana bread.
- The remaining banana loaf, you can wrap in a cling film or keep in a box in the fridge. You can choose to warm the banana bread before serving.
Video
Notes
- If coconut oil is added to the bread, it solidifies when refrigerated, hence the bread also becomes dense when you refrigerate it. So before serving just warm up the bread and the bread will have its natural texture back.
- Sweetness of the bread can be adjusted as per your preferences.
- You can skip adding sunflower seeds. You can also choose to add nuts or edible seeds or dry fruits of your choice. Walnuts, almonds, cashews, pecans, pistachios, raisins, flaxseeds, pumpkin seeds are some good options.
- I have made the banana bread with whole wheat flour, but if you want you can make it with all purpose flour or half-half of both the flours.
- Note that the approximate nutrition info is for 1 slice of banana bread made with sunflower oil and raw sugar.
Nutrition Info (Approximate Values)
This Eggless Banana Bread post from the archives was first published on October 2012. It has been updated and republished on November 2022.
I have been trying this recipe for about 2 years and coming out very well. I make it with less spices as my little girl doesn’t like spices much. I always use olive oil and the bread is very soft and nice. Thank you for sharing this recipe and specially explaining very well.
thanks a lot thanuja for sharing your review and also for the variations you have made in the banana bread recipe. most welcome and happy baking.
This is my favourite banana bread recipe I have been making for years and would like to share my alterations.
I have a jar of my own mixed spice blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cardamon and cloves, I add 2.5 teaspoons of this mix as I like my baking extra spicy and cinnamony.
I always add whatever nuts and seeds I have at home; pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, flaxseeds, (about 3 tablespoons worth in total) and 1/4 – 1/2 cup of chopped hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans and/or almonds.
This was the first time I didn’t have wholemeal flour and had to use plain flour, I don’t like it as much so I recommend always using wholemeal, it also tastes a bit oily so if you are using white plain flour use less coconut oil. I had no baking soda so left it out, the bread is a little flat but it’s still edible and tasty.
If you want the spice blend quantities google ‘oh she glows pumpkin pie spice mix’
Hi Dassana,
Happy to know if there a way to avoid baking soda and baking powder and using yeast instead.
Thanks in Advance
Mahesh.
hi mahesh, with yeast the recipe will change completely. a dough will have to made and then baked. the proportion of some ingredients will alter and some will be skipped. the recipe has to be tried and tested first. usually, banana bread is made with a leavened batter. in the absence of baking soda or baking powder, eggs can be used. but again with eggs also the recipe will change. hope this helps.
I love your recipes. Have tried cooking lot of Indian dishes using your recipe. Tried baking for the first time using this recipe. But I dont know where I went wrong. The banana bread came off horizontally in two pieces. The upper one was a bit better.. the upper crust was dry..the below part was really moist.. n tasted uncooked/raw. I could taste the wheat flourish taste a bit too much. Please help.. i could share a pic n maybe then you’d understand better.
thanks radhika. first, let me know how you baked the banana bread. in a microwave convection mode or in an OTG or electric oven. if electric oven, then were both heating rods being used or only one rod. secondly which pan you used for baking – glass, ceramic or metal.
from what you mention, looks like the heat is coming from the top and not from the bottom. thus the bottom of the cake is not baked and the top is baked. if using a microwave convection oven, heat comes from the top or if you use the top heating element (toast mode) only in an OTG. so in a microwave convection oven it is best to use a metal pan.
if using a glass or a silicon pan, then these are not good conductors of heat. since heat is coming from the top heating element, the heat is not conducted properly at the sides and bottom in a glass or silicon material. as a result, the sides and the base of the bread or cake won’t cook well. before removing the cake, always do the toothpick or fork text. there should not be any sticky batter on the fork or toothpick. hope this helps.
Thank you for Sharing this recipe! ????
Tried it with a little less cinnamon powder, used 5 ripe bananas, 125ml vegetable oil, vanilla extract and self-raising plain flour. Turned out A little sweet but Moist & very Likeable to my taste!! ????
???? Good Luck to those who want to try it too, Hope this feedback helps! ????
Hi Dassana,
Is there a gluten-free substitute for the flour to make the banana bread?
Thanks.
Regards,
Ruchi
ruchi, some readers have made with almond flour, but they did make some more additions to the recipe. you can try using bob’s red mill gluten free flour. it should work.
Thanks a lot Dassana.
Looking forward to try it with the gluten free flour.
welcome ruchi.
The cake turned out very yum! I am planning to make this again over the weekend 🙂 love your website. One question- can i replace the atta with all purpose flour or maida with other things remaining the same?
thank you snighda for this lovely review on banana bread recipe. yes you can replace the atta with maida. the other ingredients will remain the same, except oil. so you can add 1/4 to 1/3 cup oil.
Love your website! May I check if 125ml of coconut oil equals to 125 grams? And 0.5 cup of sugar equals to 125 grams as well? I only have a weighing machine. Thanks so much.
125 ml of coconut oil is 125 grams as coconut oil is a liquid. but for 0.5 cups of brown sugar, the weight will be roughly 100 to 105 grams.
Thanks much Dassana, I just made it and it was delicious! 🙂 I am a baking noob! The only thing is mine seemed denser and looked like your banana cake, not bread lol. 3 questions:
1. Could it be my fold & cut method that made my bread denser? How can I make it more soft, fluffy and less dense?
2. If I reduce coconut oil to 1/4 cup, how much water do I have to add?
3. May I add more banana if I reduce brown sugar to say 50g?
Appreciate your advice. 🙂
welcome louise and thank you.
1. addition of some more water in the batter. if the batter looks too thick, then some water helps. a very thick batter may yield a dense textured cake. while folding, a best practice is not to overdo it much.
2. add 1/4th cup more of water.
3. yes definetly one banana can be added, but not more.
happy baking.
I love your recipes! I did try this one and it came out yum. I want to add eggs (to make for my son, who refuses to eat eggs). Can you tell me what adjustment I need to do if incorporating eggs?
with eggs this banana bread recipe will change completely. since all the recipes i post are developed, tried and tested it would be difficult to tell the ingredients. thanks for the feedback and rating on the banana bread recipe.
If your son refuses to eat eggs it is very unethical to force him to do so by hiding it in the food. Then again, I have no idea his age or reason for not eating eggs. I’ve been vegan for 7 years so if someone was to give me something and lie about there being no eggs I would immediately be able to taste nothing but egg and would be furious I was lied to.
Assuming you have your heart in the right place and are trying to make him eat eggs as you have been lead to believe they are “good for us”, I urge you to look into how unhealthy eggs are, the high cholesterol, etc. We don’t need them for protein, there is protein in everything.
I LOVE this recipe and have been making it for years, it used to be the first recipe that would show up when googling “vegan banana bread”, that is no longer the case and it was a struggle to find it again.
Just made this recipe. Also added cocoa powder with some crushed almonds, raisins and sesame seeds to make it interesting. Worked beautifully and tastes perfect to have with tea or coffee especially warm during a cold evening.
Thank you ❤️
Hey, I m planning to buy an OTG.. Which OTG do u use? N how many liters of OTG is enough for small family.. Will try this recipe once I buy OTG..
manasa, i am using bajaj OTG 35 litres. it is good enough for a family of 4 to 5. for a small family of 2 to 3, even 18 to 28 litres will do. sure and happy baking.
It turned out very well
Hi Dassana,
Can you please upload your quick banana bread recipe again on the site Or mail me personally.
Regards,
Isha
will email you in a day or two.
I don’t own an oven. How can I do it on a gas stove? Can I use artificial vanilla essence instead of powder/natural extract? If yes, How much? Also, can dry active yeast (how much) be used instead of baking powder? What is the best substitute for baking powder? Great recipe. Thank You.
you can use artificial vanilla essence and add half teaspoon of it. you can bake in a 5 litre pressure cooker or in a large heavy pan or pot. check the method on how to bake on stove top in the below link. i have shown pressure cooker method, but you can use a heavy pan also. the steps of adding salt, placing rack etc will be same. link here – https://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/pressure-cooker-cake-recipe/
don’t use dry active yeast. baking soda can be used instead of baking powder. for this recipe then just add 3/4th to 1 teaspoon baking soda.
I do not own an oven. How can I do it on a gas stove? And can I use artificial vanilla essence instead of the powder/natural extract? If yes, how much? BTW, great recipe. Thank You.
you can use artificial vanilla essence and add half teaspoon of it. you can bake in a 5 litre pressure cooker or in a large heavy pan or pot. check the method on how to bake on stove top in the below link. i have shown pressure cooker method, but you can use a heavy pan also. the steps of adding salt, placing rack etc will be same. link here – https://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/pressure-cooker-cake-recipe/