Healthy Vegan Banana Bread

Simple & delicious Healthy Vegan Banana Bread. Whole-grain, oil-free & perfect for breakfast or snacking! 

This Healthy Vegan Banana Bread recipe has been around on AVV since the beginning of time but it badly needed a revamp. When I made it again last weekend I took the opportunity to retake some photos so I could update it and here we are with a new and improved post.

This recipe is the perfect way to use up very ripe bananas. I’m one of those crazy people who likes to eat slightly green bananas. Not so green that they are impossible to peel, but just slightly green tinged. Once they get yellow and spotty that’s it, I can’t eat them.

That doesn’t stop me buying too many every week though, just so they can go soft and spotty.

I love baking with ripe bananas. It’s always a hard choice between making this banana bread recipe or my Vegan Chocolate Banana Bread, or my Best Banana Bread recipe which features chocolate chips and nuts and is pretty hard to resist.  Plus I love to freeze ripe bananas to use in my Instant Mango Banana Ice Cream or for the fluffiest Vegan Banana Pancakes.

One of the many reasons I like Vegan Banana Bread so much is that I can fool myself into thinking I am not eating cake. It’s bread, and Healthy Vegan Banana Bread at that.

This recipe is made with healthy, unrefined spelt flour which gives it a lovely wholesome flavour. Much better than when made with regular all purpose flour. It only contains half a cup of sugar and no added oil at all, although if you want to, you can swap out the nut butter for oil.

It’s also full of fruit …. Hello? 3 WHOLE Bananas …. It’s practically a fruit itself ;O)

I kind of defeat the object of making this Healthy Vegan Banana Bread oil-free, because I like to slather my slices with homemade Easy Vegan Butter. They are so good together! You don’t have to if you are feeling virtuous but I do recommend it. Nut butter is a lovely oil-free spreading alternative though. It works so well on banana bread.

I like to put a little twist on my recipes whenever I can and this one is no different. This Healthy Vegan Banana Bread has a tiny touch of cardamom added to its batter.

Cardamom works really well with banana and it gives the bread a beautiful subtle fragrance. It really is a good combo.

If cardamom is not your thing though feel free to omit it. You could try switching it up by adding some chocolate chips instead!

[clickToTweet tweet=”Simple & delicious Healthy Banana Bread. Whole-grain, oil-free & perfect for breakfast or snacks! ” quote=”Simple & delicious Healthy Banana Bread with a hint of fragrant cardamom. Whole-grain, oil-free & perfect for breakfast or snacking! “]

This is why I am loving this Healthy Vegan Banana Bread:

• It’s quick and easy to make
• It’s full of healthy ingredients
• It uses up your ‘past it’ spotty bananas
• It’s great for make ahead breakfasts
• It freezes perfectly so you can double up on the recipe for another time

Please note that a beautiful crust forms whilst baking so please don’t blame me when you have to fight everyone in your household to get the crusty end bit. Tell them that I said “it’s the cook’s perk” and swiftly cut and run!

If you enjoy healthy, oil-free, cake-y breads then be sure to check out my Vegan Pumpkin Bread with Cranberries & Pumpkin Seeds too!

As with all of my baking recipes where precision is key to excellent results, I highly recommend using a kitchen scale to measure your ingredients, rather than using cup measurements. I love this one because it is very reasonably priced and it has a tare function which is really handy. It means you can place any bowl on the scale and reset to zero so it doesn’t include the weight in it’s calculation, plus you can reset to zero when adding multiple ingredients to the same bowl which saves on washing up!

Healthy Vegan Banana Bread

Simple & delicious Healthy Vegan Banana Bread. Whole-grain, oil-free & perfect for breakfast or snacking!

4.67 from 9 votes

Rate this Recipe!

Print Pin

Course: Baked Goods, Breakfast

Cuisine: oil-free, vegan, whole-grain

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 50 minutes

Total time: 1 hour

Serves: 10

Calories: 178kcal

Author: Melanie McDonald

Ingredients

• 3 medium bananas , make sure they are very ripe, (plus some extra slices for the top)
• 4 tablespoons cashew or almond butter , or 60mls | 1/4 cup coconut oil (liquid measure)
• 55g | 1/2 packed cup sugar , plus a little extra to sprinkle over the top before baking. Any sugar will do.
• 1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses
• ½ teaspoon ground cardamom ,OPTIONAL - can be omitted if you don't have any or don't like cardamom
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 230g | 2 cups spelt flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350°F.
• Grease a loaf pan (I used an 8.5 x 4.5 inch loaf pan )and line with a strip of parchment paper along the bottom, making sure it comes up over the ends so you can use it as a handle to lift the loaf out once cooked).
• Peel the bananas then mash them with a fork or use your stand mixer to beat them up into a puree.
• Add nut butter/coconut oil, sugar, molasses, optional cardamon and salt and beat well until smooth. 
• Add the flour and baking powder and gently fold it all together. Do not over mix. You want it so that it is just combined and so that you cannot see any dry flour throughout the mixture.
• Pour into your prepared pan.
• OPTIONAL - Top with some sliced banana and a sprinkle of sugar.
• Bake in oven for around 50 minutes or until a tooth pick or skewer comes out clean when inserted through the middle.
• Lift out of pan, remove parchment paper and cool on a cooling rack.

Notes

This bread freezes really well. I often double the recipe so we have one to eat and one for another day. 

You can use regular all purpose flour in place of the spelt flour but you might find you need to add a little plant-based milk to loosen up the batter a bit as it is more absorbent. Not too much though. Only a few tablespoons at most. The batter should be quite thick and need spooning rather than pouring into the tin but not so thick that it is difficult to stir. 

Estimated nutrition per serving:

Serving: 1of 10 slices | Calories: 178kcal | Carbohydrates: 33g | Protein: 5.1g | Fat: 3.9g | Sodium: 221mg | Fiber: 3.6g | Sugar: 12.3g | Vitamin A: 50IU | Vitamin C: 4.1mg | Calcium: 90mg | Iron: 1.6mg

Tried this recipe?Rate it & leave your feedback in the comments section below, or tag @avirtualvegan on Instagram and hashtag it #avirtualvegan

DID YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE?
If you did, be a ☆ and let me know what you think by rating it and commenting below. Tag me on Instagram too. I am @avirtualvegan and my hashtag is #avirtualvegan