Best Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Recipe

Looking for the best chocolate chip banana bread recipe? Our version has been flying off the shelves worldwide for over a decade. It’s a one-bowl wonder that’s just the thing when you could use a little comfort food with some nutritional saving grace.

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Why we love this recipe

Banana bread should be comforting, breezy, and dead-simple to make. If you’ve got four big overripe bananas on your counter or in your freezer, you should be able to mash them up in a single bowl, stir in some common ingredients, and end up really, really happy.

Our banana bread does all that and without a ton of added sugar, to boot. Also, you guys? It has chocolate. Our recipe calls for half a cup, but I’ve HEARD you can add kind of a lot more than that if you’re so inclined.

What you’ll need

For this recipe, you need just a few pantry ingredients, plus some overripe or frozen bananas. Here they are at a glance.

• Very ripe bananas. You can make banana bread we have overripe bananas on the counter, or you can plan ahead by freezing your overripe bananas. (Just peel them and pop them whole into a gallon-size zip-top freezer bag.) When ready to use, you can defrost them with a short stint in the microwave.
• Bittersweet chocolate chips, or whatever kind you prefer
• Chopped walnuts (not pictured, but I almost always include them for textural contrast and their hint of bitterness)
• A splash of brewed coffee, if you have it, (not pictured) deepens the banana and chocolate flavors without being noticeable on its own.

How to make it

To make the best chocolate chip banana bread recipe, ingredients simply get stirred into the bowl with a fork. You can see it all in action in the video that accompanies this post, and get all the details in the recipe card below.

1. Mash the bananas well with a fork and stir in the melted butter.
2. Make a little space on one side of the bowl to crack the egg into. Tip the bowl and beat up the egg a bit with the fork. Add the brown sugar, vanilla, and coffee to the bowl and stir it all up well. Sprinkle the baking soda, salt, and flour over the wet ingredients and stir until just combined.
3. Pour in the chocolate chips and walnuts and stir to distribute
4. Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake the bread for about 55 minutes in the middle of a 350F° oven, until a tester comes out without raw batter on it. (It may have some banana and chocolate on it.)

Variation: Eggless banana bread recipe

If you need an eggless banana bread recipe, this one is easily adaptable. Instead of the egg, use a flax egg: mix together one tablespoon of ground flax seed and three tablespoons of water. Let it sit for about five minutes so the flax can absorb a bit of the water. Then mix into the recipe instead of the egg. That’s it!

Expert tips and FAQs

More brunch favorites

Hosting brunch, or just looking to make a fabulous weekend breakfast? Here are some of our favorites:

• A fabulous basic pancakes recipe
• Savory Waffles
• Eggs Florentine
• Vegetarian Breakfast Casserole
• A fabulous basic waffles recipe

A quick, funny anecdote

Since we first published this banana bread recipe on Umami Girl back in 2010, some of our best friends have been making it even more often than we do. They live in a different city, and we recently spent the weekend at their house. When I woke up Sunday morning, my friend said, “I almost introduced you to your banana bread. I forgot it was yours.”

That’s my dream come true. Because it’s not my banana bread now. It’s theirs. And that’s the whole point of this operation. Maybe go ahead and make it yours, too.

4.89 from 17 votes

Best Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Recipe

By Carolyn Gratzer Cope

Our chocolate chip banana bread has been flying off the shelves worldwide for over a decade. It uses lots of banana and a not-crazy amount of brown sugar, giving it the perfect amount of sweetness and caramel-like flavor. If you bake it closer to 45 minutes, it can have an almost custardy texture on the inside that some people love. Or bake it closer to 60 minutes for a more traditional but still extremely moist crumb.

Prep: 10 minutes mins

Cook: 55 minutes mins

Total: 1 hour hr 5 minutes mins

Servings: 12

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Ingredients 

1x2x3x

• ▢ 1 pound (454 grams) very ripe bananas (3 to 4 large, weighed with skins still on)
• ▢ 4 tablespoons (56 grams) butter, melted
• ▢ 1 large egg
• ▢ ½ cup (100 grams) lightly packed brown sugar
• ▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ▢ 1 teaspoon brewed coffee, if you have it
• ▢ 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon salt
• ▢ 1 ½ cups (180 grams) all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled (see note)
• ▢ ½ cup bittersweet chocolate chips
• ▢ ½ cup finely chopped walnuts

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Instructions 

• Preheat the oven to 350°F with a rack in the center. Grease a medium (8-cup/9 x 5 x 3 inch) loaf pan.
• In a large bowl, mash the bananas with a fork.
• Mix in the melted butter.
• Crack the egg into the bowl near one of the sides, tilt the bowl slightly, and use the fork to lightly beat the egg.
• Add the brown sugar, vanilla, and coffee to the bowl and mix with the fork to combine well.
• Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the batter.
• Add the flour and mix with the fork until just combined.
• Add the chocolate and walnuts and mix just until they’re well distributed in the batter.
• Scrape the batter into the loaf pan and bake for 45 minutes to one hour, until a tester inserted in the center comes out without raw batter on it. (It’s fine if it has some banana or chocolate.) In my oven, the sweet spot is about 55 minutes.
• Cool in the pan on a rack for ten minutes (before unmolding to cool completely, if you’re positively made of steel).

Step-by-step video

Notes

1. When possible, it’s best to weigh your ingredients for baking. If you don’t have a kitchen scale, fluff the flour with a spoon and then lightly spoon it into your measuring cup, mounding it over the top. Then swipe the flat back side of a knife across the top to level the flour with the top of the measuring cup.
2. Instead of 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, you can use 1 1/4 cups plus 1 tablespoon whole wheat pastry flour if you like.
3. You can substitute chopped dark chocolate for the chips, or use your favorite chocolate chips if you prefer something other than bittersweet.
4. Variation: If you need an eggless banana bread recipe, this one is easily adaptable. Instead of the egg, use a flax egg: mix together one tablespoon of ground flax seed and three tablespoons of water. Let it sit for about five minutes so the flax can absorb a bit of the water. Then mix into the recipe instead of the egg. That’s it!

Nutrition

Serving: 1, Calories: 202kcal, Carbohydrates: 27g, Protein: 4g, Fat: 9g, Saturated Fat: 3g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 5g, Cholesterol: 16mg, Sodium: 172mg, Fiber: 2g, Sugar: 11g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Additional Info

Course: Muffins and Quickbreads

Cuisine: American

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