🍌🍞 If you’ve been on the hunt for a way to make banana bread a bit healthier – less sugar and more protein – without tasting like you’ve sacrificed a thing, try my Better-For-You Banana Bread recipe! An EASY no-mixer recipe that produces 3 perfect mini loaves or one standard loaf and no one will have any idea you made it healthier!
Easy Healthier Banana Bread Recipe
I’m not trying to pretend that this is totally “healthy” – there’s still refined flour, brown sugar, and oil. I’m all for pointing out elephants in rooms.🐘 But it’s healthier than traditional banana bread by my definition.
So if you have two overripe bananas on your counter and can’t bear the thought of another smoothie, but still want to be mindful of what you’re consuming when it comes to sweets or desserts, this healthier banana bread is great!
It’s based on my super popular Cream Cheese-Filled Banana Bread recipe which is where you should head if this doesn’t sound like the recipe for you. I adapted the base recipe to come up with this one.
Ingredients In Healthy Banana Bread Recipe
- Basic ingredients in most traditional banana bread recipes and also included here: Egg, flour, oil (which I strongly prefer oil to melted butter for texture in any banana bread recipe), mashed bananas for their natural sweetness, vanilla, baking soda, baking powder, salt.
- Flour: I used all-purpose flour but you could probably use a cup-for-cup style gluten-free flour intended for baking. I haven’t tested whole wheat pastry flour or white whole wheat flour but my hunch is that you’ll be fine. I’d stay away from almond flour though.
- Sweeteners: I used 1/4 cup monk fruit sweetener in place of the 1/4 cup granulated sugar in the original recipe. It has zero chemical taste. I am not a fan of stevia and it’s not like that! I didn’t test with liquid monk fruit drops but if you want to use them, it would probably be fine. Add a few droplets, taste, and see what you think it needs, and go from there. I kept the 1/2 cup brown sugar because sugar adds structure to baking and I didn’t want the loaves to collapse. But the great news is there’s only 1/2 cup refined sugar in the entire recipe!
- Greek yogurt: 0% fat from Trader Joe’s worked great. I don’t think a fattier yogurt would make the loaf any better but if you have 2% on hand, it will be fine and so will sour cream.
- Protein powder: I used a basic whey vanilla protein powder and it works just fine. I’m sure that most any protein powder will work including other flavors. The protein powder banana bread batter is designed to be wetter-than-usual (since protein powder loves to soak up available moisture. So if you know you’re not going to add protein powder, scale back the Greek yogurt to 1/3 cup AND add 1 cup all-purpose flour. I note this in the recipe card. Wondering if you can add more protein powder? Maybe – my fear is that the loaves won’t rise and set properly but I haven’t tested it. You could try an extra scoop and that’s personally as far as I’d go.
- Ground flaxseed: Also loves to suck up additional moisture. I used 2 tablespoons and you could probably add up to 4 tbsp without making any other changes to the recipe.
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How To Make Banana Bread with Protein Powder
The video is your best teacher (at the top of the post or in the recipe card at the bottom) but here’s an overview.
- To a large mixing bowl, whisk together the egg, sweeteners, refined coconut oil or your favorite oil, Greek yogurt, and vanilla.
- In a separate bowl, mash the bananas and add the mashed bananas to the wet ingredients.
- Add the dry ingredients including protein powder, flour, flaxseed, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and stir to combine. Fun Extras: Mini chocolate chips, chopped walnuts, or sliced almonds are welcome. Start with 1/2 cup and work up from there if desired.
- Transfer to loaf pans lined with parchment paper if desired, bake at 350 degrees F, cool, slice, and serve! It’s great for breakfast, a healthier dessert, or as a snack.
Better-For-You Banana Bread
🍌🍞 If you've been on the hunt for a way to make banana bread a bit healthier – less sugar and more protein – without tasting like you've sacrificed a thing, try this recipe! An EASY no-mixer recipe that produces 3 perfect mini loaves or one standard loaf and no one will have any idea you made it healthier!
Video
Equipment
- mini loaf pans (I use three 5x3x2 loaf pans) OR
Ingredients
- 1 large egg
- ½ cup light brown sugar, packed
- ¼ cup monk fruit sweetener, (dry, not liquid; or use 1/4 cup granulated sugar)
- ¼ cup coconut oil, liquid state (melt it if it's solid; canola oil or vegetable may be substituted)
- ½ cup fat free Greek yogurt, (or the fat percentage of your choice; sour cream may be substituted)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup mashed ripe bananas, about 2 large bananas
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour, plus optional 1 to 2 tablespoons as needed
- 1 ounce protein powder, (I used 2 scoops Designer Whey which is 1 serving, equivalent to 31 grams/1 ounce: or about a heaping 1/4 cup)
- 2 tablespoons ground flaxseed, (sometimes labeled as flaxseed meal)
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt, or to taste
- Sugar, optional sprinkled for topping the loaves (I use about 1 teaspoon per loaf)
- Cinnamon, optional sprinkled for topping the loaves (I use a few generous shakes per loaf)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Spray three 5x3x2-inch loaf pans (or one 9×5-inch loaf pan) with cooking spray, or grease and flour the pans; set aside.
- To a large bowl, add the egg, brown sugar, monk fruit sweetener, oil, Greek yogurt (if you are NOT using protein powder, scale this back to 1/3 cup rather than 1/2 cup), vanilla, and whisk to combine.
- Add the bananas and stir to incorporate.
- Add 3/4 cup flour, the protein powder (I use 2 scoops which is one serving, or 31 grams), ground flaxseed, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and fold with spatula or stir gently with a spoon until just combined. How I Measure – To an empty 1-cup measuring cup, I first scooped in two scoops protein powder, then I topped it off with all-purpose flour until I had 1 cup. In the end, this is ~3/4 cup flour. Not using protein powder? Then use 1 cup flour here.
- If the batter seems quite runny (too runny for banana bread batter if you're a baker), add an additional 1-2 tablespoons flour. Batter Tip – This is a judgment call and if in doubt, just add 2 tablespoons flour. I start with a semi-runny batter because protein powder needs moisture and so does ground flaxseed (they're both like sponges). But they all differ in exactly how much they'll absorb. If yours really absorbs lots of moisture, then you're fine because the batter was designed for that. And they don't need all that moisture, then we add a bit more flour to dry out the batter.
- Turn the batter out into the prepared pans, making sure not to fill the pan more than 2/3 of the way full.
- Optionally, I like to sprinkle the top of each mini loaf pan with about 1 teaspoon granulated sugar and a generous amount of cinnamon. I'd use about 1 tablespoon sugar if you're baking this in a 9×5-inch loaf along with cinnamon.
- Bake for about 30-33 minutes for mini loaves, making sure to rotate them midway through baking. Start checking on them at 25 minutes, but if they take longer than 33 minutes to bake, so be it. Bake a 9×5-inch loaf for about 45 minutes, or until done.Bread is done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs but no matter.
- Allow bread to cool in the loaf pans for about 10 minutes before carefully inverting to remove and allow it to cool before slicing and serving. Slicing/Serving Size Tips – I slice each mini loaf into 8 pieces x 3 loaves = 24 slices and that's what the nutritional stats below are based on. 1 slice.If you're slicing a 9×5-inch loaf you can expect to get about 10 slices and you'd want to approximately 2.5x everything. So 187 calories and 5 grams protein per slice, approximately.
Notes
Adapted from Cream Cheese-Filled Banana Bread
Storage: Bread will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 5 days, or in the freezer for up to 3-4 months.
Nutrition
Serving: 1serving, Calories: 73cal, Carbohydrates: 11g, Protein: 2g, Fat: 3g, Saturated Fat: 2g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.3g, Monounsaturated Fat: 0.3g, Trans Fat: 0.001g, Cholesterol: 10mg, Sodium: 64mg, Potassium: 61mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 6g, Vitamin A: 21IU, Vitamin C: 1mg, Calcium: 21mg, Iron: 0.4mg
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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