Grandma's Buttermilk Banana Bread Recipe

Each bite of this quick bread is moist and ripe with flavor. Brown sugar keeps it sweet, but not too sweet - it's bound to bring up some wonderful memories for you. If not - well, now is a great time to make wonderful memories for your family and friends.

Next time try my cookies and cream banana bread!

Jump to:

• ❤️ Why you'll love it
• 🧾 Ingredients
• 🔪 Instructions
• 🥄 Equipment
• 🥫 Storage
• 💭 Tips
• 👩‍🍳 FAQs
• 📚 Related recipes
• 📞 The last word
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

🧾 Ingredients

This might just be the best banana bread recipe in the known universe. The buttermilk, oil, and brown sugar keep it moist and the super ripe bananas give it all the flavor.

Here's the grocery list of ingredients you'll need -

• Oil is used with butter - it keeps the bread more moist than butter. Use a light oil - I prefer peanut but walnut, light vegetable oil, or sunflower oil will work.
• Butter adds a bit more moisture and that flavor we all love.
• Buttermilk keeps baked goods tender. It makes this a very moist banana bread! I use a full fat buttermilk but you can use what you have. Here's how to make an infinite amount of buttermilk using milk and a little starter.
• Bananas should be as ripe as possible. I will wait until mine are almost liquidy. I used large bananas in this recipe.
• Lemon juice keeps the bananas from getting dark and it helps balance the sweetness of the ripe banana.
• Eggs used are pasture raised, organic, large eggs.
• Sugar helps the bread brown and sweetens it.
• Brown sugar is added for another layer of flavor plus brown sugar keeps baked goods moist.
• Vanilla is one of those things I use in almost everything. You can omit it if you like. I like the additional cozy flavor vanilla lends to this quick bread.
• All- purpose flour is my flour of choice here. I prefer unbleached.
• Baking soda is the leavening. It reacts with the buttermilk and the lemon juice to help the bread rise.
• Salt used is kosher salt. If you are using table salt please use about ¼ less.
• Pecans are optional. I like them in banana bread but you could use walnuts or leave them out completely. Toasting them makes the flavor stand out.
• Chocolate chips are also optional but they're a nice addition for something a little different.

If you've got leftover buttermilk check out these recipes!

🔪 Instructions

Note: This is an overview of the instructions. The full instructions are in the green recipe card below.

Step one

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Grease and lightly flour 2 loaf pans.

Step two

3. Beat the oil, melted butter, eggs, vanilla, both sugars, and buttermilk in a large bowl until well blended.
4. Beat in the mashed banana and lemon juice.
5. Mix the dry ingredients then stir into the banana mixture until well blended.
6. Add the chopped  pecans (and chocolate chips if using) and gently fold into the batter by hand.

Step three

7. Spoon into the two greased loaf pans and bake at 350f for 1 hour or until a toothpick or cake tester stuck into the center of a loaf comes out clean. *IMPORTANT oven times vary from place to place and oven to oven... Start checking at the 50 minute point!
8. Cool in pans for 15 minutes then gently turn out and finish cooling.
9. Dust cooled loaves with Confectioner's sugar or glaze as desired.

🥄 Equipment

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You'll need the following items to make this recipe successfully.

• Loaf pans
• Measuring cups and spoons
• Blender

🥫 Storage

You can store most quick breads, wrapped well, on the counter for up to 2 days. After that you risk mold so freeze for longer storage.

My favorite way to freeze banana bread is to let it cool completely, slice, and then freeze with parchment paper or wax paper between the slices. That makes it so easy to grab just one or two pieces at a time without thawing the entire loaf.

💭 Tips

Expert Tip: Don't over stir the batter. It will be thick and a little lumpy.

• Measure your flour by lightly spooning it into the measuring cup then leveling it off with the back of a knife.
• Be sure to mash the bananas really well. I will usually pulse them in the blender a little to get them really smooth. I don't like biting into chunks of banana in my banana bread.
• Always let the loaf cool completely before slicing or it may crumble.
• Substitute walnuts, macadamias, or other favorite nuts for the pecans.
• Add ½ cup of chocolate chips for chocolate chip banana bread.
• I like just a dusting of powdered sugar but you can also make a thin Confectioner's glaze to go over it by mixing confectioner's sugar with enough melted butter to give it the right consistency for a glaze.
• Omit the nuts if you want to!
• Don't over bake or it will be dry. Bake just until moist crumbs cling to a toothpick or cake tester.
• You can make banana muffins with this recipe. Fill prepared muffin pans ¾ of the way full and bake at 375F for about 15-20 minutes.

👩‍🍳 FAQs

📚 Related recipes

If you need some help coming up with ideas on how to use up overripe bananas you've come to the right spot! Here are some of my favorites from here on Restless Chipotle.

• Bananas Foster Cheesecake is a rich, special occasion cheesecake with banana and rum flavors. It’s absolutely delicious.
• My favorite way to use up bananas is either this banana walnut  layer cake.
• Savannah Bread is an old family favorite — one that I grew up with. I don’t know where my mom found the recipe. It's banana bread made with peanut butter and I’ve never seen, nor tasted, anything quite like it. It’s just right for breakfast or brunch – out of this world with a layer of Nutella swirled across a slice.

📞 The last word

It's been my experience that when you add buttermilk (instead of whole milk) to a classic banana bread recipe it makes it even more moist and delicious!

This buttermilk banana bread recipe is simple to make - you'll just need to make sure you don't over-mix the batter because it will make it tough. Make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature.

I love finding great deals on bananas at the grocery store. Our store will have one of the big grocery bags of almost brown bananas marked $2.00 every couple of weeks and I snatch them up.

Of course, that means that within a couple of days I have gooey, overripe bananas, oozing banana gunk all over the counter. No one wants to eat them except the fruit flies that seem to appear out of nowhere.

Anyone else have that problem?

If there's a lot of them (bananas, not fruit flies) I'll blend them and freeze in 1 cup measurements to use later on.

Just add a little lemon juice so they don't get too dark.

My grandma's buttermilk banana bread is rich, moist, and buttery - almost like a pound cake. It tastes like my childhood!

Also, if you toast the pecans the flavor is so much better! Just put the chopped pecans on a cookie sheet and bake at 350F, stirring often until they become fragrant. So easy.

Quick breads are the perfect addition to brunch or a weekend breakfast and, of all of the varieties, banana bread recipes seem to be perennial favorites!

Hey, if you're in the mood for an absolutely amazing pumpkin bread give my recipe a try!

If you click on the number of servings in the recipe card you can adjust the measurements up or down for the exact number of servings you need. Don't forget that you can click on "add to collection" to save it to your own, private recipe box!

If you love this recipe please give it a 5 star rating. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

📖 Recipe

First published October 8, 2018. Last updated August 6, 2021 for better images.