In the UK we waste 920,000 bananas every single day.1 Each year 3,000 hectares of land1 and 330 billion litres of water1 is used to grow bananas that we throw away! Below are some ideas to make better use of your bananas and the peels.
1. Just eat them
Perhaps you prefer yellow or even slightly green bananas, but you can still eat spotty or brown bananas – or find someone who will. As most of the starch has turned to sugar, they are great when those sugar cravings hit in the middle of the afternoon.
2. Banana ice cream
No, you don’t need an ice cream maker or lots of random ingredients – in fact you only need bananas. Slice ripe or very ripe bananas and freeze them for a few hours or overnight. Blend the frozen bananas in the food processor until smooth and then refreeze. You can stir in any extra ingredients like choc chips, nut butter or berries before freezing. Delicious!
3. Oat banana bites
Use around a desert spoon of honey (or vegan alternative) per banana. Mash together and add oats until the mixture holds together. Form into bite sized balls and bake for 15 minutes at 190°C. You can add flavourings like cinnamon, nutmeg, coca or coconut.
A great plastic free snack if you use oats/flavourings from a refil shop or I’ve seen oats packed in paper bags recently.
4. Banana bread
It’s a classic for a reason. I absolutely love fresh banana bread, with a hint of cinnamon. My favourite recipe is the vegan one from BBC Good Food.
If you make sour dough bread, you can get bonus points by using the discard and your overripe bananas in this Zero-Waste Chef banana quick bread recipe.
And for a different kind of banana bread, why not try banana sandwiches. Butter the bread, mash the banana and spread on like jam, fold and enjoy. Also great with nut butters.
5. Banana pancakes
Not just for pancake day – these are another popular way of using ripe bananas. The simplest of recipes have only two or three ingredients like this one from Tesco Real Food. Or there’s an egg and dairy free recipe also from Tesco – I’m definitely going to give this one a try soon.
6. Use your freezer
Bananas can be frozen whole in their skins or peeled and frozen whole, sliced or mashed. This hits the pause button on the ripening process – perfect if you don’t have time to use or bake with them right away. You can add frozen bananas to a smoothie straight from the freezer (even with the peel on) or use them in the ice cream described above. To use them in banana bread, muffins, or other recipes defrost them at room temperature for a few hours or in the fridge overnight.
7. Not just for dessert
Bananas can be used in savoury as well as sweet dishes. Try this chicken korma recipe, made even more creamy by the added banana or this vegetarian curry with crunchy cashews, both by Tesco Real Food.
Sticking with curry flavours, you can also make banana chutney, like this one from Larder Love. Or how about banana fritters by Very Vegan Val or a banana and rosemary foccacia from Australian Bananas.
8. Drying and jamming
Another way to extend the shelf-life of bananas is to make dried banana chips. You just need lemon juice to stop them going brown – Asda Good Living explains how to make them in an oven or you can use an air fryer as described by The Picky Eater.
As for most fruits you can also turn bananas in to jam. Banana jam seems less common, perhaps because there are so many other uses for ripe bananas. But with a little dark rum and vanilla, this recipe from Food52 sounds good and you won’t find it in the shops.
9. Eat or drink the peel too
Many of us think of banana peel as inedible, but actually you can eat them. Eaten raw they can be a little bitter and the texture might not be appealing, so they are best cooked. Buy organic bananas if you can and wash well.
This blog by Tasting Table has got some great ideas for recipes using banana peel, including making tea, flavouring vinegar or turning them into a bacon substitute.
10. In the garden
If you haven’t been converted to eating your banana peels, you can make good use of them in the garden. There are lots of posts on the internet about making ‘banana peel tea’ to water your plants or burying banana peels around the base of plants, but the jury is out on whether these methods actually work.
The simplest way to use banana peels in the garden is to add them to your home composting system. The peels will be broken down by bacteria, fungi and other organisms to form compost that can be used as a mulch or as part of a potting mix. You can also add banana peels to worm or bokashi bins. Remember to remove the labels first, as they likely contain plastic and won’t breakdown.
Sources
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Replenish 
The oat banana bits look especially delicious!
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