This sugar-free vegan banana bread is the perfect, healthy breakfast treat that is extremely easy to make. We only need 7 ingredients and nothing fancy!
The great thing about this recipe? You can make it gluten-free and even oil-free if you like.
I love making my vegan banana bread and having it for breakfast. But after a while I thought, I can’t have that much sugar every morning. What if I simply cut it out? Would it still taste good?
The answer? YES! Yes, it does taste really good! Guess what! The bananas we use for making banana bread are already packed with sugar (natural sugar but still sugar, right?), so why do we actually need to add more?
Crazy! So anyway, here’s how it goes, my sugar-free vegan banana bread:
Ingredients
- ripe, soft bananas
- oil
- water or plant-based milk
- flour
- baking powder
- cinnamon & salt
Bananas: Generally, choose ripe, brown, spotty bananas. However, if you wanted to make this banana bread even lower in sugar, you could take fresh bananas too (the older they get, the higher the sugar content).
As long as they’re soft enough, you should be fine. Or, alternatively, you could use a stick blender to mash the bananas if they’re too firm.
Having made this recipe so many times, I know from experience that it doesn’t really matter all too much if you don’t use the exact amount. If you end up with a bit less or a bit more bananas (weight-wise), it’s totally fine and works anyway.
Flour: I guess most kinds of flour work in this recipe. I know for sure that spelt flour (the one in the pictures is made with it), buckwheat flour and a gluten-free flour blend are okay to use.
So, if you want to use regular flour, it’ll absolutely work. But it won’t be a good idea to use coconut flour or almond flour on its own for example (they’re okay in a blend though, see gluten-free option below, under “substitutions”)
Baking powder: I make my own baking powder by simply mixing 1 part of bicarb/baking soda with two parts of cream of tartar. It’s a lot more effective than store-bought baking powder as I’m leaving out rice flour and it’s a bit fresher too.
This might be the reason why my banana bread rises so well. If yours didn’t, try adding ½ teaspoon bicarb soda next time you make it. It might help.
Instructions
Step One: Preheat your oven to 175°C/350°F. Line a loaf tin with baking paper or grease it. Normally, the banana bread comes loose easily after baking.
Step Two: Peel bananas and put them in a large bowl. Add the oil which will help mash the bananas. For mashing, I love using a potato masher because it’s much quicker but a fork is fine to use too.
Don’t worry about small banana pieces. It doesn’t have to be perfectly smooth.
Step Three: Add water (or vegan milk) and mix through.
Step Four: Add the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt) on top and mix them a bit together before combining them with the wet ingredients underneath. The dough should be moist, soft and fluffy. If not, add more water/milk or flour accordingly.
Step Five: Pour the dough into the prepared loaf tin. Bake for about 50 minutes. To check if your sugar-free vegan banana bread has completely cooked, quickly touch the top of it (be careful not to burn your fingers!). It should be firm to the touch and a bit springy.
Step Six: Take it out of the loaf tin and let it sit on the benchtop for at least 15 minutes to cool down a bit before slicing it. Ideally, you wait for an hour because it’ll be much easier to slice it then.
Substitutions
Gluten-free: As already said, just buckwheat flour works well or any gluten-free flour blend. I’ve made this banana bread using a blend of tapioca, rice flour, quinoa flour, sorghum and buckwheat flour (in equal amounts).
I don’t quite remember what I did exactly, but I know that I’ve made my vegan banana bread using coconut flour too. I think, instead of rice flour, I used coconut flour once and it worked perfectly fine.
Water or milk: I never use milk in my banana bread—just water. We don’t use that much anyway and I think, it’s such a waste to use vegan milk if water does the trick as well. You won’t taste the difference, I’m sure.
Oil-free: To make this sugar-free vegan banana bread also oil-free, swap oil with dairy-free yoghurt! And use ½ cup instead of only ⅓ cup.
This is actually how I now make my banana bread. Sugar-free, oil-free (not that I want to cut down on fat, it just tastes reeaaaally nice with yoghurt) and with buckwheat flour.
Variations
Coconut: Add ½ cup / 40g desiccated coconut (fine) and use coconut milk for water/milk. You could even sprinkle coconut flakes as a topping over the banana bread before you bake it.
Chocolate: Add ⅓ – ½ cup / 35-50g cacao or cocoa powder and a heaping handful of chocolate chips. To keep this banana bread still low in sugar, you could use vegan dark chocolate chips or chocolate chips that are made with xylitol (a natural, sugar-free sweetener, as you probably know).
Equipment
The size of the loaf tin/pan doesn’t really matter. I’ve made this banana bread in a 1-pound and in a 2-pounds tin and it was always fully baked after 50 minutes.
The only difference is the size. Long and flat (2 lbs) or short and tall (1 lb). The banana bread in the picture was made in a 1-pound tin (mine measures 22.5x12x6 cm | 8.8x4.8x2.5 inches).
Storage
Keep your banana bread in the fridge for up to a week. You can also freeze it for about 3 months (or even longer).
📖 Recipe
Equipment
- 1 1- or 2-pound loaf tin/pan
Ingredients
- 400g / 14 oz. ripe bananas see notes for low sugar option
- 80ml / ⅓ cup oil olive, sunflower, etc.
- 125ml / ½ cup vegan milk or water
- 240g / 2 cups flour see notes, gf options
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 175°C/350°F. Line a loaf tin with baking paper or if it’s non-stick, simply grease it a bit. The banana bread will come out easily.
- Peel bananas and place them in a large bowl. Add the oil to help mash the bananas using a potato masher or fork.
- Add milk (or water) combine until smooth and relatively even. Small banana pieces are definitely okay.
- Add flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt and mix well. It should be a moist, soft and fluffy dough.
- Pour into the prepared loaf tin. Bake for about 50 minutes. When you touch the top of your banana bread, it should be firm and slightly springy when it’s done.
- Let it cool down for at least 15 minutes before slicing it (better to wait until it’s completely cool).
- Store in the fridge for up to 7 days or freeze for up to 3 months.
Notes
- Loaf tin/pan size: You can use both a 1 lb or 2 lbs loaf tin. The cooking time usually doesn’t vary. You’ll just have a different size of the loaf.
- Bananas: If you wanted to make this banana bread even lower in sugar, you could take fresh bananas too (the older they get, the higher the sugar content). As long as they’re soft enough, you should be fine. Or, alternatively, you could use a stick blender to mash the bananas if they’re too firm.
- Flour: I guess most kinds of flour work in this recipe. I know for sure that spelt flour, buckwheat flour and a gluten-free flour blend are okay to use.
