How to Ripen Bananas in 30 Minutes for Baking or Freezing
Sorry, no delicious dessert recipe today! Just a handy, dandy tip to make your life a little easier (and making banana-ripened desserts a little more accessible).
I use bananas daily. Smoothies, banana bread, and banana pancakes are staples in our house, and they all taste better if I use overripe bananas. But there are usually two big problems that stand between me and a bunch of overripe bananas: 1) I just don’t remember to buy bananas in time to let them ripen, and 2) we have a serious fruit fly situation here, and bananas ripening on the counter just can’t happen from April-October.
Fortunately, I’ve stumbled upon the easiest solution in the world– you can speed up the ripening process in the oven. Simply layer the bananas on a cookie sheet and bake at 300ºF for 30 minutes! That’s it!
They’ll look crazy creepy (black and shiny), but have no fear! Let them cool completely, and you’ll have ripe, sweet bananas to bake with right away or freeze for smoothies.
How to Ripen Bananas in 30 Minutes* for Baking or Freezing
Ingredients
- Bananas
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300ºF.
- Layer bananas on a cookie sheet.
- Bake for 30 minutes*. Let cool to room temperature or in the refrigerator before baking with or freezing.
Notes
I found this tip on Life Hacker where they recommend baking the bananas for an hour. I felt like mine were mushy enough at 30 minutes and was happy with the results. But if your bananas still feel too firm at 30 minutes, consider leaving them in the oven. Different ovens will likely yield different needed baking times.
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Such a great trick! You know I’ve done this ages ago but haven’t resorted to it recently but it totally works. Thanks for the reminder – pinned!
This is amazing!!!!! Never heard of this. Thanks!!!
Now for those pesky fruit flies do this. Put some vinegar in a very small jar. Then add some dish-washing liquid. That is it. When jar looks bad with flies pour out and do again This works every time.
Oh forgot just a couple of drops will do the trick
Oh Ashton you good woman you! Genius! Love it! Thanks so much
Wow. What a great tip! I never knew. They do look kinda creepy. Like Halloween-themed bananas! I love it!
Genius! Thanks for the tip, Ashton!
Super excited! I had never heard this tip before – pinned it so I won’t forget.
Now to decide what to bake…. ;)
Ah this is SO useful, bananas never sit long enough in my house to ripen for baking. This is great to know, thank you!
OMG!! So useful!!
This tip came at the perfect time. I just bought bananas yesterday for banana bread and was hoping they would hurry up and ripen. :)
What an amazing tip…I’ve never heard of this before. Thank you so much for sharing it!
Will this work with completely green bananas? I bought them 4 days ago and they show no sign of ripening
I actually don’t know! Mine were yellow/slightly green (no good for baking!), but I’m not sure how they would taste going from VERY green. If you try it, let me know!
Thanks for responding. No it did not work.. Even leaving in oven longer and still were hard as a rock. Actually, after having bought them one week ago, I threw the last 3 in the trash this morning…still green. Even tried the brown bag to speed up ripening. Stubborn bananas!! lol.