Sometimes its nice to have a little something sweet in the morning or with your late afternoon tea.
Here is my easy and healthy banana bread recipe that is also kid friendly! When I bake, I often find a standard recipe on allrecipes.com. Then I modify some of the ingredients if possible to make it healthier.
Here are a couple ways to modify baking ingredients while still tasting great:
- Substituting 1/2 the flour with whole wheat flour. I don’t substitute all, because it usually results in an overly dense or grainy product.
- Replacing butter with unsweetened applesauce. This often works well with brownies, cakes, and breads, but with cookies I generally stick to butter.
- Substitute white sugar with stevia. Stevia is 100% natural and 75% less calories than sugar. If you don’t have stevia, you can usually cut the sugar content in a recipe in half without altering the flavor. Most recipes call for way too much sugar.
- I add walnuts that contain heart healthy fats as well as ground chia seeds that contain fiber and plant-based omega-3 fats.
Ingredients:
- 3 ripe bananas, mashed
- 1/2 cup white sugar or baking stevia
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1 1/2 cups flour – 3/4 cup whole wheat + 3/4 cup all purpose
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup walnuts, chopped
- 2 tbsp chia seeds
- 1/4 cup chocolate chips – optional
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan.
- Combine bananas, sugar, egg, and applesauce in a bowl. Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl, gradually add to wet ingredients using an electric whisk on low setting.
- Mix in walnuts, chia, and chocolate chips.
- Bake in the preheated oven about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Enjoy!
