Tessa's Recipe Rundown
Taste: Ultra-rich, buttery, sweet, and nutty flavors. Be sure to use overripe bananas for the sweetest banana flavor.
Texture: The perfect balance of textures – not too dense and not too light, super moist, with crunchy bites of pecans throughout.
Ease: Buttering the pecans does dirty an extra dish but it only takes 5 minutes. We also use an electric mixer in this recipe to get the lightest yet richest texture. So just a bit more work than your average banana bread recipe.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: The ultimate comfort food!
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I think you’re going to adore this Butter Pecan Banana Bread recipe.
I love my traditional Banana Bread recipe, and my decadent Double Chocolate Banana Bread makes for a heavenly dessert. But this Butter Pecan Banana Bread recipe is the perfect brunch recipe.
This loaf is ultra-rich and buttery without being too dense. It’s super soft and moist with perfect crunchy bites of pecans throughout. While I’m usually not a huge fan of nuts in baked goods, for some reason, I adore them in banana bread recipes.
Grab a cup of coffee or tea and enjoy a slice of this Butter Pecan Banana Bread with some fresh butter slathered on top.
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make Butter Pecan Banana Bread
Tips for Moist Banana Bread
- Measure your flour correctly: This makes a world of difference. Learn more about how to measure ingredients here.
- Don’t reduce the sugar: Sugar does so much beyond sweetening baked goods. Learn more about sugar’s role in baking here.
- Use over-ripe bananas: More on this in the FAQs below.
- Avoid overmixing: Stop mixing the batter once the wet and dry ingredients are just combined to avoid dry and rubbery banana bread.
How to Add Chocolate Chips
Add a scant cup of semisweet chocolate chips, folding in with the flour and pecans as written in the recipe.
The Pan
- The pan I recommend using is a metal 9 by 5-inch loaf pan.
- Glass and ceramic pans take much longer to bake, risking the banana bread collapsing in the center and being underbaked in the middle.
- If you only have a glass or ceramic pan, add anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes to the baking time and use my tips below for judging when banana bread is done cooking.
- Learn more about Glass vs. Metal Baking Pans here.
Additionally, use the correct size loaf pan for best results: 9 by 5-inches.
- I know that an 8 1/2 by 4 1/2-inch pan seems practically identical, but the difference in volume capacity is 15%, and that has a surprisingly large impact on the final loaf.
- If you use the smaller pan size, you may end up with a loaf that spills over the edges and sinks into an underbaked sad crevice in the center.
- If that’s all you have, remove about 15% of the banana bread batter from your bowl before pouring into the pan.
- Feel free to bake the excess in a muffin tin instead, following the baking temperature and time from my Bakery Style Banana Muffins recipe.
How to Store Butter Pecan Banana Bread
Cover and store the cooled loaf at room temperature for 2 days. The flavors will actually intensify as the bread sits!
If your bread has started to stale, brush both sides with butter and toast in a skillet until slightly caramelized before serving.
How to Freeze Banana Bread
Tightly wrap the completely cooled loaf or slices in aluminum foil and place in a resealable freezer bag. Butter Pecan Banana Bread can be frozen for up to three months. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight or at room temperature for a few hours. If thawing an entire loaf, you can also refresh the loaf by popping into a 325°F oven for about 10 minutes.
Butter Pecan Banana Bread FAQs
Use very overripe bananas that are very soft and covered with dark brown speckles.
Appropriately overripe bananas not only provide a sweet flavor but also help to add more moisture to banana bread.
If you have more overripe bananas than you need for this recipe, you can always peel them, mash them, then freeze them for baking later. Or use them in smoothies!
To speed up ripening: Place bananas in a paper bag and store in a warm area for a day or two. The peels create ethylene gas, which fills up the bag and helps them ripen faster.
To ripen bananas today: Place whole unpeeled bananas on a baking sheet in a 300°F oven for about 30 to 40 minutes, or until the skins are darkened and the fruit is soft. This doesn’t quite yield the same effect as allowing the bananas to ripen naturally, but it’ll work in a pinch.
Place overripe bananas on a cutting board and mash very well by hand with a fork or potato masher.
I find mashing with an electric mixer or hand mixer makes the batter too thin to rise well, often leading to bread that’s slightly mushy in the center or even slightly sunken in the center.
Banana bread can get gummy if the batter was overmixed or the loaf was underbaked.
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Ingredients
For the butter pecans:
- 2 tablespoons (28 grams) unsalted butter
- 1 cup (113 grams) pecan halves, chopped
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
For the banana bread:
- 1 1/2 cups (191 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (225 grams) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 stick (113 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 1 1/2 cups (354 grams) mashed very ripe bananas (about 3 large bananas)*
- 2 tablespoons (28 grams) sour cream or plain full-fat yogurt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
For the butter pecans:
- In a small skillet over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the pecans and salt and cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture is lightly browned, 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool.
For the banana bread:
- Preheat the oven to 325°F. Butter a 9-by-5-inch metal loaf pan (don’t use an 8 ½ by 4 1/2-inch pan, the batter will overflow).
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the sugar and eggs on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Reducing to low speed, gradually add in the melted and cooled butter. Add the bananas, sour cream, and vanilla, beating until just combined.
- Using a rubber spatula, fold in the dry ingredients and pecans. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for about 1 hour**, or until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center registers 200 to 205°F. Loaf should be golden brown on top and the center should spring back when gently pressed.
- Let cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes before removing from loaf pan to cool completely.
- Banana bread can be stored tightly wrapped in plastic for up to 3 days at room temperature or 2 weeks frozen (thaw overnight at room temperature before serving).
Notes
This recipe was originally published in 2014 and has been updated with new photos and recipe improvements. Photos by Joanie Simon.
I have been using the same banana bread/muffin recipe for nearly a decade so I was nervous to try something new. This recipe did not disappoint. The top is crunchy, the inside is moist, and it has a perfect amount of pecans. This is definitely going into my rotation of banana based bakes.
Yay! So happy to hear that, Alyssa!
After 1.20 it’s not ready.
Are you sure about 325 F?
Hi Ksenia! Yes, that’s the correct temperature. It sounds like something may be off for it to be taking so long to bake! What type of pan are you using? The pan Tessa recommends using is a metal 9 by 5-inch loaf pan. Glass and ceramic pans can take MUCH longer to bake – and will dry out the exterior of the loaf in the process. The wrong size pan can also throw off the bake time. I also suspect your oven could be running cold. Ovens are almost always lying to us about their real temperature, and can be off as much as 40 degrees! Check out Tessa’s full article on oven temperature, and the importance of using an oven thermometer! Lastly, if you are using the correct type and size of pan, and you are using an oven thermometer, perhaps something in the recipe was mis-measured? If you measure by volume, rather than weight, it’s super easy to accidentally add too much flour or sugar, which can throw off the chemistry of the entire recipe. Tessa talks about how to measure accurately in this article here! I hope something here helps, and please feel free to reach out for further assistance in troubleshooting – we are always happy to help!! Happy baking 🙂
AMAZING. Literally the best banana bread I have EVER MADE!!!
Yay!! So thrilled to hear you enjoyed this banana bread so much, Gwen!!!
Hello From Ontario Canada…just to clarify if you want to put the banana on the top..is it a ripe banana or fresh?
Hi Margherita! (and hello to Canada!) You could use a just-ripe or overripe banana on top, but we typically use overripe on top (as well as in the banana bread itself) just for that extra hit of banana flavor, since overripe bananas carry so much more flavor. Hope that helps! 🙂
This is going to be my “go to” recipe from now on!
So happy to hear that!
Do you think this would sink in the middle if several individual paper loaf pans /or copper loaf pan/were used to bake this recipe??
Hi Nora! We haven’t tried either of those, so I can’t say for sure! Let us know how it goes if you give them a try.
All I have is glass loaf pans!!! Do you need to adjust time and temperature?
Hi Judy! Check out the pink tip box above the recipe for more details, Tessa explains the adjustments needed when using glass pans 🙂 Can’t wait to hear what you think of this recipe!
I like this banana bread. Beginners luck. It came out great first time. Next three times not so much. Underdone every time. Checked my oven temp with thermometer. It was 25 degrees low. So I compensated and added some extra cook time. Still underdone and collapsing while cooling. Measured and followed recipe perfectly. But then I read Handle the Heat tutorial on why cakes collapse and read the magic words 200F -205 F degrees and bought an instant read thermometer for the cakes internal temperature. What a difference that knowledge has made in the results of my baking. Wish I’d known sooner.
Sorry to hear that you had issues, but I’m so glad you found our article on collapsed cakes/loaves! This recipe is actually one that we’re currently in the process of updating (was originally published in 2014) with additional tips as well as updated photographs. I’m so glad that you were able to confirm that your oven temperature was low and compensated for that. What size baking pan are you using and what type? This recipe works best in a 9-by-5-inch metal loaf pan. We have experimented using a slightly smaller size (8 1/2 x 4 1/2), and needed to increase the baking time by about 5-10 minutes. Glass and ceramic pans would need even longer time to bake (about 10-15 minutes extra), and some did result in collapsed loaves. We plan on publishing the updates within the next couple of months, so I encourage you to try this recipe again then 🙂
Can I substitute brown sugar instead?
Hi Aimee! Granulated and brown sugar are two very different sugars. You’re more than welcome to experiment, but especially with such a large amount of sugar, know that the outcome will be different! Please let us know how it goes if you give it a try.
Can I omit the yogurt?
We haven’t tried omitting completely! You’re welcome to experiment, but the sour cream/yogurt does add extra moisture and a bit of flavor.
So goooodd but a bit too sweet for my liking
Can you please tell me if I can make this eggless? Is so, what can I substitute the eggs with?