You Can Use Unripe Fruit To Make Banana Bread With An Easy Oven Trick

Everyone loves a good piece of homemade banana bread. Not only is it delicious, but it's also the perfect way to use bananas that are going bad. But sometimes, you find yourself in an annoying predicament: You desperately want banana bread but none of your bananas are ripe enough. As any banana bread lover knows, the bananas you need for banana bread need to be extremely ripe because ripened bananas are sweeter. It may be tempting to simply use unripe bananas, but this is actually one of the biggest mistakes one can make with banana bread. Luckily, there's an easy trick to ripen your yellow (or even green) bananas so they're ripe enough for banana bread.

All you have to do is bake your bananas at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 to 40 minutes — or however long it takes for them to darken. Although the bananas are going to look quite black when you take them out — a bit different than the spotty brown coloring you're used to on very ripe bananas — they are safe to eat. Beyond that, they'll be perfect for making the sweet banana bread you're craving.

If you're not in a huge rush, you can put a banana bunch in a brown paper bag, alongside an already-ripe piece of fruit and fold down the top of the bag — the ripe fruit's ethylene will speed up the ripening process of the banana bunch. This method will take about two days, which is shorter than the natural ripening process (which can take up to five days), but not nearly as fast as the oven method, so this method only applies if you have a couple of days to spare until you need that homemade bread. Similarly, if you have the time to let bananas ripen naturally, placing them by a window or another warm spot will make the ripening process go by a bit faster.

Additionally, if you have an air fryer, then you just so happen to be in possession of the perfect appliance for ripening bananas. To ripen via air fryer, heat the device to 300 degrees Fahrenheit, then place the bananas in a single layer in the basket. Finally, you cook for about eight or nine minutes to get the ideal ripeness. This method is extremely similar to the oven method, only much faster so you'll get to making that homemade banana bread even sooner.