Fire Up Your Grill To Elevate A Classic Banana Bread

Banana bread is one of the tastiest ways to salvage overripe bananas, and our countless banana bread recipes are a testament to its customizability. For example, this pumpkin banana bread recipe adds pumpkin puree in addition to mashed bananas, while this recipe for spiced chocolate rum banana bread upgrades a classic recipe with cocoa powder and rum. While ingredient swaps or supplements are a more common way to elevate classic banana bread, a hot grill is all you need to improve both flavor and texture.

Whether you have leftover banana bread or a freshly baked loaf straight out of the oven, grilling thick slices of banana bread will caramelize their sugars, instill smoky grill marks, and toast both sides of the bread. You'll get much more depth of flavor and a delightful contrast of a crispy toasted surface and warm, tender crumb. You're using the grill to toast premade bread, so you'll want to get the grill as hot as possible before placing banana bread slices on the grates. You don't want to expose the slices to an open flame. The heat from the grill grates will toast and warm the slices in just a minute or two per side.

If you're worried about drying out your banana bread with that extra stint of dry heat, you can top it with a scoop of Ben and Jerry's vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of this homemade salted caramel or Hershey's chocolate syrup.

Like the oven, the grill provides a dry cooking method with the potential to bake banana bread from scratch. You can use the hood of the grill like the door of the oven to trap and circulate heat emanating from gas, coals, or burning wood. That said, the grill isn't as efficient at maintaining constant temperatures as an oven is, so there are a few tricks to ensure even cooking on the grill. Gas grills may have a low, medium, and high heat knob, and this DNKMOR charcoal grill even has a thermometer on the hood, but many grills don't display exact temperatures. Consequently, a thermometer like this Dozyant one will ensure that the grill is hot enough to bake the banana bread. Another way to ensure even cooking is to swap a typical loaf pan for a cast iron skillet like this one. Cast iron skillets are great at maintaining a steady, even temperature once heated.

Just like oven-baked banana bread recipes, you want to maintain a grill temperature of 350-375 degrees Fahrenheit to cook your banana bread. Place your cast iron skillet on a preheated grill and cover it for around an hour. The result should be a perfectly cooked, moist cake that you can then slice and grill a second time to achieve those crispy charred grate marks.