5 ways to use up overripe bananas

It starts with a few small spots and before you know it, your once-glossy yellow banana is completely brown. With a bit of bad luck, the inside is already soft and mushy too. Or wait—bad luck? You mean pure good fortune! After all, you can make the most delicious snacks with them.

Smoothie

Overripe bananas are often extra sweet. Perfect for your smoothie, then. What’s more, that brown banana immediately gives your drink some body and you’ll have a deliciously filling breakfast in no time. Can’t make it sweet enough? Use your banana in this tahini date smoothie!

Banana bread

All-time favorite! Banana bread never lasts long. For breakfast, lunch, as a snack or simply all day long. Having a slice every hour is perfectly reasonable for something this incredibly delicious. The banana bread recipe is simple and practically impossible to get wrong. There’s really only one rock-solid requirement for divine banana bread: the bananas must be brown. How convenient.

Pancakes

Banana pancakes—everyone has that one friend who eats nothing else. And who can blame her? You can hardly find a better destination for your brown banana. Two ripe bananas and you’re all set. Add eggs and a little baking powder and you’ll get a long way. Of course, you can make the pancakes extra delicious with oats, walnuts, blueberries, cinnamon or whatever you like.

Are you now regretting that your bananas still look picture-perfect? Don’t panic, there are plenty of ways to speed up the banana-ripening process a little

Pisang goreng

Want to give that old banana a true starring role? Make fried banana. Even if the peel is black, pisang goreng is always an option. Dip the banana in a simple batter and after deep-frying, you’ll have the most delicious snack. You really don’t need to travel to Asia for it. A little patience with those bananas in your fruit bowl is all it takes.

Banana oat bar

All right, as a final option, here’s something healthy: the banana oat bar. Peanut butter, banana, oats and an egg—that’s all you really need for the basics. It gets truly delicious when you also add cinnamon, vanilla, honey, condensed milk or chocolate. Especially that last one… Forget about keeping it healthy and just go for it: ripe banana and chocolate! You’d even pick out the brownest bananas at the greengrocer for it.