The best vegan banana bread, ever. Seriously.

The other day, I had a craving for my delicious vegan banana bread recipe that I perfected while writing my 30 Day Vegan Jumpstart book. In the midst of my craving, I went to Trader Joe’s and got a little lazy and bought their prepared vegan banana bread instead of buying bananas and doing it myself. I immediately regretted my decision because their banana bread was a 2 in comparison to my recipe which is solidly an 8.5.

The brief for my banana bread recipe in the book was that it couldn’t taste vegan. You know what I mean? I banished flax eggs in the pursuit of a fluffy, moist (yeah I said it) quick bread that had the perfect crumb and a lovely little lift to it. I really got super duper close. I don’t know if it’s the exactly the same as a banana bread with eggs, but it is damn good. I love this banana bread and I’m ready to share it with you so that you can say no to the Trader Joe’s prepared bread with confidence.

Here’s the recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup Sugar
• 3 Medium Bananas on their last leg
• 1 Stick melted Vegan Butter (I prefer Earth Balance brand)
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla
• 1/3 Cup unsweetened Soymilk (I prefer Silk brand)
• 1 Teaspoon Apple Cider Vinegar
• 2 Cups All Purpose Flour
• ¾ Teaspoon Baking Soda
• ½ Teaspoon Salt
• ½ Cup of your preferred add-in (I like chopped pecans and/or walnuts. Vegan chocolate chips could be good too)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Heat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease the bottom of a 9” x 5” loaf pan
2. In a large bowl, mix your sugar, bananas, butter and vanilla together. I like to obliterate my bananas so that there is nary a trace of banana chunk. I have a baked banana chunk aversion.
3. In a separate small bowl, mix your soymilk and apple cider vinegar together. It will curdle right away in a buttermilk of sorts. It’s kind of gross, but necessary.
4. Stir soymilk mixture into your banana mixture. Stir in the rest of your ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt, add-in). Try not to overmix or your banana bread won’t be the fluffy loaf it’s meant to be.
5. Bake for an hour or so. You want it to be nice and brown on the top and clear when you stick a fork in the middle.

Servings: About 8 or so, depending on how thick you slice your bread.