Amazing Sourdough Banana Bread {Discard or Fed Starter}
This sourdough banana bread is next level delicious with an intensely soft sturdy crumb. The recipe works great with discard or fed starter.
Make room in your heart for another banana bread recipe.
With a uniquely soft texture, this sourdough banana bread is absolutely the most incredible banana bread ever.

Let’s Talk About Sourdough for a Minute
The sourdough in this recipe contributes to overall flavor without screaming: I AM SOURDOUGH, HEAR ME ROAR. In fact, if you ate a piece of this bread without knowing any details, I’m almost positive you wouldn’t peg it as a sourdough recipe at all.
However, where the sourdough absolutely shines is in the lusciously soft texture that is unlike any other banana bread I’ve ever had.
You guys, this bread is so incredibly delicious.
I use a 1:1:1 sourdough starter. The consistency is thick but runny. This recipe works well using discard or fed sourdough starter.
Banana Bread Batter
This one-bowl banana bread batter is very straightforward.
Mix the wet ingredients:
- neutral-flavored oil
- brown sugar + granulated sugar
- mashed bananas
- sourdough starter (fed or discard)
- eggs
- vanilla
And then stir in the dry ingredients:
- flour (all-purpose or whole wheat)
- baking powder + baking soda + salt
- ground cinnamon
A Substantial Loaf
This recipe makes one large loaf of banana bread. Which means!! —> Don’t try shoving the batter into a smaller loaf pan. You’ll be sad and so will your oven when things go awry and start over flowing into bubbling, burning carnage.
*Use a 9X5-inch loaf pan*
If you only have smaller loaf pans (like an 8 1/2 X 4 1/2-inch size), fill the pan slightly more than 2/3 full and use the rest of the batter for mini loaves or a few muffins.
Read the note in the recipe below for high elevation baking where batter tends to rise faster and sometimes overflow!
I have made this bread at least a dozen times and while the loaf pan is full, it has never overflowed (I live at about 2,500 feet elevation). It domes up beautifully while baking.
A Tried-and-True Banana Bread Recipe
I am so excited for you to try this recipe.
If you don’t have a sourdough starter, beg, steal or borrow until you do! I promise this bread is worth it.
I’ve added *a few* chocolate chips with good results. Baked in mini loaf pans with good results. Doubled and tripled the recipe with good results. Delegated the making of to the children with good results.
It’s just one of those amazing and soul-fulfilling recipes I can’t envision my life without. Long live sourdough banana bread. 💗
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Seven Years Ago: My Favorite Peanut Butter Cookies
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Sourdough Banana Bread
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups (350 g) mashed bananas (about 3 medium bananas)
- ½ cup (140 g) sourdough starter, fed or discard
- ½ cup (100 g) neutral-flavored oil (see note)
- ½ cup (106 g) packed light brown sugar
- ½ cup (106 g) granulated sugar
- 2 large (100 g out of shell) eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ¾ cups (249 g) all-purpose or whole wheat flour (see note if using whole wheat)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9X5-inch loaf pan with parchment paper and lightly grease with cooking spray (I cut a strip of parchment paper and line the bottom and two long sides). Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the bananas, sourdough starter, oil, brown sugar, granulated sugar, egg and vanilla until very well-combined.
- Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Mix with a rubber spatula until just combined and no dry streaks remain. Don't over mix.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 50-60 minutes until the top springs back lightly to the touch and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Remove the bread from the pan and let cool on a wire rack.
Hello Mel
Today is 1/1/2024. Thank you for an amazing recipe that produced a lovely. flavorful bread. I made this today using a ripe starter fed with einkorn whole wheat flour last night. I altered very little given the excellent ingredients you’ve given us. I measured using my scale based on your grams, and it was perfect!
Instead of light brown sugar and white sugar however, I used 106 grams of dark brown sugar along with 50 grams of raw honey. I added a few sprinkles of raisins and walnuts not measured just a few sprinkled in. I used 249 grams of ‘spelt’ whole wheat flour. Sweet, moist, and above all delicious:)
Thank you, Cindy
I doubled this recipe as we are a family of 7, and it came out amazing. I used applesauce instead of oil.
If you only have 8.5 x 4.5 pans, you can 1 1/2 the recipe and make 2 perfect little loaves!
Thank you! I needed to know this because my pans are 8.5 x 4.5!!
Yummo! A keeper, for sure!
Thanks for this recipe. I love it as is but also have made an adaptation into banana spice bread: Sugar: I did half coconut sugar – and with 1/3 cup maple syrup and 2TB molasses!
Double the cinnamon to 1 tsp
Add 1 tsp allspice and 1 tsp nutmeg
And melted butter instead of oil
Turned out amazing! I sprinkled a bit of brown sugar on top before baking and it added a delicious sweet contrast in the crust.
I have used your sour cream banana bread exclusively for like 10 years. It is the very best… until this one!!! Holy cow, this one might be my favourite or their tied for first!
Easy to make, one bowl, always have the ingredients! This is a must make. It’s a staple in our house now!
Accidentally forgot the oil and it still came out. I’m sure it would have been better with oil though!
I try to bake with Einkorn flour and unrefined sweeteners as much as possible, and I’ve found that I somehow have better results when I just adapt one of your recipes, rather than using a recipe already written that way, and this one worked for me too.
I swapped both sugars for 100g (1/3 cup) honey and 40g (1/4 cup) coconut sugar, and added 50g extra banana. I used 150g all-purpose Einkorn flour with 100g whole wheat Einkorn flour.
I baked it in 4 mini loaf pans because I didn’t want to risk my changes causing it to not cook through, but it cooked perfectly at 30 mins and is delightfully soft.
My 8 yo had been asking for banana bread (I usually just make muffins) and she loved it.
I have been using my die hard Banana Bread recipe for 27+ years. I’ve never found one I liked as well…until this one! I might be ready to say this recipe is better! Instead of a few chocolate chips, I stirred in a few cinnamon baking chips from Gygis, and oh my!! So delicious!
Like so many others in the comments, I love this super-adaptable recipe! I decided to use it as a base, and my finished bread was awesome. Used applesauce for 1/2 the oil, flax eggs for the eggs, 1/2 whole wheat, and made a chocolate-marbled version. I took out 1 cup of the finished/mixed batter, mixed in 3 Tbsp. dutch chocolate cocoa powder to that portion, and then marbled the “plain” banana bread batter with the chocolate batter and swirled them in the pan. My bread baked up beautifully, and I have you to thank for creating such a great base. Yours is the site, Mel, I come back to again and again for my tried and true, know-they-will-be-awesome, favorites. 🙂
Whoa, that marbled chocolate banana bread situation sounds AMAZING, Alicia!!
Hi Mel, this is my first time on your site, and this banana bread looked so good that I had to try it-I made up active starter this morning from my refrigerated starter. (AP flour-1/1/1) I am baking it right now, in a 9″ x 5″ pan, and the house smells wonderful!
I do have a question though; I read 1 3/4 cup flour in the recipe, but since I always measure my flour in grams, I measured out 120 + 80 grams of flour and added it. It wasn’t until I had the pan in the oven that I saw your recipe also indicated 249 grams of flour. The problem is this: my AP flour weighs 120 gr per cup. 140+ grams per cup is way more than I ever would expect to use. So, now I am worried about how this will turn out.
(I also only used 3/4 cup sugar, and used all white, because that was all I had on hand. I folded about 1.5 cups chopped walnuts into the batter at the end).
I know I’ll have my answer in about 35 more minutes, but I am wondering why your gram measurement is so much higher than mine?
Thanks for your thoughts. I use King Arthur’s AP unbleached AP flour.
Alice
typo: 120 gr +90 gr is what I used. Sorry
Hi Alice, I test all my recipes using 142 grams of flour per cup, so that’s why this recipe calls for 249 grams of flour. Many different sources online (King Arthur Flour, America’s Test Kitchen, etc) use different weights per cup of flour. King Arthur Flour uses less flour per cup than America’s Test Kitchen. I tell readers the best practice is to use the weight measure listed in any given recipe even if you have a different weight standard per cup of flour you usually use, because that recipe has been tested with that specific weight measure. As for the banana bread – it still might work out – it’s a pretty forgiving recipe! But going forward, it’s best to use the weight measure given in a recipe vs using your own in order for the recipes to turn out as they were tested. Does that help?
These are lovely, Mel! Delicious addition of cinnamon that isn’t overpowering; very light and fluffy. 🙂 I made 1.5x the recipe and it baked up as 2 dozen muffins, plus 2 dozen mini muffins. (12 minutes for mini, 15-16 for standard size). I reduced the sugar a little, and next time, I’ll probably reduce sugar a little more and try it with *a few* chocolate chips as you suggested. 😉 I just finally got started with learning the ins and outs of sourdough goodness, so I’m excited for any other recipes you have to share with us, Mel! 😀
This is a fabulous recipe and tastes great! The only problem I have is it is crumbly and hard to cut. Is there something I can adjust to make it less crumby? I use an avocado oil. Thanks.
Hi Lorraine, what type of baking pan are you using? Is it dark-colored/dark-coated? If the bread is overbaking, it might be crumbly, especially on the crust.
I have never commented on a recipe before but I would be an ingrate if I didn’t say how much I loved this. I made this low fat and low sugar by using apple sauce in the place of the oil and Truvia blend in place of sugar. The taste and texture were amazing. The texture was so much better than any other recipe I have made before using these these substitutions. Thank you so much!!!
Made this recipe with a few of my tweaks. Substituted a mild extra virgin Portuguese olive oil, which is now all I bake with. I buy it at a small oil store, not the grocery store type. Also honey for sugars. (We have bees). And a couple tablespoons more of flour. It was delicious, and moist.
This is so good!! This is definitely in my top 2 banana recipes. After I had baked it for 50 minutes, it was still gooey in the middle but the top was very cooked. So I turned the oven down to 325 then cooked for another 10 minutes and it was perfectly cooked. Thank you Mel!!
Made 12 muffins instead of a loaf. The muffin cups were pretty full but they baked up just fine. Baked at 350 for 20-25 min in case anyone was wondering.
Hi Jamie! I came to the comments looking for a comment like yours, anyone’s experience with making muffins using this recipe. I used your comment which was most helpful. I doubled the recipe and it yielded for me exactly 2 1/2 dozen standard muffins. I also baked at 350 degrees as they were finished baking at 23 minutes baking 2 dozen at one time. The remaining 1/2 dozen baked alone and required 21 minutes. Thank you!
I guess I should also add that the muffin liners were filled at least 3/4 full and followed the recipe as written in weighted ingredients but cut back melted coconut oil by half. Muffins turned out GREAT in size and DELICIOUS in taste. We had a sleepover today and these were a perfect addition to breakfast and we have none leftover!
Hi Mel,
thanks for sharing this recipe. I have wanted to make your banana bread for ages and it finally happened today. The banana bread is probably the best I have ever had. My starter was fed a few hours before I started mixing the batter. I reduced the sugar to 2/3 cup and sprinkled chopped walnuts on top. It turned out golden and crusty on the outside with a soft and fluffy crumb. Our new family favourite.
Cheers, Maria from Adelaide, Australia.
Is there any way to allow the added flour to be fermented by the starter and used in this recipe?
I was thinking the same thing! May try to do an overnight ferment tonight using the guidelines of pantrymama’s overnight sourdough blueberry muffins (which I was very happy with after making last week) and tweaking as-needed. Hopefully it’ll work out 🙂
Best banana bread I’ve ever had!!!! I make it weekly. Works great with flax eggs, and honey replacing white sugar. I always put lots of pecans on top too.
Delicious and simple ingredients
I’ve tried many banana bread recipes over the years and this is by far the best one! Maybe it’s from my sourdough starter discard I don’t know but it was super flavourful, moist, and it made a pretty huge loaf. I did have to leave it in an extra 10 minutes, but could be because I was using a silocone loaf pan. I do know though that this will definitely be my go to recipe from now on!
I added chopped walnuts and chopped dried cranberries. BEST banana bread I’ve ever had. My husband can’t stop eating it!!
Absolutely delicious! Every single person that tried it commented on it…very favorably. 🙂 I used 1 cup AP flour and 3/4 cup spelt flour.
I followed this recipe using a 1:1 gluten free flour replacement. It was in the oven when I realized that I had forgotten to put in the oil!
I was afraid that the bread would fall apart and be dry, but it was delicious, moist, and had a great structure and crumb.
This is my new go-to quick bread recipe. Tomorrow I will try it with cranberries and/or applesauce in place of bananas.
Made into muffins (approx 18). Very good!!
I used white whole wheat flour and weighed all the ingredients. Delicious!
The only change/ addition I made was that I added about 1/3 cup of chopped pecans as I like a little texture in my banana bread. The texture is light not like typically heavy banana bread. I’m sure the sourdough discard contributed to that.
I’m so glad I decided to try this recipe! I looked at a few others but decided on yours. I’m at high altitude (7,000 feet) and had no issues with the pan overflowing but I did make high altitude adjustments (let me know if you ever want a high altitude tester!). I decreased the baking powder and soda to 1/2 t and reduced the sugar by 1 T. I love the texture! Thank you!
YES! Thank you for a delicious recipe! We’ve made this probably a half dozen times. this is our new go-to banana bread recipe. Such a family favorite already. Thank you again!
Frustrated with this one a bit. Tastes delicious, but it took SO long for the batter in the middle to bake through that the outside dried out. I kept checking with toothpicks and getting fully coated with wet batter, so kept adding 2-3 minutes at a time. Finally pulled it even though I was still seeing a bit of batter, because it looked so dark on the sides. I think in the future I’ll try making in mini loaf pans or muffins. I love the 9×5 pan size, but it’s just not baking through for me.
Hi Megan – do you have a gas or electric oven? You might try lowering the baking temperature by 25 degrees and bake for a bit longer and see if that will help. Also, what color are your pans? If they are dark-coated, that can also cause the bread to bake too fast on the edges. Lighter colored aluminum pans bake a bit more evenly.
what is the purpose of the sourdough in this recipe as prefered to just banana bread that has no sourdough starter?
It contributes to flavor and also a super soft texture.
Hi Mel:
Love many of your receipes. Am looking for the one with broccoli and chicken chinese one. Some of the items included were dry ginger, soy sauce cornstarch. Could you please pass it on again. I want to make it. Thanks so much, Wanda
Hi Wanda – I think it’s this one you are looking for!
https://www.melskitchencafe.com/quick-and-easy-chinese-chicken-and-broccoli/
Hands down The Best Banana Bread I’ve ever had!!!!
This is just great! I doubled the recipe even though I only have 1 9×5 loaf pan. I decided to try out putting half in the loaf pan and half into a square glass 8×8 baking dish and test it earlier to see if it’s done. Worked beautifully!! The 8×8 pan is done in 40-45 min. I actually have made it 2 more times in the square pan because it doesn’t take as long and I like how I’m not always guessing whether the middle will be doughy.
I also have subbed 1/2 wheat flour and 1/2 applesauce for oil with great results.
And if I have super ripe bananas, I’ll peel them and put them in a ziploc bag to freeze and label how many bananas I put in each bag 1,2 or 3. Makes it super easy because it defrosts fast in the bag if you put it in some warm water or just sitting on the counter, and you don’t have to deal with peeling a frozen, over ripe banana.
I started making sourdough starter a month ago (a few weeks after randomly spotting and reading your Lazy Girl’s Guide to Sourdough), so first of all thank you for that, because it got me started! I’ve been using your peasant bread recipe, which is delicious, and then a couple weeks ago I was going to make your pumpkin muffins again to give to a friend. But I had two cups of discard and six mushy bananas that needed to be used up, so I wondered if maybe there were any sourdough banana bread recipes around. Then I remembered having seen a new sourdough recipe on your website–and lo and behold, it was for banana bread! Perfect timing! So I made a batch of muffins, a double batch of banana bread, gave some away and ate a whole lot, and everything was delicious!!! My siblings were all happy to help finish everything :). Thank you for your recipes!!
I love that you have dived head first into sourdough, Alexis!!
These are delicious! My family thought it’s the best banana bread I’ve made!
That’s awesome, Rochelle! Thanks for letting me know!
I think this is my new favorite sourdough discard recipe! Yum. I don’t know if I have a favorite banana bread from your site, they’re all delicious! So yummy! It’s not an overly sweet and indulgent bread (like the ones that taste like cake) so you can have lots of it. So, wait, maybe that is a bad thing?! 😉 J/K! Love it! Thanks again for sharing, Mel!
Haha. The line between cake and quick bread is very fine. 🙂
This was delicious, and got better the next day. I added chopped toasted walnuts. I’ve had a sourdough starter for years, always looking for “discard “
recipes. I freeze overripe bananas in the peel until I have enough for banana bread. This one’s a keeper!
I agree that it’s even better the next day. Happy to know you enjoyed it!
Really loved this one! I am a huge fan of your sour cream banana bread; I’m honestly not sure which I love more but because they’re both so good. I think we need to do a side by side. But this one was really great!! Split the batter up into 4 mini loaves, threw in a bunch of chocolate chips on top, and baked for about 34 minutes.
Side Note- mel you are the best! Please never stop giving weight measurements for all the ingredients- I really love being able to just toss everything in on the scale, instead of dirtying measuring tools! And I feel like it helps me get closer to the ideal version of the recipe as it is more precise!!
Other side note- I’m loving all the sourdough recipes lately! I just got a start a while ago and it’s so fun trying it out with your recipes. Just made the pumpkin sourdough muffins the other day and really liked them!
Thank you so much, McKay! I promise to keep providing weight measures AND sourdough recipes! I’m kind of obsessed right now! 🙂
This is definitely a keeper.
It is so moist and delicious.
Thank you for the recipe.
Thank YOU, Marg! Appreciate you taking the time to let me know what you thought.
Very soft. So good. I put tin foil around the edges to keep from burning because mine took longer in the middle.
Glad you loved it, Heather!
Brb- heading to put this on repeat between the banana muffins and one bowl sour cream banana bread. So glad I picked up that sourdough starter for those pumpkin muffins and already had it ready for this beauty. Yum!
Yesssss! I’m so happy you liked this one, Katie! Thanks for letting me know!
Can you replace the banana with pumpkin and sub cinnamon for pumpkin spice for a festive version?
This banana bread is so so so good. I made it today with fed starter and it couldn’t be easier or more delicious. Thanks Mel, and feel free to post more sourdough recipes…I have loved the peasant bread and now this!!
I’m so happy to hear this, Sara! I’m a bit obsessed with my sourdough starter, too, for easy recipes like this!
I have some apples that need to be used up. I wonder how this would be with some apples and applesauce.
Let me know if you try it, Linda!
This was delicious! The crumb was perfect – not dry and not greasy. I doubled the recipe and it turned out perfectly. I think I have a new go-to banana bread recipe!
Yay!!
The texture was amazing! I needed to mix the dry ingredients a bit better before mixing together with the wet ingredients. I also did add semi sweet chocolate chips on top of two of the 3 mini loaves. Loved the recipe
Thank you so much for commenting so fast to let me know, Cherie! I appreciate it so much!
I have discard to use and overly ripe bananas so the timing of this recipe was meant to be!
I have a similar sourdough banana bread recipe that calls for letting the batter sit for 4-6 hours before baking. It turns out beautifully, plus you get the actual physical benefit of the sourdough breaking down the flour! I’ll have to try it with this recipe.
Please give the weight measurements that you used for the flour and the sourdough discard in these muffins. Thank you!
Somehow those went missing! Just added them back in.
Delicious! I got 16 large muffins out of the dough and baked them appropriately 18 minutes. I used 1/2 AP flour and 1/2 white whole wheat. So very good! Having the weight measurements really helped. Thank you!
Yay for an update on muffins! Glad they worked out!
What is difference between fed and discard starter and where can I find a recipe to make either one. thank you for your recipes, I have truly enjoyed cooking with them. God keep you safe Kathy
Hi Kathy, here’s a post that might be helpful! https://www.melskitchencafe.com/lazy-girls-guide-to-sourdough/