This chocolate chip banana bread is full of chocolate chips, flavorful, sweet, and super moist. In other words, it's the best from-scratch banana bread recipe you will ever find! The best thing to go with your morning cup of coffee or tea, made in one bowl.
I like a slice of banana bread to snack on throughout the day, pop into Greyson's school lunch box, eat it with breakfast sometimes, grab a slice for a midnight snack. I mean, who doesn't love banana bread? It's so sweet, easy to make, and just really tasty!
This is my recipe for super moist chocolate chip banana bread, emphasis on the chocolate chips and emphasis on the moist, even though a ton of people hate that word. But how else do you describe something so good? It's so soft and delicious that it just seems wrong to even call it bread.
And just like my famous pumpkin bread, where my husband's coworkers would snatch up whole loaves for themselves, this banana bread is known to disappear just as quickly!
So don't throw out those super brown bananas, you're about to make the most heavenly banana bread ever, in just one bowl with one spatula/wooden spoon.
How to Make the Best Chocolate Chip Banana Bread from Scratch
Making banana bread is much easier than most people would believe. It's all done in one bowl with really simple ingredients, and the results are perfect loaves every time. Here are some tips on ensuring you make phenomenal banana bread:
To ensure you have seriously moist banana bread, you need really overripe bananas. The ones that the kids look at and won't eat because they're not super yellow anymore (*cue eye roll*) but you know they're still edible and you don't want to waste them? Use those. They're super sweet and add a ton of moisture to anything you add them to, so they're perfect for banana bread.
Pro tip: if you end up only having 2 bananas to use, replace the missing banana with applesauce! Applesauce will not only give the moisture and sweetness in lieu of the missing banana but can be used in place of some of the butter too if you are low on butter!
For this recipe, all you need is one bowl, a hand mixer or whisk, and a wooden spoon or a spatula. Three tools that everyone has in the kitchen, right? The hand mixer is needed to cream the butter and brown sugar together.
Creaming the butter and sugar together makes the crumb of the banana bread light and fluffy, so you won't have to worry about it being dense and heavy. The brown sugar also adds a deeper flavor than granulated sugar, since it has molasses in it, makes the bread softer, and it adds more moisture. We want this banana bread deeply moisturized, y'all.
After that, you need a 9x5 loaf pan to bake in. I don't suggest a glass or dark metal pan, because they tend to make the sugars caramelize faster in the oven and that can cause them to burn while the bread bakes. I really like light metal or oven-safe ceramic loaf pans for this reason.
To make the bread: Cream the butter and sugar well, for about three to five minutes, then mash the bananas (you can make them as smooth or as chunky as you like), add those and the egg in, then mix in the dry ingredients well. Simple, right?
Then the best part: the chocolate chips. I used mini chocolate chips because they disperse so well and you get perfect little bits of chocolate literally all around the banana bread.
I went a little crazy with the chocolate chips in the recipe, there's over an entire cup with a nice handful that goes on top of the batter before baking. If you're not as much of a chocolate lover as I am, you can use maybe ¾ cup of chocolate chips.
Bake for just under an hour, I did 55 minutes. It's hard to do the toothpick/cake tester trick since the chocolate and chunkier bits of banana are ingredients that will stay wet but as long as there is no wet batter and crumbs on your tester, it's ready to pull from the oven.
Let it cool for about 30 minutes to 1 hour before slicing, or else it'll fall apart.
What can I add to Banana Bread?
Banana bread is a great blank canvas for add-ins. Besides chocolate chips, you can add cocoa powder to make chocolate banana bread.
Add your choice of nuts like pecans, macadamia nuts, or walnuts for crunch.
Mix in toffee bits, butterscotch chips, peanut butter chips, white chocolate chips, whatever you like to make it your own.
How to Ripen Bananas
Got some bananas that just aren't there yet, but you still want that chocolate chip banana bread? Here are a couple of tips on ripening your bananas:
- Place them on a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes at 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). They're ready when they're completely browned, but let cool before you use them.
- Put your bunch of bananas in a brown paper bag overnight. They release more ethylene together than they do apart, and ethylene is what speeds up the ripening process.
How do you keep Banana Bread Moist?
This recipe makes incredibly moist banana bread --between the super sweet bananas, the brown sugar, the chocolate chips-- and we want to keep that goodness all inside.
After baking the banana bread, let it cool then wrap it well in plastic wrap to keep the moisture in. It gets even better the next day!
How to Store Banana Bread
Banana bread, using super ripe/overripe bananas, is a really moist baked good. Keeping it out on the counter can cause it to grow mold, so the best way to keep it is wrapped well with plastic wrap or foil and keeping it in the fridge. In fact, it'll get even better each day. Store it in the fridge for up to 5 days.
Can You Freeze Banana Bread?
Banana bread freezes fantastically! Once the banana bread has cooled completely, wrap the loaf in plastic wrap well and in a layer of foil. It keeps in the freezer for up to 3 months.
You can also freeze the slices individually to warm up whenever you like in the oven or microwave under low heat.
Recommended Tools
- A nice 9x5 loaf pan for made for baking.
- Large mixing bowls for easy mixing.
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Super Moist Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
Ingredients
- ½ cup 8 tbsp/113 g unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 cup 198 g light brown sugar, packed
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 3-4 overripe bananas*
- 1 teaspoon 5 mL vanilla extract
- 2 cups 256 g all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon 5g baking powder
- ½ teaspoon 2g baking soda
- ½ teaspoon 2g kosher salt
- 1 ½ cup 263 g semi-sweet mini chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
- Grease your 9x5 loaf pan generously with shortening or baking spray, this makes taking the banana bread out of the pan easy. You can also use parchment paper to line the pan.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream the unsalted butter and brown sugar together for 3-5 minutes with an electric hand mixer, until nice and smooth.
- Break up the bananas and mash them into the creamed butter and sugar with a fork or spatula until as smooth or as chunky as you like. Mix them into the creamed butter well.
- Mix the room temperature egg with the bananas and butter, then add vanilla and beat well, scraping down the sides of the bowl to ensure everything is incorporated.
- Add the all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, and kosher salt to the wet ingredients in your mixing bowl, stirring in with a rubber spatula until all the dry ingredients are just combined. Don't overmix or you'll end up with a loaf of dense banana bread.
- Once the dry ingredients are almost completely mixed in, stir in 1 cup of the mini chocolate chips until they're dispersed throughout the batter.
- Carefully pour the chocolate chip banana bread batter into your prepared loaf pan, then sprinkle the top of it evenly with the last ½ cup of chocolate chips. Bake in the preheated oven for 55-60 minutes, or until a knife or cake tester poked into the middle of the loaf has no wet batter (wet chocolate chips are perfectly okay!)
- Let cool for 30 minutes to one hour before slicing, or else the banana bread will fall apart.
- Wrap the completely cooled banana bread in plastic wrap and keep in the fridge for 4-5 days.
Recipe Notes
- Place them on a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes at 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). They're ready when they're completely browned, but let cool before you use them.
- Put your bunch of bananas in a brown paper bag overnight. They release more ethylene together than they do apart, and ethylene is what speeds up the ripening process.
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