By Sophia Shin
In my humble opinion, bananas are the world’s most versatile edible plant. It differs from other fruits in its starchiness, yet exceeds them in sweetness. A sturdy yet creamy and soft texture isn’t what you’d normally expect from produce labeled as “fruit,” yet the banana’s potato-like texture paired with its sweet aroma makes it something one of a kind, and leads it to lend itself to so many uses. While I thoroughly enjoy eating it peeled and plain, I wanted to compile a list of ways to enjoy the fruit further. Some of these are practices that I personally do on a daily basis and some are not, but all have been tried and tested by myself for the sake of this article.
- Peanut butter and banana toast with cinnamon
I have been making this toast for years and am still not sick of it. The recipe is very self explanatory – toast a piece of bread, slather peanut butter on it and top with slices of banana and a sprinkle of cinnamon. I sometimes add salt or honey as well, depending on whether it’s too bland or not sweet enough, but it’s usually still good without those ingredients. Peanut and banana are flavors that go so amazingly well together – both fantastic foods on their own, but together, they somehow become even more delicious.
- Banana in Greek Yogurt
Greek yogurt on its own is not exactly pleasant to eat. Personally, and I know many people agree, no health benefit of Greek yogurt will have me raw dogging it unsweetened and unflavored. The good thing is, you don’t need to have it plain. Nor do you need a ton of sugar to make it taste good, thanks to bananas. Simply mashing a banana into a bowl of plain Greek yogurt makes it a hundred times more palatable – but to experience the maximum potential of this concoction, you must add peanut butter, cinnamon, salt, cereal or anything crunchy, pieces of leftover protein bars, any other fruit you have on hand. I do this all the time and I think it tastes great. My toppings may vary from day to day, but the one thing that stays consistent is the banana, because its sweetness is excellent at countering the unpleasantly sour Greek yogurt taste.
- Banana Milk/Banana Milk Latte
Banana milk originated in Korea as a sweet, milky, artificially banana-flavored beverage, produced by one of their largest food companies. I enjoyed this milk growing up – it’s sweet and creamy and hard to dislike. In recent years, this banana milk gained popularity on the internet, and people started making it themselves at home. In my opinion, theirs is quite different from the original banana milk; homemade versions are typically made with a real banana blended with real milk and additionally flavored with all-natural ingredients like cinnamon and vanilla extract. However, the essence of it is still there, and it does taste very nice: sweet and creamy.
My ideal ratio for banana milk is 1 banana for 1 cup of milk, sweetened and/or salted to taste. Recipes that call for less banana or more milk are too bland and lack banana flavor; those that add vanilla are being extra and unnecessary, and cinnamon distracts from the purity of the banana’s flavor. To get as close as possible to the original Korean drink, I believe banana, milk, and sweetener are all you need.
I have seen people add a shot of espresso and some caramel syrup to create a banana latte. I have tried this and found it disgusting, but it’s likely because I used very cheap instant coffee and honey as my only sweetener, which may have not dissolved properly; also, I’m not a regular coffee drinker. A banana latte does sound delicious in theory, and it was probably my mistakes that led it to taste terrible.
- Banana bread
The epitome of home baking, banana bread is an extremely well-known and well-loved classic baked good. Most iterations are quite easy to prepare, so bakers of all ages and experience have probably baked a loaf of it. It captures the lovely fragrance of the fruit in a soft, moist slice of cake – a superb combination of flavor and texture that definitely lives up to its popularity. I love banana bread, so much so that I have used a loaf of Trader Joe’s banana bread as my birthday “cake” twice throughout my life.
I baked a small loaf to refresh my memory of banana bread’s greatness, in order to write this article accurately. The recipe I used was Flour Bakery’s, which most of the internet claims is the best recipe there is, and I have no disputes. It was delicious.
Another reason to love banana bread is its ability to use up bananas ripened beyond their prime. I’ve left bananas unpeeled until the skin was entirely black and they carried the aroma of decomposing produce – they will still make great banana bread (unless, of course, mold is present. In that case, the bananas should be thrown out).
- Banana “ice cream”
Frozen chunks of peeled banana blended in a food processor until smooth – this 1 ingredient ice cream hack has been around for quite some time. It claims to create something akin to ice cream, using only bananas and perhaps a splash of milk to help it blend. Banana’s natural sweetness and creaminess make it the ideal fruit to make this method work. When I tried it, I found the result lacked the richness of regular ice cream but was still enjoyable to eat – it tasted like banana, it was sweet, and it was cold – like ice cream. Because I used a blender instead of a food processor, getting it to ice cream-texture was a long process – because of that, I didn’t think the result was worth the hassle. I’d rather eat a plain, refrigerated banana, which I believe is close enough to the banana “ice cream” experience and much easier to prepare.
- Honorable mention: refrigerated banana
Speaking of cold bananas, I think refrigerating bananas needs to become more standard. Although more of a storage method than a preparation of bananas, refrigeration for bananas deserves to be talked about, because it does more than change the temperature of the fruit – it gives it a completely new character. While it is common practice to store bananas at room temperature, refrigerating them not only causes them to ripen slower, increasing their shelf life, it also makes them taste more than a simple fruit. Just like how cold, iced soda has a completely different vibe from lukewarm soda, a banana straight from the fridge will give your tastebuds an experience noticeably superior than its room temperature kin.
It’s worth noting that along with all the delicious ways you can prepare them, more incentives to eat bananas include the excellent amount of potassium and fiber they contain. But to be honest, what really matters is that they taste beautiful, whether on their own or incorporated into baked goods, drinks, yogurt bowls, and more.