Here’s a healthy, delicious recipe for Banana Bread with a toasty Sesame Seed Crust. Infused with ginger, it’s moist and flavorful. Vegan-adaptable, and can be made with sourdough starter. Video.
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Sylvia Plath
What You’ll love about this Banana Bread!
Call me biased, but this is one of the best recipes for Banana Bread I’ve ever had! What makes this banana bread recipe truly unique is the sesame seed crust, giving the banana bread a delicious toasty flavor and lovely texture! Together with the Maple Tahini sauce, it is heavenly.
The spices we use elevate it even more; ginger, cinnamon, and allspice. So delicious!
It’s also vegan-adaptable, using flax eggs. And lastly, you can use your sourdough discard or sourdough starter if you like! So many fun options! And just imagine how good you will feel when you pull this beauty out of the oven. You can thank Tonia for this recipe!
Watch how to make Banana Bread
Banana Bread Recipe Ingredients
*See recipe card for detailed ingredients and instructions!
- Fresh bananas- use fresh ripe bananas for the best flavor.
- All Purpose Flour– or sub pastry flour.
- Extra Virgin Olive oil– or sub coconut oil, or avocado oil.
- Maple syrup – for natural earthy sweetness
- Brown sugar or coconut sugar– we’ve minimized the sugar as much as possible!
- Eggs- or use flax eggs for a vegan option ( see the recipe notes)
- Vanilla extract – for warm and cozy flavor notes.
- Sea salt- to enhance all the other flavors in the the recipe.
- Baking soda– the leavening agent, that makes it rise.
- Spices– ground ginger (or use freshly grated ginger, 1 tablespoon), cinnamon, and allspice
- Optional tasty additions: Sesame seeds for the crust, chopped walnuts (or other pecans), an extra banana (for the top, not too ripe) and brown sugar for sprinkling, and chocolate chips.
Maple Tahini Sauce
So, the icing on the cake, so to speak, is this Maple Tahini Sauce! It is seriously heavenly drizzled over top of banana bread, so please don’t skip this! It’s a mixture of tahini paste, coconut oil, maple syrup, and a pinch of sea salt. See recipe card!
Banana Bread Instructions
1. It starts with the toasty sesame seed crust!
To make the crust, oil a loaf pan and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
2. In a large bowl, mash the ripe banana with a potato masher. You’ll need 1 ¾ cups ( or see notes for using starter).
3. In the same bowl, whisk the mashed banana with the oil, maple syrup, eggs (or flax eggs) and vanilla. Stir in the spices and salt.
4 Whisk in the baking soda, and then add the flour. Fold in walnuts or chocolate chips if you like. I like toasted pecans or walnuts– but do as you please. I know how strongly some of you feel that nuts have no business being in banana bread. 🙂 You will have a thicker batter.
5. Pour into the prepared sesame-coated loaf pan.
6. To create a pretty top, split a banana (the less ripe is better here) and sprinkle with brown sugar or coconut sugar. Cut through the peel, then remove the peel.
7. Bake in a 350F oven for 50-55 minutes, until puffed and golden and internal temp reaches 205F-210F. While it bakes, make the Maple Tahini sauce.
8. Let it cool at bit, then remove the Banana Bread from the pan, and behold the lovely crust! Beautiful!
How to serve Banana Bread
Slice the banana bread, toast it in a toaster oven until the edges are crispy, and drizzle on the Maple Tahini sauce. The Maple Tahini sauce is a revelation. I literally could drink this.
Storing your Banana Bread
Banana bread will keep up to 4-5 days on the counter, lightly covered, or up to a week in the refrigerator. If you live in a humid climate, refrigerate to prevent mold growth. Freeze in slices for up to 3 months, and reheat in your toaster oven.
Enjoy the Banana Bread! Please tell us what you think and any of your modifications below.
Happy Baking!
More favorite baked goods
More recipes you might enjoy!
- Finnish Cardamom Bread
- Star Bread
- Sourdough Pancakes
- Meyer Lemon Loaf Cake with Pistachios
- Maple Pecan Scones
- Sourdough Scones with Lemony Glaze
- Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins with Dried Cherries
Banana Bread with Sesame Seed Crust
- Prep Time: 15
- Cook Time: 55
- Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- Yield: 8
- Category: vegan, bread, baked, quick bread
- Method: baked
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
Here’s a healthy, delicious recipe for vegan Banana Bread with a toasty Sesame Seed Crust. Infused with ginger, it’s moist and flavorful. Vegan-adaptable and can be made with sourdough starter.
Ingredients
Loaf Pan Prep: (optional, or sub parchment)
- 1 teaspoon olive oil or use spray oil
- 3–4 tablespoons sesame seeds
Banana Bread:
- 1 3/4 cups (4 bananas) ripe bananas (see notes)
- 1/3 cup olive oil, coconut, grapeseed oil or other )
- 1/2 cup maple syrup
- 2 eggs (or use flax eggs, see notes)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 cup brown sugar or coconut sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger (or use freshly grated ginger, 1 tablespoon)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon allspice
- 2 cups (250 grams) flour, all-purpose
Optional tasty additions: 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (or other nuts), 1 banana (for the top, not too ripe) and brown sugar for sprinkling, 1/2 cup chocolate chips.
Tahini Maple Spread (optional)
- 2 tablespoons Tahini Paste
- 2 tablespoons Coconut Oil, softened but not melted or liquid
- 1 tablespoon Maple Syrup
- pinch of sea salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F
- Prep Loaf Pan: Oil the sides and bottom of a 9 x 5 loaf pan with a teaspoon of oil. Sprinkle sesame seeds in on top of the oil, and shake pan around so they are coating the bottom and sides fairly evenly. Set pan aside.
- In a large bowl mash the bananas. Add oil, maple syrup, eggs and vanilla and whisk.
- Stir in the salt, baking soda, brown sugar, ginger, cinnamon, allspice until well blended. Whisk in the flour. Fold in nuts if you like. This will be quite thick.
- Pour into the prepared pan ( see notes for adding whole banana slices to the top) and place on a middle rack in a preheated oven.
- Bake on the middle rack at 350F for 50-55 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in pan for about 20 minutes. Carefully turn out onto a cooling rack.
- Toast slices of day-old banana bread and lavishly spread with Tahini Maple Spread (optional, but heavenly)
Tahini Maple Sauce:
- Mix all ingredients together in small bowl until smooth and creamy.
Notes
STARTER: Feel free to use ¾ cup sourdough starter, and reduce the banana by ¾ cup.
Flax Eggs: Mix 2 tablespoons ground flax seed with 6 tablespoons water, and let sit 5 minutes. This makes 2 flax eggs. Use in place of the eggs in this recipe.
TOP: To add sliced banana to the top, cut an unpeeled banana in half lengthwise (not too ripe) remove peel and nestle in the batter. Sprinkle with brown sugar.
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 283
- Sugar: 17.2 g
- Sodium: 245.2 mg
- Fat: 8.7 g
- Saturated Fat: 1.2 g
- Carbohydrates: 48.1 g
- Fiber: 2.5 g
- Protein: 4.6 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
This is the best banana bread I’ve had. I only had 3 bananas, so I added a cup of frozen blueberries to the mix. It came out wonderfully. This bread has just the right amount of sweetness. If it was this good without the right amount of bananas, it’s hard to imagine the bliss of this bake with a proper banana mash!
That sounds like a nice bright touch with the blueberries. So happy you enjoyed this Amy! Appreciate your review.
This is sooo good! I made it gluten free with 1/3 teff, 1/3 almond flour and 1/3 gf blend. Any one of those flours on its own has faults but combined they made the perfect density for this moist and flavorful bread. The sesame seeds add so much flavor and the tahini spread is next level. 👍👍
So great to hear that this worked out! Sounds yummy with the teff. Thanks for letting us know, appreciate it!
Where is the ginger? What is the acid source to neutralize the baking soda?
The recipe card is at the bottom of the post, the ginger is in there! Both maple syrup and brown sugar are activators for the baking soda.
I love this bread! I ran out of flour, so half of the flour I used was rice flour, and it gave it the best yummy mochi texture! I also used toasted sesame seeds. So good!
Oh that’s fun! Glad it worked out Nami.👌🏼
I have made this so many times I just LOVE it!!
I was thinking of making it as muffins – do you have any advice on changes to anything to make that work? Time, temp, etc ..
I might try 375°F for 20-25 minutes. If you have an instant read thermometer should be 200-205F when done. Glad you are enjoying!
When do I put my starter in? Fed or unfed? And do I need to leave it rise on counter over night?
TIA
You can use unfed discard starter here. You add it in with the wet ingredients and proceed with the recipe instructions. It is still a quick bake, it doesn’t rise from the starter.
Could you kindly supply this recipe — which seems divine — in a gluten-free format for those of us thus restricted? Thank you so much!
A GF flour blend, like Bob’s Red Mill would be fine here!
Delicious! I subbed 1/3 cup of the flour for wheat germ and added a little flaked coconut along with walnuts. Thank you again for another great recipe!
Sounds great Deb!
Best ever!
Awesome to hear Josie- we love this one too!