Hey everyone! This morning I had some bananas that I needed to use up so we deviated from the menu plan a bit and I made my healthier version of Banana Nut Bread. This bread is SUPER moist and yummy. I think you’d be hard pressed to tell a difference between this bread and its full-fat, sugar-laden counterparts. I hope you enjoy it as much a we do!
Whole Wheat Banana Nut Bread
Ingredients:
1/3 cup applesauce*
1/4 cup honey
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup mashed, overripe bananas
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup hot water
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
Directions:
Beat applesauce and honey together. Beat in eggs. Stir in vanilla and bananas. Add flour and salt and combine. Add baking soda to water and allow to dissolve. Add to batter. Fold in nuts.
Bake at 325 degrees in a greased loaf pan for 50-55 minutes.
*I use home-canned applesauce which I do sweeten with a bit of brown sugar. If you use unsweetened applesauce you may want to increase the honey a bit, although between the bananas and the applesauce, the bread is plenty sweet without a lot of added sugar. The applesauce replaces the oil in this recipe which cuts down on fat content quite a bit and makes for a super moist bread. You can replace oil with applesauce in all of your baked goods! You can make it with even less fat by simply eliminating the walnuts.
Nutrition information: (this is per slice, if you slice into 15 pieces which is what I did)
Calories: 118 Carbohydrates: 19 grams Fat: 4 grams Protein: 4 grams
The Chick
Perfect timing!!!! I just hopped on the computer to find a banana bread recipe. Didn’t eat as many as usual this week, and have a few left overs that are WAY over ripe
It’s inevitable that whenever I buy a lot of them the kids don’t eat them, but when I buy just a few they are clamoring for them! I have started buying three bunches a week (and I don’t even eat them!) because they are just so easy for snacks and such, and that usually leaves me a few for baking. I’m looking for a good banana cake recipe to use up the rest of them.
Let’s make it an even dozen!! can’t find my Banana cake recipe so will do banana bread, wanted the healthier version since I have walnuts, whole wheat, and molasses plus the banana!! Ovens on!!
Oh thank you so much!!! For SOME reason, searching for low fat, healthier recipes for things like this or muffins never works for me. They are all crazy complicated or filled with things I don’t have, or not low fat at all, but they are labeled “healthy” because they have bananas in it. Ugh. It’s frustrating and this is amazing so thank you!!!!!!
I know what you mean, Katrina! I hope you like the recipe!
I’ll have to try this, I LOVE banana nut bread! Thank you! As far as replacing applesauce in recipes, is it the same measurement as the oil meaning if a recipe calls for 1/2 cup of oil, I would use a 1/2 cup of applesauce?
Yes, I use a 1:1 substitution and it seems to work fine. Hope you like it!
[...] Low Fat, Low Sugar, Super Moist Whole Wheat Banana Nut Bread (fatchickfedup.com) [...]
[...] Breakfast: Whole Wheat Banana Nut Bread (made a couple of loaves last week so all I have to do is pull this out of the freezer-quick meal the kids can get for themselves during the pre-church rush) [...]
Just made these but in muffin form! SO yummy! Topped mine was natural peanut butter! Eating them as I type! Thanks for sharing
I had a bunch of left over bananas no one was eating and decided to try this out to use them up. I doubled the recipe and used half agave nectar and half honey. I also chopped up some bittersweet chocolate thinly and added that to the mix (you can never go wrong with chocolate!) We froze one loaf but it was so good it only took one day for everyone to finish the first loaf and start on the next. This recipe is definitely a thumbs up!
Awesome Melani! I have never used agave nectar-do you like it? Do you use it as a 1:1 substitute for sugar?
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This was fantastic! Not too sweet, and love the use of solely whole wheat flour. I used white whole wheat, and it was delicious. I even used a bit less honey and unsweetened applesauce and found it to be plenty sweet.
This bread is delicious! Do you think the recipe would work as a pumpkin nut bread if I substituted canned pumpkin for the bananas? Would the pumpkin need more sweetener? What do you think? Because Pumpkin bread is my next favorite and I would love a healthy version and this banana bread version is so perfect as an alternative to the usual sugar and fat laden recipies I’ve made in the past. Thank you very much!