Tested banana recipes for every stage of ripeness, from green to gone.
From 5-minute smoothies to weekend bakes. Pick a craving below.
These cookies start with a brown butter dough full of banana flavor, then get loaded with chocolate chips, mini marshmallows and Teddy Grahams. They bake up soft and chewy, and the little bears peeking out of the tops make them almost too cute to eat. Almost.
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Brown butter banana dough, blonde + white chocolate, smoky vanilla toffee with toasted cornflakes and sesame, topped with a fresh banana fritter.
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Got a few overripe bananas on the counter? Mash them into the batter and you'll get pancakes that taste just like banana bread: soft, fluffy, and a little sweet. They're easy enough for a lazy Saturday and good enough that you'll want them again on Sunday.
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Soft banana yeast dough topped with cream cheese custard, brown sugar bananas, salted caramel, and a buttery cinnamon crumble, then baked until the edges turn golden. It tastes like banana bread, a cinnamon roll, and a cream puff all at once, and I'm obsessed.
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Soft, moist banana bars with the thick, chewy texture of a blondie and plenty of melty chocolate chips. They're buttery, come together fast, and are perfect when you want something like banana bread without the wait.
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These banana pudding cookies might be the softest cookies I've ever made. Think pillowy centers, lightly golden edges and every cozy flavor of classic banana pudding, baked into a cookie you can eat with one hand. Fair warning: one batch never lasts long.
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Pistachio lovers, these are for you. Pure pistachio flavor, sweetened with nothing but ripe banana. I like tossing in dark chocolate chunks, but that part's up to you. Barely any effort, and your sweet fix is ready in no time.
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Recipe Of The Day
Good banana bread is browned at the edges, moist in the middle and somehow tastes more like banana than a banana. This version adds tahini, which works like peanut butter: its nutty richness tames the sweetness, and a toasty sesame edge keeps the loaf from tasting too sugary.
Welcome to the archive, where every post we've ever written about bananas lives in one place.
Every Banana You Buy Was ScheduledScience SurprisesThe bananas in your fruit bowl were cut while they were rock hard and completely green, often a couple of weeks and a few thousand miles before they reached your kitchen. Somewhere along the way, someone decided exactly how yellow they'd be when the store put them out.
Banana Had a Big Year. Here Are the Viral Banana Products Worth Tracking DownViral ProductsFor most of its life, the banana has been the fruit you grab when the bowl is otherwise empty. Cheap, dependable, a little dull.
Going Bananas: How a Fruit Became American Slang for CrazyCulture, Art, and LanguageNobody has ever been driven crazy by a banana. It's the most agreeable thing in the produce aisle: cheap, soft, pre-wrapped, impossible to hate. And yet when a crowd erupts, a toddler melts down, or your inbox hits four hundred unread, the word that comes out is bananas.WHY GO TOTALLY BANANAS?
Totally Gone Bananas is built for the moment you look at a bunch on the counter and wonder what it can become. Some days that means a five-minute smoothie with frozen banana and almond butter. Other days it means a weekend bake, a soft banana bread, a gooey pudding dessert, or a freezer treat that keeps the chocolate cravings handled. The recipes here are organized around real kitchen questions: how ripe are your bananas, how much time do you have, and what kind of craving are you chasing?
You can start in the recipe archive, search by ingredient, or jump into a category like breakfast, breads and bakes, snacks, frozen treats, drinks, or savory ideas. Each recipe is written to be practical first, with clear ingredients, approachable steps, serving tools, and notes that help you decide whether today's bananas are better for blending, baking, frying, freezing, or saving for tomorrow. When a recipe uses extra-ripe bananas, barely-speckled bananas, or frozen bananas, the goal is to make that choice feel obvious before you even preheat the oven.
The site goes beyond recipes too. Banana fans can explore the blog for stories about banana varieties, banana history, kitchen experiments, product finds, and the weird little corners of banana culture that make this fruit so much more interesting than a lunchbox staple. If you're curious about plants, the Banana Growing Zones guide helps you compare USDA hardiness zones with banana varieties so you can see whether your favorite plant belongs in the ground, in a big pot, or in your sunniest window.
Members can save favorites, rate what they bake, and share their own banana wins with the bunch. If you have a family banana bread, a smoothie combo, a dessert mashup, or a brilliant way to rescue overripe bananas, share a recipe and help grow the collection. Whether your bananas are green, yellow, freckled, frozen, or fully gone, this site is here to help you use them well and have fun doing it.
