Banana and Plantain Recipes

Everything else on this site gets the fruit to the packhouse gate or the kitchen door. This page covers what happens after: plain kitchen recipes for the two ends of the ripening spectrum — green starchy plantains and cooking bananas, and sweet dessert bananas, including the overripe ones that are better baked than eaten.

Which clone you grow decides what cooks well — dessert types turn soft and sweet, starchy types stay firm (varieties, plantains and cooking bananas).

Match the fruit state to the dish#

Recipes#

Boiled green plantain#

Serves 4 · about 30 minutes

• 4 green plantains (or green cooking bananas)
• Salt
• Water to cover

1. Score each plantain lengthwise through the skin without cutting into the flesh; pry the skin off — it will not slip like a ripe banana's.
2. Cut into 4–5 cm chunks.
3. Cover with cold salted water, bring to the boil and cook 15–20 minutes until a knife slides into the centre with no resistance.
4. Drain and serve hot — with a stew, a fried egg, or a peanut or tomato sauce.

Undercooked green starch is gummy and hard to digest; cook it through every time.

Tostones (twice-fried green plantain)#

Serves 4 · about 35 minutes

• 3 green plantains
• Neutral oil for frying
• Salt

1. Peel and cut into 4 cm chunks.
2. Fry in oil at about 160 °C for 4–5 minutes — cooked through but still pale; they should not colour deeply.
3. Drain briefly, then flatten each piece to roughly 5 mm with the base of a glass.
4. Fry the flattened discs a second time at 180 °C for 2–3 minutes, until crisp and golden.
5. Drain on a rack, salt while hot, and serve immediately — tostones lose their crisp within minutes.

Fried ripe plantain (maduros)#

Serves 4 · about 15 minutes

• 3 ripe plantains — skin black or heavily spotted; the blacker the sweeter
• 1–2 tbsp oil
• Pinch of salt

1. Peel and slice on the diagonal, about 1 cm thick.
2. Heat the oil in a wide pan over medium heat.
3. Fry 2–3 minutes per side until deep golden — the sugars brown fast, so watch the heat.
4. Finish with a pinch of salt and serve hot. They caramelise further as they sit.

Steamed matoke#

Serves 4 · about 45 minutes

• 8–10 East African Highland cooking bananas (or other green cooking bananas)
• Salt, to taste

1. Peel the green fruit and rub with a little water to stop them browning.
2. Wrap in banana leaves or put in a steamer basket over simmering water.
3. Steam 25–35 minutes until completely tender.
4. Mash in the pot — with a fork or a wooden masher — adding a little of the steaming water and salt to taste.
5. Serve as the starch alongside beans, groundnut sauce or a stew.

The same method works for any green cooking banana; EAHB types (matoke) were bred for it.

Banana bread (overripe dessert bananas)#

One loaf · about 1 hour

• 3 very overripe dessert bananas (about 300 g peeled weight)
• 175 g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 100 g sugar (150 g if the fruit is not spotted)
• 80 g melted butter or neutral oil
• 2 eggs
• Optional: 1 tsp cinnamon, a handful of walnuts

1. Heat the oven to 180 °C and line a loaf tin.
2. Mash the bananas — lumps are fine.
3. Whisk the wet ingredients (bananas, butter, eggs) together; whisk the dry ingredients together; fold the dry into the wet until just combined. Overmixing makes a tough crumb.
4. Scrape into the tin and bake 45–55 minutes — a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
5. Cool 10 minutes in the tin, then turn out onto a rack.

Banana fritters#

Serves 4 · about 25 minutes

• 2 ripe dessert bananas
• 100 g plain flour
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp sugar (skip if the fruit is very ripe)
• Pinch of salt
• 2–4 tbsp milk or water, to loosen
• Oil for frying

1. Mash the bananas and mix with the egg, sugar, salt and flour; add enough liquid to make a thick dropping batter.
2. Heat oil to about 170 °C in a wide pan.
3. Drop spoonfuls into the oil and fry 2–3 minutes per side, until golden and cooked through in the middle.
4. Drain on paper and eat warm — they are a way of using fruit that is too soft for anything else.

Kitchen notes#

• Wash fruit before peeling. The peel protects the flesh, but knives and hands carry whatever was on the skin into the fruit (processing food-safety control points).
• Colour is not doneness for green fruit — test with a knife, as above.
• Browning after peeling is enzymatic, not spoilage. Cook, acidulate or just proceed — it does not change the flavour (processing has the full detail).
• Anything you preserve — jams, dried slices, canned puree — leaves home-kitchen rules behind and needs a proper process. Read food safety: the control points before selling or gifting preserved product.

Next steps#

• Choose the clone that cooks the way you eat: varieties, plantains and cooking bananas.
• Control the ripening window: ripening.
• Grow your own in pots: backyard bananas.
• Scale it up: turning culls into flour, chips and puree — processing.
• Peelings back to the soil: composting.