banana
Perfect?

Betsy and I are in the smoothie days of summer. We have a smoothie almost everyday for breakfast (this smoothie actually). Without fail, we will end the week with a few decrepit looking bananas hanging in our fruit bowl.

If you ask anyone what to do with these suckers, they will inevitably tell you to make banana bread with them.

That’s fine. Banana bread is good.

But what you should really be doing is making Brown Banana Pancakes with them.

Trust me on this one.

Brown Banana Pancakes

2 from 5 votes
Author: Nick Evans
Servings: 3 Servings
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 20 minutes
Use your brown bananas to make these deliciously sweet pancakes! Those Brown bananas are good for more than just banana bread!

Ingredients 

  • 1 cup browned banana, about two bananas
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon cinnamon
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 ¼ cup milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted plus some for cooking

Instructions

  • Peel bananas and measure out exactly one cup. Then mash them in a small bowl. Add liquid ingredients (milk, egg, melted butter, vanilla) to bananas.
  • Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
  • Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients and combine well.
  • Heat a large skillet or griddle over medium heat. Add a small knob of butter.
  • Once butter is melted, scoop in 1/3 cup of batter for each pancake. Depending on the size of your griddle or skillet you should be able to make more than one at a time.
  • Cook until pancakes are firm around the edges and have large bubbles forming on top, about 3 minutes. Then flip.
  • Cook for another 1-2 minutes on the second side.
  • Serve pancakes immediately with fresh fruit, butter, and/or maple syrup.

Nutrition

Serving: 2Pancakes | Calories: 538kcal | Carbohydrates: 85g | Protein: 16g | Fat: 15g | Saturated Fat: 8g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 4g | Trans Fat: 0.3g | Cholesterol: 141mg | Sodium: 725mg | Potassium: 472mg | Fiber: 4g | Sugar: 15g | Vitamin A: 591IU | Vitamin C: 4mg | Calcium: 205mg | Iron: 5mg
Course: Breakfast & Brunch, Main Dishes
Cuisine: American

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Brown Banana Pancakes

Go Bananas

It’s important to note that this Brown Banana Pancakes recipe will not work with normal bananas. They need to be near-black and really mushy.

You should be almost able to squirt them out of the banana skin. That’s the kind of ripeness we are going for here.

You’ll need about two bananas for this recipe, but you should measure your mush just to make sure it’s close to one cup.

bananas for Brown Banana Pancakes
Pretty ripe….

Scoop these into a bowl and mix them like crazy with a fork.  This will turn them into some sort of strange banana slime that looks and feels gross but smells and tastes amazing.

stirred - Brown Banana Pancakes
Easy to mash.

Making the Batter

This is actually a pretty standard pancake batter. I cut back on the sugar and butter that I would normally use just because the bananas add a lot of sweetness and some moisture to the pancakes.

The dry stuff, besides the sugar, stays basically the same though.  Just mix up all of the dry stuff in a large bowl.

dry stuff for Brown Banana Pancakes
Standard.

To your banana mush bowl, mix in the other liquid ingredients (milk, eggs, vanilla, melted butter).  Then pour the wet into the dry and just stir everything together!

mix up the Brown Banana Pancakes
Action shot!

The batter should be thick and a bit lumpy.

I always tell people not to stress to much about the consistency of pancake batter.  If you make one and it is too thick, just add more milk to thin it out.  It’s unlikely that your batter will be too thin to start unless you didn’t measure correctly.

I normally end up adding an extra 1/4 cup of milk to my batter after I test it out.

Also, it’s fine if your batter is a bit on the lumpy side since it has some banana chunks in it.

batter for making Brown Banana Pancakes
I thinned it out a bit more after this photo.

Cooking the Pancakes

Again, this is standard pancake business.  Heat your skillet or griddle to medium heat and add a teaspoon of butter to melt.  Once it’s melted, add your batter using about 1/3 of a cup per pancake.

I would recommend doing a tester pancake just to make sure your batter is the right consistency.

You’ll want to cook it for about 3 minutes on the first side. You know it’s ready to flip when the edges start to firm up a bit and there are large bubbles forming on the top of the pancake.

flip - Brown Banana Pancakes
Flippable.

Moment of truth! Give it a flip!

My tester came out perfect so I knew I was ready to roll.

In all honestly, even though I make a lot of pancakes, I still normally screw up the first one.  Don’t let it get you down.

yummy Brown Banana Pancakes
Lookin’ good.

Assuming you have a decent sized griddle or skillet you can probably make more than one at a time once you know that your batter is good to go.

Serve these as soon as possible when they come off the heat.

I liked mine with some diced strawberries and a healthy drizzle of real maple syrup.

Brown Banana Pancakes recipe - Macheesmo
Syrup is essential obviously.

It’s kind of hard to see the bananas because they pretty much melt into the batter, but trust me.  You can smell them and taste them.

I’ve made a lot of pancakes over the years, but these were some of my favorite.

Brown Banana Pancakes recipe
Hard to see the bananas, but you’ll taste them.

There’s nothing wrong with a good loaf of banana bread, but the next time you find yourself facing some brown bananas, give Brown Banana Pancakes a shot.