Perhaps you’ve made this mistake. You see a great deal on bananas and smile as you stock up to save money.
Yet what seemed like a bright idea at first goes sour as your see your savvy purchase ripen and then turn completely brown right before your eyes.
Yet there are many things you can do with bananas to keep them out of the trash, saving more of your hard earned money.
Proper storage of your bananas will make them last longer. To keep them in the best shape hang your bananas on a banana hanger. These simple, relatively cheap, devices keep your bananas from developing pressure damage that leads to faster ripening.
If your bananas are fully ripened and you are not able to eat them immediately, place them in the refrigerator. The skins will turn brown but the underlying fruit will still be good for another three or four days.
Another option is to store extra bananas in the freezer. According to Good Housekeeping magazine, you can store bananas for 6-8 months in the freezer.
Simply place them in a freezer bag. The skin may turn brown but the banana inside will still be good. When it appears that your family won’t eat all the piles of bananas, the freezer remains a viable option.
If you don’t want to store your bananas, consider these tips for using your bananas before they spoil.
Create delicious banana pancakes.
If you love pancakes then you’ll absolutely love banana pancakes. They are quick and easy to make. Add mashed bananas to pancake batter for a scrumptious breakfast. Allrecipes.com has a great recipe for delicious from scratch banana pancakes.
Make a frozen treat.
Frozen bananas have a smooth, creamy texture. Don’t just freeze your banana. Go one step forward and create delicious frozen treats. Make frozen chocolate banana pops. Cut the banana in half the short way. Insert a popsicle stick into each cut end. Freeze. In the meantime, melt chocolate in a microwave or over boiling water.
Take your frozen bananas and cover with melted chocolate. Freeze again for tasty chocolate banana bars. Don’t like chocolate – consider rolling your banana pop in yogurt, granola, peanuts or sprinkles.
Enjoy a cool banana smoothie.
Over ripe bananas are the perfect ingredient for a cool refreshing smoothie. Blend bananas together with milk (or yogurt), ice cubes and a touch of vanilla and you have a cool smoothie drink. Want a more sophisticated smoothie – spice it up with lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon, or other fresh fruits like strawberries and blueberries.
Try banana soup.
Banana soup is an interesting use for ripe bananas. African in origin, banana soup makes a smooth treat during the summer months. Recipezaar.com has a great recipe for banana soup.
If you’d like a more spicy version try Mike’s Tanzanian Curried Chicken-Banana Soup recipe posted at his website.
Use over ripe bananas as fertilizer.
Bananas are full of phosphorus and potassium making them great fertilizers for plants. Rose plants are particularly fond of bananas. Simply take over ripened bananas, either the whole banana or the skin, and place them in the soil next to your favorite plants. The banana skins quickly disintegrate releasing nutrients into the surrounding soil.
You don’t have to waste money by letting bananas go to waste. What do you do with your very ripe bananas? Share your tips or recipes. Leave a comment below.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I have found that actually pulling the bananas apart from each other gives them a MUCH longer life. Over ripe bananas are good in a fried banana topping for pancakes or french toast. They can be used in banana bread or banana muffins.
I had not heard that bananas could be frozen, but my family LOVES bananas so I may have to give this one a go – particularly covered in chocolate.
Thanks for the tips.
Thanks for the tips Kathryn.
I wonder if pulling the bananas apart works on the same principle as the banana hanger in that the bananas touching each other may bruise one another leading to faster ripening.
I’ll have to try the fried banana topping. Sounds good. =)
This is an interesting tip from a reader of Taste of Home Prize Winning Recipes Magazine:
“For a refreshing salad or dessert, I mix leftover rice with sliced bananas and undrained crushed pineapple”
Sounds yummy
I think I would have to go with fresh pineapple. Once you’ve had fresh the canned will never taste the same
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As for the bananas, I’m not sure why it works but it does. I looked for an explanation on the internet but couldn’t find much (although I did find some more great ideas).
dude, bananas are my all-time FAVORITE food out there….freakin’ love those things. i may have to print this out for future use as i usually just throw them brown ones away (bad, i know). thx!
Dehydrate them! Folks pay lots of money for dehydrated bananas in the grocery! They are great dehydrated…just eat as they are or mix them as a granola. There are many, many uses for these. I bought a couple of large sacks marked down for $.50 each at the grocery store, took them home and dehydrated 24 pounds of bananas. Talk about savings! If you don’t have a dehydrator, I suppose there are other means to dehydrate, but you would be doing yourself a great service to purchase a good dehydrator.
Remove the skin, place the banana in a ziplock freezer bag and freeze until you have the correct number to make your homemade banana nut bread. My recipe requires 5 bananas to make 3 loaves. By freezing them first they become very liquid when thawed and incorporate quickly and easily into the batter.