Banana bread is the perfect thing to make when you are left with some overripe, browning bananas. This can happen if you accidentally buy too many, or if you happen to overestimate how much you love bananas in that particular week.
Banana bread to the rescue! Since it is such a simple recipe and process to make banana bread, you can rest assured that your browning bananas will never go to waste again.
But then you can even run into the same problem: you could be left with half a loaf of banana bread that no one in the house has eaten on time. What are you meant to do with that half of a loaf? Well, this guide will tell you just that.
To answer the question, you can absolutely freeze banana bread. But although that answer may seem simple, there are a lot of tips, tricks and things to consider when you are going to freeze your banana bread.
So, ready this guide and you will gain some knowledge about freezing and defrosting one of your favorite snacks. Then you can never have to worry about wasting not only your bananas, but also your banana bread, ever again!
How to freeze banana bread
There are a couple of different routes that you could choose to go down when you are looking to freeze your banana bread.
This ‘how to freeze’ quick guide will go into detail about these different methods.
Firstly, you can freeze the whole loaf, half loaf, or even cut your leftover banana bread into slices to freeze in the form of portion sizes. Here is how to freeze each one:
Whole loaf: make sure that the loaf is cool and not straight out of the oven. Wrap the whole loaf in foil, making sure to expel any air and wrap tightly, but do not crush the loaf. Then wrap this foiled loaf into a freezer safe bag. Again, expel excess air. Place this in the freezer.
Half loaf: whether you have been left with half a loaf, or you want to freeze half of the loaf straight away, this is much the same as the whole loaf process. Wrap the half loaf in some foil, then cover in a freezer safe bag. Make sure the excess air is squeezed out without crushing the bread, then place this in the freezer.
Slices: this method makes more sense for portioned freezing. Wrap each slice in foil then in a freezer safe bag. Make sure excess air is squeezed out, be extra careful not to squash the slices in this stage because they will be easier to accidentally squash than a whole or half loaf. Since there is more surface area to volume ratio that is exposed to the freezer in slices of banana bread, make sure the excess air is totally gone if you can help it.
Once you have successfully frozen your banana bread, no matter which method you chose, you can forget about them until you crave some banana bread. You can leave your banana bread in the freezer for up to around three months, otherwise you will have a higher chance of finding that your banana bread suffered freezer burn, making the quality feel a lot more depleted.
How to defrost banana bread
No matter which freezing method you chose to go for when freezing your banana bread, the thawing method is much the same for them all. Here is a quick guide to each one:
Whole loaf: take out your expertly wrapped and bagged loaf of banana bread from the freezer and remove the bag. You can also reuse this bag for freezing future banana bread loaves. Place your loaf on the countertop, still in the foil and then leave it. Come back to it in a few hours and you should find a thawed-out loaf of banana bread.
Half loaf: since this is half the size of the full loaf, it will only need half the time to thaw out. Remove from the freezer, remove the bag and leave on the side in its foil much like with the full loaf. Then return in a couple of hours and enjoy your half loaf of banana bread!
Slices: this one is a little different. You will only need to thaw each slice out for around half an hour, depending on how thick you like your slices. Remove from the freezer and take off the freezer safe bag, leave the foil on and place on the side away from prying eyes. Return in half an hour to enjoy a perfectly portioned slice of banana bread.
These methods are all very similar and seemingly easy. In fact, they are easy. But there are some things that you should consider when you are freezing banana bread which you will find in the next section.
Factors to consider when freezing banana bread
The main worry about freezing banana bread is that you may not get the same fresh taste of a freshly baked loaf. And that is bound to be the case. You simply cannot get the same freshly baked taste in banana bread when you freeze it.
But fret not, you can still lock in the flavor when you are freezing it, in order to maintain that as much as possible, you need to make sure that you are not leaving the banana bread in the freezer for too long.
If you do, the banana bread is likely to get freezer burn; this is the thing that will cause your frozen banana bread to decrease in quality and lose that fresh taste.
As long as you keep these things in mind and expel as much excess air as possible when you are preparing to freeze your banana bread, you should not have anything to worry about when you are freezing your banana bread.
Then you can enjoy the great taste at any time of the year, even when you don’t have any browning bananas to use up.