How to Freeze Bananas

First of all, why would you want to freeze bananas?  Well, I’ll tell you.  There are a lot of things that you can do with frozen bananas, like make smoothies and one-ingredient ice cream.  Plus, have you ever walked by your ripe bananas on the counter/shelf and thought, “I really need to make bread with those before they get too black”?  And then continued to think that the next fifty times you walk by, until you eventually say, “Dang it. Now I have to just throw them away.”  Freezing bananas when they are ripe is perfect for procrastinators, such as myself, because it allows you to save the work for another day.  Yay!

There are two methods that I’ve used to freeze bananas.  Actually, there are three. 

The first and easiest way is to just throw the whole banana, peel and all, into the freezer.  I only recommend this if you are going to be thawing the banana out prior to using it, like if you are making banana bread.  You need to let the whole thing thaw before you try to peel it.  Otherwise, the peel will be really hard to get off.  Also note that the banana inside will be kind of slimy and mushy, but that’s okay because you’re just going to mush it anyway.  You will need to use these within a short time to avoid the freezer taste.  I used this method for a long time before I moved onto making smoothies using frozen bananas.  For that, I used method number two.

Method number two is individually wrapped bananas.  Peel the banana first, wrap it in plastic wrap and then freeze it.  I usually break them in half, or in thirds if it is a big banana, before wrapping it.  After I wrap them all up, I place them in a gallon sized freezer bag.  This makes it easy if you only need one banana at a time.  The double wrap also gives them good protection from the freezer.

The last method, and one that I just recently adopted, is to slice the bananas and then freeze them.  I think this is going to make them blend up a little easier, especially if you don’t have a super fancy blender.  I sliced these in about 1/2" slices, put them on wax paper on a cookie sheet, then put them in the freezer.  Once they were good and frozen, I popped them off of the paper and then put them in a freezer bag.  This will allow me to use as much or as little as I want. 

A lot of supermarkets sell ripe bananas at a discount, so I often buy those and just freeze the whole lot.  We have had bananas in the last two Bountiful Baskets, so if you’re looking for something to do with them besides eating them straight, this post is for you.