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Banana Nut Breakfast Bars
Updated Jan. 17, 2024
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- Total Time
- 1 hour
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 2ripe medium bananas (about 240 grams peeled)
- 2large eggs
- 6tablespoons/90 milliliters olive oil, plus more for greasing the pan
- ¾cup/187 grams peanut or almond butter
- 6tablespoons/120 grams honey
- 2teaspoons kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal), or 1 teaspoon fine salt
- 2teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 2teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1cup/100 grams old-fashioned rolled oats
- ¾cup/80 grams walnut halves and pieces, roughly chopped
- Flaky salt, for topping
Preparation
- Step 1
In a large bowl, use a fork to mash the bananas; you should get about 1 cup mashed bananas. Add the eggs and whisk with the fork to evenly combine. Set the mixture aside for 15 minutes.
- Step 2
Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat to 350 degrees. Grease an 8- or 9-inch square pan and line it with a long sheet of parchment paper to cover the bottom and two sides, creasing as needed to ensure a secure fit.
- Step 3
Add the olive oil, peanut butter, honey, kosher salt, cinnamon and vanilla to the banana mixture and whisk until smooth. Add the oats and whisk to combine.
- Step 4
Scrape the mixture into the prepared pan, then top it with the walnuts and a light sprinkling of flaky salt. Bake until the top feels set when pressed lightly and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes.
- Step 5
Cool fully before using the parchment to lift the bars out of the pan. Cut into 9 squares and store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
I like the simplicity and adaptability of this recipe. I cut the honey down to one T or so, and subbed applesauce for 4 T of the oil. I added a touch extra to make up for the moisture lost by cutting back the honey. Turned it tasty and plenty sweet for me.
Chocolate chips made a great addition..and when do they not!
I followed this exactly and I am an experienced cook. These look good but have little to no taste. Its not sweet, you can't taste the peanut butter. The salt on top pushes it away from sweet to... neutral. Perhaps this is for "special" diets. It feels like food-by-committee. Just don't. Really.
Followed recipe, used almond butter in place of peanut butter. No overarching flavor, even the banana gets lost somehow. So bland I looked over the ingredient list several times to make sure I added everything.
Agree with comments these are too salty. Recommend halving the salt, or even less. Like the texture and found them reasonably tasty. I'll make these again, but with less salt and perhaps adding raisins or dried cranberries.
Reduce olive oil to 2 Tablespoons .Apple sauce 4.5 Tablespoons Reduce honey to 1 Tablespoons
The amount of salt in my opinion ruined this recipe for me. Couldn't eat it. I would add half or a quarter of what the recipe called for.
I found the cook time on this long so I’ll make it again as breakfast cookies. I agree with what other people said that they’re bland, I would add some raisins, craisins, and/or chocolate chips next time.
I ignored the negative reviews and made them anyway. They just don't taste good. Even with less salt and added coconut I thought I could beat it, but no.
I took to heart many of the comments that these are quite bland, with no discernible flavor profile. So I doubled all the spices, used about 5 tablespoons of honey and used toasted hazelnuts on top. Still, after all that extra love given, these are godawful and should never be made! This recipe should be binned, just like the batch I made.
These were super disappointing. Was hoping for something a bit more flavourful with so many expensive ingredients.
This was so good we made another batch three days after the first one! Added a tablespoon of chia seeds to amp up the protein. I don’t get the other comments about too much salt, bland, etc. This recipe is legit.
Made these the minute I saw the recipe--great fit with what I needed to use up!. Halfway in, I realized I had lost my 8X8 baking pan so made in a round pan and cut it into wedges. Was it good? We gobbled the first two pieces, so yes.
Based on other reviews I skipped the salt. I love this recipe. Easy, tasty, perfect for a breakfast bar.) If you’re looking for something else, try a pastry.)
Omg I made this based on the four star rating before I read the reviews. Wish I had bothered to read the reviews. I am usually forgiving of “okay” recipes and eat them anyways but this is bad. Something is very wrong with this recipe. I threw the whole pan out and am annoyed that I wasted all those ingredients. Oh, I did sub maple syrup for part of the honey because I ran out of honey…so if the honey was key to making this work…well, I don’t know.
I thought the flavors of this were good. I skipped sprinkling salt on top based on the comments and subbed the cinnamon with British mixed spice that I had leftover from another recipe. My biggest complaint is with the texture. It's very loose.
I made these today despite the poor reviews, and they came out fine. I decreased the salt, and also used *unsalted* almond butter. I suspect many of the reviews saying the recipe is too salty might be because folks are using salted peanut butter. I decreased the honey to 4 Tbsp and added about 1/4 C of hemp seeds. I also used a hand blender to combine the mashed banana and eggs; chunks of banana would make the bars "claggy" as one review put it. Overall, a nice flour free breakfast item.
Way too much salt. I couldn’t eat them and wouldn’t serve them. I thought I must have made a mistake until I read the notes and saw all the similar comments.
It’s just amazing how tasteless these were! The flavor of each ingredient canceled each other out. I won’t bother trying it again.
I made these twice, bc the recipe is exactly the kind of thing I am always looking for and I had forgotten on round 2 that I had already tried this once. Really disappointed, both times. Do not taste good despite the ingredients being ones I'm excited about. Texture is claggy despite ensuring a thorough cook. And do not keep well, get soggy within a day.
After reading these reviews, I suspect the challenge with this recipe is which peanut butter to use. There is a huge amount of variation in texture, taste, and ingredients, particularly salt and sugar. I won't cook a recipe calling for peanut butter unless it at least specifies whether to use natural or commercial varieties.
I liked the idea of this recipe (whole grains, healthy oils, natural sweeteners) but it fell short of my taste expectations. I have made this twice and I agree with other reviews that say the bars are bland. The first time I followed the recipe. The batter was thin and the finished bars were oily. I switched to sunflower oil and cut it back to 2 tablespoons the second time, but the bars were a bit dry and again the batter was thin. I'm an experienced home cook who started baking in the 1970's.
These weren’t bad but neither were they great. The flavors are muddled, the texture heavy. Meh.
These aren’t bad, but two tablespoons of salt is way too much, and I like my baked goods with some salty flavor in them. A bit bland (used almond butter, not PB), and if I hadn’t added chocolate chunks I don’t think I would have liked them. I also used a very fruity olive oil with great flavor, but the other ingredients (mostly the chocolate) drowned it out. If I did it over, I’d use more banana, half the salt, peanut butter and less expensive olive oil.
I wanted to love these. Everything that goes into them is something I love. The bake seems good, and they smell great. But the taste is… strange, and definitely not good. Disappointing.
I read the notes first, and then made the following modifications: used a combination of almond butter and peanut butter, cut salt by half (used sea salt though), doubled the vanilla, used a mix of cardamom and cinnamon, cut the honey to 3 T, and added less than 1/4 cu dark chocolate chips. Smells wonderful, tastes good. It did not come out oily. It would have been even more flavorful if my bananas were a bit riper. It’s not my favorite baked good but it’s tasty and a lot healthier.
My son doesn’t like peanut butter so I subbed tahini. Came out great!
Too salty. Next time I will cut the salt in half and maybe add some chocolate chips as some have suggested here.
I reduced honey to 4T and threw in a bunch of mini chocolate chips. Then mixed the walnuts in with the batter and topped with sliced almonds. Delicious
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