The Best Sourdough Banana Bread
This delicious sourdough banana bread will quickly be a new favorite! Not quite as cake like as some other banana breads can be, with also a bit more spice due to the lemon zest and ginger, its makes a great breakfast or snack – especially warmed and slathered with butter! This is a perfect use of your sourdough starter discard!


This is a great recipe way to use up not only those pesky over ripe bananas on your kitchen counter, but also some sourdough discard as well!
Banana bread is a classic comfort food recipe, and turning it into one of your favorite sourdough recipes in a brilliant idea. This sourdough banana bread recipe is flavored not only with cinnamon but also with ginger and lemon zest, making it a perfect breakfast or mid day snack.
How to make banana bread with sourdough discard
This quick bread recipe is easy to make! For the full directions, please scroll down to the full recipe card below, but here is a simple overview of how to make this bread:
For this recipe, you will need a 1/2 cup of fed, active sourdough starter discard. Please read “Feeding your sourdough starter” for more information.
- Preheat your oven to 350.
- Prepare a metal loaf pan.
- In a large bowl, mash the bananas.
- To the mashed bananas, whisk in the brown sugar, sourdough starter, eggs, olive oil, melted butter, vanilla and lemon zest.
- In a second mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.
- Add the dry ingredients to the bowl with the starter and bananas and mix to just barely combine. Don’t over-mix!
- Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan.
- Bake at 350 for 55-65 minutes, or until the top of the bread is golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Cool in the pan.
- Enjoy!
Recipe Notes:
Muffins: You can also use this recipe to make muffins! Just evenly divide the batter amongst 12 prepared muffin cups and bake for 18-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted inside comes out clean.
Variations: You can mix up this bread recipe by adding some fun additional ingredients, like 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or chocolate chips!
A note on bananas: The riper your bananas are, the more pronounced your banana flavor will be in this recipe! Not only are overly ripe bananas easier to mash, but as they ripen the fruit develops more sugar, leading to a more intense flavor. You want them to be at least starting to turn brown with spots all over.
You might be wondering how sourdough discard affects the flavor of this bread tastes like. And I want to tell you – its amazing! My kids can’t get enough of this quick bread and are always asking for it.
Sourdough banana bread doesn’t have a very strong sourdough tang, but just enough so to combine perfectly with the ginger and cinnamon. It helps deepen the flavor of the bread without being overwhelmingly sour.
We use active sourdough discard in the recipe, but we aren’t giving it a fermentation period, so the flavor will be mild and the recipe will still need baking soda and baking powder to help get that classic quick bread rise that we are used to.
This recipe uses sourdough discard. “Discard” is the unfortunate term that we gave to the portion of the sourdough starter that we remove when we are feeding our starters. We only do this so we don’t quickly become overrun with too much starter! But just because it is called “discard” doesn’t mean we have to throw it away! There are so many great uses for it like sourdough cookies, sourdough fried chicken (YES!), and sourdough pizza crust.
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The Best Sourdough Banana Bread Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 very ripe bananas
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup 100% hydration sourdough starter fed and active
- 2 eggs at room temperature
- 3 Tablespoons olive oil
- 3 Tablespoons butter melted
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- grated lemon zest from 1/2 medium lemon
- 1 ⅛ cup all purpose flour
- 1 ⅕ teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoons baking soda
- ¾ cup toasted chopped walnuts
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350.
- Butter and flour a metal loaf pan.
- In a large bowl, mash the bananas.
- To the mashed bananas, whisk in the brown sugar, sourdough starter, eggs, olive oil, melted butter, vanilla and lemon zest. Whisk well to combine.
- In a second mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, salt, and baking soda.
- Add the dry ingredients to the bowl with the starter and bananas and mix to just barely combine. Don't overmix!
- Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan.
- Bake at 350 for 55-65 minutes, or until the top of the bread is golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Cool in the pan.
- Enjoy!
In the recipe of the banana bread you forgot the step to add the walnuts … I used pecan nuts .. that is also delicious! Thanks for sharing!
Heads up on the US version of the ingredients….. when I switched it over, it said 9 1/2 CUPS of sourdough starter. It should be 2 cups. I’m going to make this tomorrow. Cant wait.
Ha! That would definitely be way too much starter! 🙂
These are wonderful ideas and reminders for people. Thank you. The bread also looks scrumptious!
I heart you, have I told you that lately? <3!
What a lovely, wonderful post, Jenni. ll too often people get so caught up in preparing for the holidays, they forget that there are people who won't be, animals who will be spending Christmas in cages, people who will be alone etc etc etc. I try to do something every time of the year, but it's always a little extra come holiday time. This SD banana bread would make a lovely gift to anyone, but I know the perfect person this year 🙂
What a wonderful reminder.
Wishing you love and peace this season and always. 🙂