Here is a yummy treat for St. Patrick’s Day- my Pistachio Banana Bread recipe. You don’t have to add the green food coloring, but it’s fun for the holiday. And if you don’t have pistachios, you can use any kind of nuts you want- you can even substitute chocolate chips for the nuts (my kids’ favorite!)
I don’t always have time to bake a banana bread when the bananas on my counter start to get over-ripe, so I peel them and put them in a bag and stick them in the freezer. Then, they’re ready to go when we want to make smoothies or banana bread. To use them for smoothies, just throw them in the blender frozen. For baking, let them thaw just enough so you can mash them- if you thaw them all the way, they get watery and gross (I’ve learned the hard way).
Pistachio Banana Bread Recipe
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup (2 medium) mashed ripe bananas
- 1/3 cup milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3-4 drops green food coloring
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup pistachios (without shells), coarsely chopped
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a loaf pan (9 x 5″ or 8 x 4″.)
In large bowl cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs. Stir in bananas, milk, vanilla and food coloring.
In small bowl, stir together flour, pistachios, baking soda and salt. Add to creamed mixture and stir just until dry ingredients are moistened.
Pour into loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Cool in pan 5 minutes. Remove from pan and cool completely on wire rack.
Makes 1 loaf (about 16 slices.)
Banana bread is sooo yummy. We often make it during the summer but we’ve never made ours GREEN!!! Mind you our oven broke about 6 months ago so I figure that even GREEN banana bread would be mouth watering. What a great recipe and I’m tickled PINK by the thought of a GREEN cake. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!! Cheers, Sarah.
Our daughter was born on St Patrick’s day…..has made it even a MORE special day to celebrate!!!!!
Sounds, & looks, yummy!
Having our monthly get together – We Sassi Sewers – on the 16th, will be making this for them! Thanks for the recipe.
This sounds wonderful BUT, my hubby can not have nuts or seeds of any kind. this is new to us and we are learning to re- do all our recipes. This is all due to a 3 day ER visit last week. Anyone know how I can substitute the pistachio to make this awesome recipe without them.
Just leave them out. ? Or you can sub with raisins or chocolate chips. If your hubby has allergies, you might also want to leave out the food coloring.
Or blueberries! That’s what I was planning to use until I saw the link for this recipe. You see, I have food allergies too. I cannot have gluten, grains, soy, or peanuts, plus a bunch of other stuff. So I found a recipe on the internet that uses Tigernut flour and green banana flour. It’s pretty good. And I actually have some small pkgs of pistachios that I bought for grab & go snacks, as it is very dangerous for me to eat out, or most pre-prepared food, due to cross-contamination. So, you might want to get in the habit of reading the tiny microscopic print on the back bottom of packages, where it often may say, ‘Warning, this food was prepared on shared equipment with nuts and soy,‘ or something like that. ? Often a tiny amount can make a person really sick.
Could you crush the pistachios finely so the flavour is still there?
Ive made Pistachio cake which is green and really good. I plan to try both these recipes. thanks.
love the pistachio banana bread recipe. with be making that for sure!!! thanks
Thank you! I bake a loaf a week of banana bread for my lovely husband who loves it for breakfast! I use walnuts but may try pistachios just for a change up. Recipe is v similar to the one I have that is from an old cookbook. Thanks again!
Have you ever tried Hershey’s cinnamon chips in banana bread? Taste you will never forget! My daughter-in-law says it’s better than Starbucks banana bread
Made this today, needed to foil cover for last 15 mins, lovely, thank you.x