This easy stovetop recipe can cook an entire skillet's worth of banana bread in under 20 minutes, start to finish. Enjoy a slice of warm sweet bread and forget about the oven!
Ever find yourself without an oven and with ripe bananas? It happens more often than we'd like to admit and while you could simply freeze those bananas for later, why not enjoy them now?
With this no oven banana bread recipe you can enjoy the flavor of a freshly baked loaf in under half the time it would normally take to bake it. While it won't be exactly the same, it is a good little snack in its own right. Enjoy your skillet banana bread warm and within minutes.
🥘 Ingredients
- Ripe bananas
- Oil
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Cinnamon
- Vanilla
- Egg
- Sugar
- Flour
🍽 Equipment Needed
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- Measuring cups
- Measuring spoons
- Mixing bowl
- Whisk
- Skillet with lid
🔪 Instructions
Check out how to make stovetop banana bread with these simple step-by-step instructions:
Grease the bottoms and sides of your skillet or pot and set it on a stove burner over medium-low heat to preheat.
In a large bowl, mash your bananas.
Stir in the melted oil or butter.
Add in the baking soda and salt, mixing to combine.
Whisk in the vanilla, egg, cinnamon, and sugar until smooth.
Stir in the flour until no flour streaks remain.
Pour your batter into the preheated pan and place the lid on the skillet (or pot). Continue cooking at medium-low heat.
Set the timer for 15 minutes and keep a watchful eye during the last 7 minutes as it will go by quickly and your bread could be finished early.
During the first 6 minutes of baking the top appears raw, wet, and gooey with cooked edges (like a pancake waiting to be flipped).
During the last portion of time, the top becomes solid and dry-looking. Test with a toothpick shortly after. You want it to come out clean.
When the bread is ready turn off the burner and place an upside-down plate on top.
Flip the skillet so that the bread is on the plate. The bottom will be up and it will look a little darker/burnt in the center.
Serve with powdered sugar or flip the bread back over so that it's upright and slice into wedges for serving.
🍴 Recipe Tips
If you don't have a large skillet with a fitted lid, you want to use a large pot as I did.
Stovetop baking is different from oven baking in many ways. With oven baking heat goes from the top and bottom to bake goods and meats evenly while creating a firm crust that holds in moisture.
With stovetop baking we have heat coming up from the bottom and only a little residual heat coming in from the sides.
This banana bread won't look like anything you're used to because it was cooked solely from the bottom. With a fitted lid on the skillet, we trap heat to steam the top of the bread while the bottom bakes. Giving us a paler color and no golden-brown crust.
Making this banana bread on stove top ranges is easy but it happens quite quickly too so keep a watchful eye and don't leave it unattended. Banana bread without an oven will look different but will still taste great.
💭 FAQs
I recommend eating this stove top banana bread while it's still warm for best tasting results. Due to the manner in which it is cooked the longer it sits out the less pretty it becomes. You could store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 days, but it's best served almost immediately.
More great banana recipes to try
- Banana Pound Cake with Brown Sugar Glaze
- Mango Banana Bread
- Red Velvet Banana Bread
- Yogurt Banana Split
- Banana Bread With Strawberries
- 3 Ingredient Cake Mix Banana Bread
📖 Recipe
Stovetop Banana Bread
Equipment
- 10 inch Skillet with lid
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups mashed bananas (about 2-3 ripe) ($0.75)
- ⅓ cup oil (can use melted butter) ($0.19)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda ($0.01)
- ¼ teaspoon salt ($0.02)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon ($0.10)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla ($0.02)
- 1 large egg ($0.08)
- ½ cup sugar ($0.11)
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour ($0.12)
Instructions
- Grease a large 10" skillet or large pot with a fitted lid and set the stove to medium-low to preheat with the pot resting on the burner.
- In a large mixing bowl, mash bananas.
- Stir in oil or melted butter.
- Mix in the baking soda and salt.
- Mix in the vanilla, egg, cinnamon, and sugar until smooth.
- Stir in flour until no flour streaks remain.
- Pour into the prepared pan and place the lid on. Continue cooking at medium-low heat.
- Set the timer for 15 minutes and keep a watchful eye during the last 7 minutes as that's when the magic happens.
- During the first 6 minutes of cooking the center will appear unfinished and the edges will look cooked like an unflipped pancake, but within moments the top will glaze over and no longer look wet. Cook for an additional 3 minutes or so after that point. You can test the doneness with a toothpick. You want the toothpick to come out clean.
- Place a large plate upside down over the top of the pan, and lift the pan and plate to flip the banana bread onto the plate. Remove pan.
- The bottom of the banana bread may be toasted and a small section look overcooked/burnt but that's to be expected as we didn't stir anything while cooking. You can flip the bread over so that it's top up to avoid looking at it or dust it with powdered sugar. It shouldn't taste burnt.
- Slice into wedges and serve as desired.
Amanda says
You say to preheat the pot on a medium or low heat.but l can see no mention of the setting needed to cook this
NicoleDurham says
The banana bread is cooked at medium-low heat (the temperature between medium and low). I have edited the recipe card to reflect this in hopes it makes things clearer.
Funke says
Thank you very much, dear Nicole! The instructions are really easy to follow, and the detailed tips are a huge bonus ?
Tsioyna says
I'm about to try this
Mel says
This is going to be super specific but maybe it will help another foreigner in Korea also trying to bake with an ovenless kitchen.
This recipe worked really well even with substitutes.
If you're having trouble finding regular flour, you can use Korean pancake mix and skip the salt. The pancake mix already has some salt in it.
I had trouble finding baking soda as well so I went with the whipped egg white method and folded that in last. Got a good rise out of it and it turned out fairly fluffy but maybe a little more on the pudding side.
Didn't have vanilla but I think the brown sugar kinda made up for it (I used brown sugar instead of white)
Overall it came out nicely sweet with a lovely balance between the cinnamon, brown sugar and banana.
Husband loved it, the kids loved it, definitely making this again!
Nicole says
Thank you so much for sharing these substitutions/tips, I'm sure it will be very helpful to many readers. I'm lad you all enjoyed this recipe too 🙂