Easy brown butter banana nut bars. These bars are not only incredibly fudgy but they’re also bursting with delicious banana flavor. Best of all, they’re super easy to make. So tie your aprons snug, gather your ingredients, and indulge in these heavenly banana bread inspired bars.
Jump to:
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
These brown butter banana nut bars fall somewhere in between banana cake and blondies. Soft, chewy, and delightfully fudgy. Brown butter just makes everything SO good. The flavor and aroma are out of this world. They’re the perfect bite of buttery goodness, real bananas, and crunchy nuts. Not to mention they might just be the best way to use up those brown bananas sitting on your counter.
So, don’t be intimidated by the browned butter in this recipe. I promise you, it’s going to take this banana bar recipe up several notches with very little effort. And if you’re not Team Banana Nut, you can easily leave the walnuts out and the brown butter will step in and give them that quality where you take a bite and think, what IS that?! And that, my friends, is what makes this such a great treat!
Here’s What You’ll Need
- Ripe, brown bananas: Use ripe bananas, the darker the better. For this recipe, you need a cup of mashed banana, which is approximately 3 small or 2 large bananas. I’ve made this with a scant cup and a heaping cup. I prefer the heaping cup of banana because I felt like it did make a slight difference in the overall banana flavor of the recipe. How much banana you use will also impact the texture to the bars ever so slightly. I think scant = flatter, denser, and chewier. Heaping = slightly softer bars. Perhaps blondies that aspire to cake-dom.
- Unsalted butter: Although there are definitely baking recipes where unsalted butter creates a better end product (think, brioche or any laminated dough), I’ve made these bars with both varieties. I have no preference in this case. The only real reason I recommend you use unsalted butter is because it’s generally the standard in most baking recipes.
- Granulated sugar
- Light brown sugar
- All-purpose flour: To measure flour in this recipe (and any recipe on this blog, really), spoon the flour into the measuring cup and level.
- An egg: Just one egg here as the bananas help bind while also creating moisture in the dough.
- Vanilla extract: I love Mexican vanilla, but you can use any vanilla extract for this recipe.
- Ground cinnamon
- Kosher salt
- Baking powder
- Walnuts: You can replace them with chopped pecans or chocolate chips if you aren’t into walnuts.
How to Make Banana Walnut Bars
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9×13 inch baking dish with nonstick spray, or line with parchment paper. I like to line with paper so that I can lift the bars out later for easy slicing.
- In a medium saucepan, melt 1 cup of butter over medium heat. Once melted, the butter will begin the bubble and foam. The bubbles will eventually subside, and the butter will start to turn brown. This is easiest to see in a stainless steel or ceramic pan. Turn off the heat as soon as the butter turns a light golden brown.
- When the butter is still bubbly and hot, add in the ground cinnamon. Let it toast in the pan for just a few seconds, then remove the pan from heat and pour into a large mixing bowl.
- Into the bowl, stir in 1 cup sugar and 1 cup packed brown sugar.
- Add in your mashed bananas, vanilla and kosher salt.
- Add 1 egg and stir vigorously right away so that it doesn’t curdle. If your butter/sugar mixture is still really hot, consider waiting a couple minutes to add the egg.
- Add flour, spooned and leveled, but don’t stir yet. Add 1 teaspoon baking powder to the flour and use the teaspoon to stir it into the flour.
- Stir in the flour until most of the lumps are gone, but do not over beat. Just like brownies, you want to get all the ingredients incorporated, but you don’t want to mix it so much that you end up with tough bars. Add 1 ½ cups of chopped walnuts or other mix-ins, leaving a half cup to sprinkle over the top of your bars.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread to the edges.
- Sprinkle ½ cup walnuts over the top.
- Bake at 350 for about 25-30 minutes. They are done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with no wet batter on it.
- Let cool before lifting the paper from the pan and slicing.
Tips & Other Tidbits
The riper the better! Overripe bananas are perfect for banana bars as they are sweeter and more flavorful. They mash easily and add moisture and chewiness to these bars that a brownie or a blondie might typically get from eggs.
Freeze bananas. If you have bananas ripen on you and you don’t have the time to bake with them, toss them into a freezer, where they will keep for 3 months. The next time you want to use them, simply defrost and drain the excess liquid from them before mashing and using in your recipe.
Storage
Storage: Keep these delicious banana bars stored on the counter, tightly sealed. They will keep for 2-3 days before getting dried out.
Freezing: Bonus! These bars freeze well. Store in a sealed ziplock and freeze for up to 3 months. Let thaw in the sealed bag on the counter.
Want more baking inspiration? Try this French Apple Cake with Cinnamon Crunch, Cozy Apple Snack Cake, these Maple Nut Cookies, or these pistachio muffins.
📖 Recipe
Cinnamon Banana Nut Bars
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter (2 sticks)
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar packed
- 1 cup ripe bananas approx. 3 small or 2 large
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 large egg
- 2 cups all purpose flour spooned and leveled
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 cups walnuts chopped – reserve ½ cup to sprinkle over the tops of the bars
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9×13 inch pan with nonstick spray, or line with parchment paper. I like to line with paper so that I can lift the bars out later for easy slicing.
- In a medium saucepan, melt 1 cup of butter over medium heat. Once melted, the butter will begin the bubble and foam. The bubbles will eventually subside, and the butter will start to turn brown. This is easiest to see in a stainless steel or ceramic pan. Turn off the heat as soon as the butter turns a light golden brown.
- When the butter is still bubbly and hot, add in the ground cinnamon. Let it toast in the pan for just a few seconds, then remove the pan from heat.
- Stir in 1 cup sugar and 1 cup packed brown sugar.
- Add in your mashed banana, vanilla and kosher salt.
- Add 1 egg and stir vigorously right away so that it doesn’t curdle. If your butter/sugar mixture is still really hot, consider waiting a couple minutes to add the egg.
- Add flour, spooned and leveled, but don’t stir yet. Add 1 teaspoon baking powder to the flour and use the teaspoon to stir it into the flour.
- Stir in the flour until most of the lumps are gone, but do not over beat. Just like brownies, you want to get all the ingredients incorporated, but you don’t want to mix it so much that you end up with tough bars. Add 1 ½ cups of chopped walnuts or other mix-ins, leaving a half cup to sprinkle over the top of your bars.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread to the edges.
- Sprinkle ½ cup walnuts over the top.
- Bake at 350 for about 25-30 minutes. They are done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with no wet batter on it.
- Let cool before lifting the paper from the pan and slicing.
