Chocolate Chip Banana Bars
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Chocolate Chip Banana Bars are a delicious ripe banana recipe! This easy banana recipe comes together quickly and bake in just 30 minutes for a sweet snack the entire family will love!
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We keep a lot of fruit for snacking so I inevitably end up with overripe bananas every couple of weeks, which is why there are so many ripe banana recipes here on the blog too, like homemade banana bread and homemade banana chips.
These Chocolate Chip Banana Bars are a new favorite of my boys (and their neighborhood friends!) They’ve been begging me to make them every week since the first time, and a batch doesn’t last long.
Love dessert bars? Try our turtle cookie bars and cranberry crumb bars too!
What are banana bars?
Think of banana bars like banana bread more dense. They are moist and sweet, even without the chocolate chips. They are perfect for a snack or even for breakfast!
Why I Love This Recipe
I love this recipe because it’s so easy. Like all of my ripe banana recipes, no mixer is required, just mash the bananas and stir by hand. I like to load them up with chocolate chips to make them extra indulgent as well.
Ingredients
No fancy ingredients here, if you have bananas you probably have everything you need already in your kitchen!
- overripe bananas
- vegetable oil
- milk
- egg
- vanilla extract
- all-purpose flour
- light brown sugar
- baking soda
- salt
- cinnamon
- chocolate chips
Step by step
This recipe is so easy you literally cannot mess it up!
- Mash the bananas and add in wet ingredients. Stir to mix.
- Mix in dry ingredients and mix until blended.
- Fold in chocolate chips.
- Spread in a baking dish and top with additional chocolate chips.
- Bake 25 minutes then allow to cool before cutting.
FAQs
If your bananas aren’t ripe enough, no worries! You can easily ripen them quickly with one of these two methods:
1. To ripen bananas quickly, preheat oven to 350 degrees and lay whole bananas, peel and all, on a baking sheet. Bake for 30 minutes or until peels are black and shiny. Let the bananas cool for one hour then peel and use in your ripe banana recipe.
2. If you have a little more time, place the bananas in a paper bag with an apple and leave for 24 hours. They should ripen quickly and be ready to use the next day.
You can also use frozen bananas that have been thawed and drained of any excess liquid as well.
You can easily freeze them as well by cutting the bars and bagging separately. You can also cut them into larger squares if you want a grab-and-go breakfast option too! Keep frozen bars in the freezer up to 2 months. To thaw keep at room temperature for 4-6 hours.
These bars are very reasonable as far as calories but if you’d like to make them more healthy you can:
-trade the oil for applesauce
-reduce the brown sugar (make sure you are using VERY ripe bananas to make up for -the sweetness)
-reduce the chocolate chips
-use whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose
-add 2 tablespoons of ground flax to increase the fiber
-for gluten free banana bars, use a gluten free baking mix
-for dairy free banana bars simply use almond or substitute milk of your choice
You might also like these ripe banana recipes:
- Banana Pudding
- Caramelized Bananas
- Oatmeal Banana Muffins
- Walnut Banana Bread
- Chocolate Chip Banana Cake with Chocolate Frosting
If you try this recipe, please comment and rate it below, I love hearing from you!
Print
Chocolate Chip Banana Bars
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 24 1x
Description
Chocolate Chip Banana Bars are a delicious way to use up overripe bananas! They come together quickly and bake in just 30 minutes for a sweet snack the entire family will love!
Ingredients
- 4 overripe bananas, peeled
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 11.5 ounce bag chocolate chip baking morsels, divided
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9 by 13-inch baking dish with nonstick spray.
- In a large mixing bowl, mash bananas well. Add oil, milk, egg, and vanilla and stir until blended.
- Add brown sugar, flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, and stir until uniform. Fold in half of the chocolate chips.
- Pour mixture into the prepared dish. Sprinkle remaining chocolate chips on top.
- Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown and toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Cool completely before cutting.
Notes
Adapted from Butter with a Side of Bread
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Category: dessert
- Method: baking
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/24th
- Calories: 151
- Sugar: 14.8 g
- Sodium: 119.1 mg
- Fat: 5.4 g
- Carbohydrates: 24.9 g
- Protein: 2.5 g
- Cholesterol: 9 mg
This recipe was originally shared in November 2018 and updated August 2020.
This recipe came together perfectly. My grandchildren loved it and ask for it constantly. They liked the melted chocolate chips spread on top like frosting.
I’m so glad they loved it!
Perfectly sinful! Made it just like the recipe. Awesome!!!
Do you put semi sweet chocolate or milk chocolate ?
Either works fine!
These bars did not last long at our house. My 5 boys gobbled them up in no time at all. I’m off to make them again here shortly.
My 3 boys love them too Beth! I’m actually making some today
Really easy recipe to do I had 3 ripe bananas used them instead of 4 it was still good
I’m so glad you enjoyed it Virginia, it’s a very forgiving recipe with the number of bananas 🍌 you include!
Loved this banana bar recipe. Delicious. My husband loved them.
That’s great, I’m so glad you enjoyed them Nancy!
So good!
I added half flour and half whole oats, only 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 3 bananas instead of 4 (I prefer my sweets less sweet) and a couple tablespoons of molasses. The sweetness was perfect.
I also threw in a couple tablespoons of chia seeds in with the wet ingredients and let them soak for 10 min or so.
They were lovely and my 13 year old (who doesn’t even like banana bread) loved them!
I love how people recreate a recipe and still write a review. Why didn’t you just post your own recipe?? I plan to try this recipe just as is.
I also added a few chopped pecans.