Banana Bread Recipe Flour Alternative

Enjoy a classic banana bread flavor with this easy quick bread recipe! One bowl almond flour banana bread comes together in minutes to make a gluten-free, dairy-free, and grain-free healthy snack enjoyed by all!

Don’t throw away those ripe bananas! Overripe bananas are perfect for gluten-free baking and can be used in many recipes, such as gluten-free banana bread, banana filling, and almond flour pancakes.

Keto

Since our baking community loves these almond flour banana muffins so much, the recipe was adapted to make a fluffy, sliceable loaf perfect for snacking or gluten-free breakfasts. It comes together in one bowl, with no special equipment or ingredients required!

The Best Banana Bread Recipe (ever.)

To make this recipe completely from scratch, you can even whip up a batch of this fluffy homemade almond flour before you start. It takes only 1 ingredient and 5 minutes!

Since the ingredients are simple and commonly stocked, you can enjoy banana bread using almond flour whenever the fancy strikes! Store almond flour in your fridge or freezer to stay fresh and always have on hand.

This easy, moist gluten free banana bread made with almond flour can be whipped up inone bowl with no special equipment required. If you don’t have a potato masher to mash the bananas, just use a fork

Banana Bread With Rice Flour 'gluten Free'

When making this bread recipe, use unblanched almond flour. Almond meal is coarser ground and can be heavier than blanched almond flour so it would weigh the muffins down.

If you often make gluten-free recipes with almond flour, avoid swapping out other flours unless it specifically says to do so in the recipe. It is made from ground nuts and contains more moisture than other flours.

Similar to almond flour pie crust, this gluten-free banana bread made with almond flour is easily adaptable to a keto / low carb, paleo, low sugar, or unrefined sugar recipe with these simple modifications.

Gluten Free Banana Bread Recipe (with Almond Flour)

For banana bread lower in carbs, replace the brown sugar with a sugar free substitute, such as 1/2 cup monk fruit sweetener. Since bananas contain higher carbohydrates, the bread will not be as low carb as almond flour zucchini bread, but sill contain less carbs than a traditional banana bread recipes.

Generally a paleo diet avoids sugars and sweeteners. If they are used, it’s best to opt for unrefined sugars. Luckily bananas contains natural sweetness on its own, so replace the brown sugar with 1/4-1/3 cup pure maple syrup, honey, or coconut sugar.

This quick bread is perfect for mix-ins! Have a sweet tooth? Add some chocolate chips! In the mood for a salty crunch, add some chopped nuts.

Vegan Banana Bread (easy + Healthy)

Once the bread has completely cooled, wrap it in aluminum foil and store at room temperature up to 3 days. Avoid covering in plastic wrap because it will trap in moisture, making the bread soggy.

To freeze, wrap securely and then place in a ziplock freezer bag. Freeze up to 3 months. Alternatively, slice the bread first, before freezing, to pull out slices as needed.

Sugar Substitutes For banana bread lower in carbs, replace the brown sugar with a sugar free substitute, such as 1/2 cup monk fruit sweetener.

Easy Healthier Banana Bread

Storing / Freezing Once the bread has completely cooled, wrap it in aluminum foil and store at room temperature up to 3 days. Avoid covering in plastic wrap because it will trap in moisture, making the bread soggy.

Low Calorie Banana Bread

This post contains affiliate links. My opinions are always my own. If you purchase a product through an affiliate link, I make a small commission – at no cost to you. Read full disclosure policyhere.I developed this gluten-free banana bread recipe in response to one of the most common questions on my healthy banana bread recipe: “Can I make this with almond flour?”

While my go-to banana bread recipe offers other gluten-free options within the post (including a delicious oat flour option), the almond flour answer is not as straightforward. I think it took me seven tries to get this recipe just right!

I modified the recipe to work with almond flour, which might be helpful if it’s your preferred flour, or you happen to have a surplus in your pantry.

Coconut Flour Banana Bread

This banana bread is very tender, moist and decadent. These qualities are natural by-products of using almond flour and additional eggs to hold the bread together. This “bread” almost reminds me of pound cake in texture, and it could definitely pass as banana cake—perhaps you’d like to top it with cream cheese frosting.

While it’s different in texture from my favorite banana bread, this gluten-free banana bread is awesome in its own right. Like the other recipe, it’s easy to mix together—by hand, in one bowl, no less! It’s also naturally sweetened with honey or maple syrup. And, I believe it qualifies as paleo as well. Ready to make some?

Easy

I basically crossed my healthy banana bread recipe with the lemony-almond blueberry cake in my cookbook, Love Real Food (page 197). Here are the changes I made, and why:

Best Vegan Banana Bread

Almond flour is actually lighter than “regular” flour (all purpose or whole wheat) when you’re measuring them in the same fashion (stirred, spooned into cups, and leveled with a knife). One cup of regular flour weighs about 125 grams, whereas one cup of almond flour weighs about 92 grams. I’ve found that flour substitutions work out better when you keep the weight constant. For example, 1 3/4 cups (220 grams) regular flour is the equivalent of 2 1/2 cups (230 grams, close enough) almond flour.

This is also true for oat flour. Interestingly, with almond flour, I’ve found that another way to keep the weight constant is to simply pack the almond flour into the measuring cups. When fully packed, you can use the original measurement of 1 3/4 cups.

Almonds, like all nuts, naturally contain some oil. They contain more oil than the very small amount you’ll find in whole wheat flour. Fun fact: all-purpose flour has been stripped of all oils, which is why it keeps longer.

Best Gluten Free Banana Bread Recipe (low Carb / Zero Added Sugar)

I was able to reduce the amount of oil in this recipe slightly, by dropping the oil from 1/3 cup to 1/4 cup. In fact, I was able to get by with as little as 2 tablespoons oil in this recipe, but I love the rich texture produced by 1/4 cup.

Regular flour absorbs far more moisture than almond flour, which is hardly absorptive at all. I found that I didn’t need the small amount of milk (1/4 cup) called for in the original recipe.

Eggs are absolutely key to achieving a proper rise for baked goods made with almond flour. Most of my baked goods made with regular flour call for two eggs, while this one requires four, or the middle will be deeply sunken in and wet. (In fact, these pictures show the bread slightly sinking in the middle, but my other batches were perfectly mounded—perhaps the eggs used for the photos were smaller than the eggs I had used in previous tests).

Healthy

Banana Bread With Oil (no Butter Banana Bread)

Why do you need more eggs? Regular flours contain gluten, which is a protein that provides structure. It essentially creates a framework that fills with air pockets and stays lofty after baking. Almond flour is gluten free, which means that we’re going to have to find structure elsewhere. Real eggs are the only solution that I know of that can provide sufficient structure. Do not try to make this bread with flax eggs instead—you’ll end up with an unappetizing pudding-like situation.

Baking powder. Baking powder is double-acting, which means that it starts producing bubbles when mixed with liquid, and produces more bubbles when it’s heated.

Since we added baking powder (which actually contains some baking soda), we’ll decrease the amount of baking soda. Another reason is that baking soda is much stronger than baking powder, and we simply need less when they’re used together.

Old Fashioned Banana Bread

In summary: The answer to the question, “Can I substitute almond flour?” is not so simple! The good news is that I use a similar formula for many of my quick bread recipes (like my pumpkin bread and zucchini bread) and muffins, so you can likely use this recipe as a template to adjust the others.

I’ve used almond meal interchangeably with almond flour in the past, but I strongly recommend using almond flour (made with blanched almonds) in this recipe for the best texture and flavor. I used Bob’s Red Mill’s super-fine almond flour (affiliate link).

Some of my other recipes specify packing the almond flour into the measuring cups, whereas for this one, you’ll

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Banana Bread Recipe Flour Alternative