Healthy Banana Bread with Oats

This wholesome healthy banana bread with oats comes together in 1 bowl and is refined sugar free, dairy free and easily made vegan if needed. You’ll love how easy and delicious it is to make.

If you’re looking for a classic café style banana bread recipe instead, check out my BEST vegan banana bread recipe.

This recipe was originally published in January 2018 and has been updated with new photos and content.

I actually get excited when I see my bananas start to go all brown and spotty as it means an excuse to bake this banana oat bread. It’s heavy on the banana flavour, with a little caramelly sweetness, spicy cinnamon, and a whole lot of wholegrain goodness giving it that perfect bread rather than cakey texture.

Also there is actually nothing better than the smell of banana bread fresh out of the oven spreading throughout your house.

While there are a lot of different banana bread versions out there, this one is sweetened with honey and coconut sugar making it refined sugar free. Regular white flour has also been replaced with wholemeal and a bunch of tasty oats.

This is the banana bread you want to eat for breakfast as it tastes so good but isn’t going to give you a spike in blood sugar leaving you starving by the time lunch comes around.

Key Ingredients

To make this healthy banana bread recipe with oats you’ll need;

• Bananas – the riper the bananas, the better!
• Honey – gives the bread some extra sweetness and the flavour pairs perfectly with the banana and oats. If you’re wanting a vegan option you can swap for maple syrup.
• Coconut oil – make sure it’s melted, this will bind the bread and keep it ultra moist and soft.
• Vanilla – for flavour
• Apple cider vinegar
• Cinnamon – Can you even have bananas without cinnamon!?
• Egg – you can use a regular egg or swap for a flax or chia egg substitute for a vegan option.
• Coconut sugar – to add a little extra sweetness and caramel flavour to the bread. You can omit or reduce as needed depending on how sweet your bananas are.
• Baking powder
• Baking soda
• Salt
• Oats – make sure to use the quick cooking variety not rolled oats as rolled oats will remain chewy in your bread which isn’t the nicest.
• Wholemeal plain flour – regular plain flour (all purpose flour) also works here.

Step-By-Step Instructions

This is such a simple recipe to make, you’ll just need a large mixing bowl, a whisk and a loaf pan.

Start by preheating the oven and preparing a loaf pan with baking paper and a light spray of cooking oil. Leave a little bit of an overhang with the baking paper as this will make lifting out the banana oat bread much easier.

I like to use a 8 x 4 inch loaf pan as this helps create a taller loaf.

In your large mixing bowl, mash the bananas using your whisk (it should be pretty easy as they’ll ideally be quite soft).

Add in the honey, coconut oil, vanilla, apple cider vinegar, cinnamon and egg and mix together. Add in the sugar and whisk to combine.

To the bowl add the baking powder, baking soda, salt and flour and mix until a thick batter forms. Fold through the oats.

Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan and sprinkle the top with some extra oats before placing into the oven and bake for about 30-35 minutes until the top is golden brown. You’ll know the bread is cooked through when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Let cool on a wire rack before slicing and serving as is or with some dairy free butter and an extra drizzle of honey.

Recipe FAQs

More healthy breakfast ideas:

Vegan Banana Walnut Muffins
Honey Nut Granola
My Favourite Green Smoothie
No-Bake Peanut Butter Muesli Bars
Vanilla Overnight Oats