How To Make Bananas Ripen Faster

Waiting for bananas to ripen seems to take forever when you've got a craving for some homemade banana bread. You need well-ripened bananas for the project, and using the wrong bananas is one of the common mistakes you can make with banana bread. It's easy to get impatient when you want to do some banana baking, but there's an actual science behind why overripe bananas taste better in bread. If all you have on hand are yellow bananas, you may think you have to let them ripen on the counter, meaning you have to wait a few days before baking. You can speed up the process, though, and ripen that bunch of yellow bananas in around 30 minutes if you use the oven.

Oven-ripening bananas is a surprising process on first attempt. You might think you've burned your bananas beyond repair because the peels turn black in the oven. But inside those blackened peels are arguably the best kind of ripe bananas, soft and squishy, the perfect consistency for baking. They're just as sweet as naturally ripened bananas, if not just a bit sweeter, with that trademark hint of caramel that adds extra flavor to your bread.

Bananas ripen naturally thanks to a few main factors, including ethylene gas produced by the banana itself and heat from sunlight. Ethylene gas triggers ripening early in the process and heat increases enzyme activity, which makes the bananas ripen faster. Aside from using the oven, you can ripen green bananas on your counter in a paper bag to encourage the production of ethylene gas and speed up ripening, and your bananas will turn yellow overnight.

When you're ripening bananas in the oven you are, of course, baking them. They can go into the oven at about 300 degrees Fahrenheit, peel and all, on a lined baking sheet. You leave them in for 20-30 minutes, checking occasionally to make sure they're reaching the desired consistency. In the heat, the fruit ripens while the peel blackens, and when they've cooled you can spoon them out or cut off the end and squeeze the banana out like an Otter Pop. And, since you're going to be baking your bread at 325 degrees Fahrenheit (that's the best temperature for baking banana bread), your oven will be mostly heated up for the rest of your project.