Homestead Recipes Fresh Strawberry Banana Bread

Strawberry Banana Bread-moist banana bread bursting with juicy, sweet strawberries! This is the perfect banana bread recipe for spring and summer when strawberries are in season!

What do you do when you have a bunch of brown bananas on the counter and a ton of fresh strawberries in the refrigerator? You make Strawberry Banana Bread of course! Turning brown bananas into a delicious loaf of banana bread is my favorite thing to do and this strawberry banana bread is the perfect loaf for spring and summer.

Strawberry banana is always a winning combo, especially when they are combined to make banana bread! The juicy strawberries are a lovely addition, they add the perfect burst of sweetness to the moist banana bread.

Strawberry Banana Bread (no Eggs, No Butter, No Dairy!)

This easy Strawberry Banana Bread recipe is easy to whip up and the perfect treat for breakfast, brunch, an after school snack, or even dessert.

Top a thick slice with whipped cream or ice cream and you have a wonderful dessert! This is the perfect banana bread recipe for spring and summer when strawberries are at their peak!

Strawberry Banana Bread is easy to make, you don’t even need a mixer! I guarantee you will fall in love with this banana bread recipe as soon as you start smelling it in the oven. It is SO good! Here are a few tips to make sure your bread turns out perfect every single time!

Strawberry Banana Bread Recipe (paleo, Gluten Free)

Strawberry Banana Bread is best the day it is made, but will keep on the counter for up to 3 days. I have found that the strawberries get too mushy and make the banana bread too moist if it sits longer than 3 days. But don’t worry, I am pretty confident you can eat a loaf of strawberry banana bread in 3 days. We usually devour an entire loaf in one day..ha! Our boys LOVE this banana bread…and I do too. I can’t blame it all on them..ha!

Calories: 219 kcal , Carbohydrates: 33 g , Protein: 3 g , Fat: 8 g , Saturated Fat: 5 g , Cholesterol: 47 mg , Sodium: 158 mg , Potassium: 187 mg , Fiber: 1 g , Sugar: 16 g , Vitamin A: 290 IU , Vitamin C: 8.7 mg , Calcium: 45 mg , Iron: 1.2 mg

I'm Maria and my husband is Josh. We share a love of cooking, baking, and entertaining. We enjoy creating recipes that are simple, fresh, and family friendly. We love sitting around the table with good food, good conversation, and good friends and family! Our kitchen is always open!Take your favorite banana bread recipe to new heights with fresh strawberries for a flavorful twist you’ll simply adore. The sweet strawberry glaze on top is—literally—the icing on the cake!

Banana Strawberry Bread Recipe

The theme of this spring’s recipes is red and yellow, apparently. Strawberry + lemon, strawberry + passionfruit, and now, strawberry + banana.

I can’t help it if strawberries are just so darn versatile, it’s one of the reasons they are one of my favorite ingredients to bake with.

I was lucky to get in two good picking sessions this year, though all the rain we’ve had has made the season particularly short (the last time we went, half the fruit in the field was rotten. It was very sad, indeed.). Still, I managed to get 3 good strawberry recipes out of them, which I certainly consider a successful strawberry season!

Easy Strawberry Banana Bread

And actually, make that 4 good recipes, I forgot I’ve got something chilling in the freezer that’ll ultimately work with all different kinds of fruit, not just strawberries, so I’ll be sharing that one later this summer.

While I love baking with fresh strawberries, they are often rather tricky to bake with. Their high water content can leave cakes with an unappetizing gummy texture or soggy pockets surrounding the pieces of fruit.

In this case, however, because the banana bread is so ultra-moist already, that the sogginess is not an issue. If anything, the moisture in the berries contributes to the overall moistness of the banana bread as a whole. Dare I say it may just be the moistest banana bread you’ve ever had (short of underbaking it, that kind of moisture is not what we want here).

The Best Strawberry Banana Bread

I still wanted to draw out some of the moisture in the berries before baking, so I macerated them in a bit of sugar, then dumped them into a sieve to strain out as much liquid as possible. (Macerating is a technique that softens fresh fruit; in this case tossing the strawberries with a bit of sugar helps draw out some of their natural moisture.)

The bonus of this method is you are left with a few tablespoons of extra-flavorful strawberry syrup, which then gets mixed with some powdered sugar and brushed on as a strawberry glaze on the final baked loaf. I’d argue that the bites with a bit of glaze are the best bites of all, the strawberry flavor really pops and compliments the banana perfectly.

As always, when it comes to bananas, the riper the better. I don’t mean just a few brown spots on an otherwise yellow banana peel (though that will work if absolutely necessary, just don’t try to use green bananas or you’ll regret it). Ultra ripe bananas should be almost fully brown, and you should be able to smell their heady fragrance across the room.

The Best Strawberry Banana Bread {paleo, Vegan, Gluten Free}

It’s usually not a problem for me to have extra-ripe bananas (in reality, I only ever think to make banana bread when I misjudged the number of bananas I’d need for the week).

That said, if you are hankering for banana bread but your bananas aren’t quite ripe enough, you can pop them in a paper bag (with an apple if you have one) in a warm spot to encourage them to ripen quicker. I’ve also heard you can roast them in the oven until the peels turn completely black, though I have not tried this myself.

On the other end of the spectrum, if you find yourself with overly ripe bananas and no time to make a batch of bread, you can freeze your bananas to make banana bread later! I recommend taking them out of the peel and mashing them like you would for banana bread (mash about a cup’s worth which is what you need for this recipe), then transfer that to a zip-top bag and freeze (don’t forget to label it with the date and quantity).

Easy Strawberry Bread Recipe

When it comes time to make your banana bread, simply defrost the bag of mashed banana (overnight in the fridge or at room temperature for 2 hours) and then proceed with the recipe as written. While the defrosted frozen banana might seem a bit watery, it’ll still come together beautifully in banana bread, you won’t be able to tell the difference.

Toss strawberries with sugar and let drain in a fine mesh sieve for 30 minutes; save the liquid that drains off (you’ll use this for the glaze later!)

Stir until ingredients are just incorporated and no streaks of dry flour remain (the batter will still be a little bit chunky).

Strawberry Banana Bread (vegan + Gluten Free!)

To create a perfectly centered crack, brush a bench scraper with melted butter or oil and touch the top of the loaf.

The fat should make a clean line right down the center of the loaf; this will help it form an evenly centered crack as it bakes.

A trick I learned when baking loaf cakes and you want to get that perfectly defined crevasse down the center of the loaf: use a bench scraper brushed with fat (oil or melted butter) to imprint a line of fat in the batter down the very center of the pan. As it bakes, this fat will soak into the top of the loaf and produce a perfect split, and also help the loaf rise sky high. You can certainly skip this step, instead your loaf will rise freely and split where it may.

Fudgy Sourdough Banana Bread

Also, I always line my loaf pans with parchment paper. You don’t have to worry about the short sides (just lightly butter those), but then drape an 8.5-inch wide strip of parchment into the pan, covering the bottom and the two long sides with a slight overhang. When the loaf cools, you can then use this overhang to lift the entire loaf out of the pan in one piece.

After draining the berries you should have about 3 tablespoons of strawberry syrup. To this, add 4 to 5 tablespoons of sifted powdered sugar until it forms a brushable consistency.

You can also add more sugar for a thicker glaze that would be more suited to drizzling, but I wanted a thin layer of glaze over the entire cake (even the sides) to maximize the pop of strawberry flavor.

Gluten Free Strawberry Banana Bread Recipe

Brush the glaze over the cake while it is still somewhat warm and it will soak in to the cake and set up into a lovely crystalized outer glaze. If your cake has a deep crevasse in the top like mine, try not to let too much glaze pool in there otherwise it may get soggy in that spot.

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