I’ve got some bananas that are at the time-for-banana-bread point of ripeness – but don’t want to make banana bread right now. (I’ve got the tail end of one of my sister’s famous coconut cakes, plus a couple dozen Christmas cookies, to take care of any sweetish baked goods needs I might have.) I could bake the bread and freeze it – but I’d rather freeze the bananas to make the bread with later.
Will that work? If so – do I just peel 'em and freeze 'em whole, or should I pulpify them and freeze that?
I’m not sure about the usage you are wanting, but I know bananas can be frozen and be ok. One of my favorite treats from Dairy Queen as a child was a banana dipped in chocolate and frozen.
Yes, you can. Note, however, that the banana skins will most likely turn black when they’re frozen. This is only a visual affect - the flavor won’t be affected at all. The banana will probably be mushier than you’d expect when you thaw it, but since you’re making banana bread, that shouldn’t be any big deal.
I think some of my cookbooks recommend this very thing to save bananas for later bread-making. I know my college roommate used to freeze bananas often, with no ill effects.
Sorry, didn’t see the last part. When she froze bananas, my roommate would just pop the whole thing in the freezer, skin and all. Then when you thaw it, you’ll peel it (tho’ it’ll be squishy). No need to peel or pulpify beforehand.
Thinking about it, I wonder if the layer of chocolate didn’t “seal” the bananas and help keep them from getting to mushy? Would leaving the peels on do a similar thing maybe?
I cut my bananas in half, core out a bit, warm up some Peanut Butter and squirt it inside with one of those Frosting squeezers, and then Freeze it. YUM!
If they’re going to be used in a recipe, they’ll need to be thawed anyway. Just peel them after they’re thawed. Alternatively, thaw them in the peel, and snip off an end. The banana should be very mushy indeed by this point, and then simply extrude it into the mixing bowl.
I’ve frozen them in the peels, and frozen them in ziplock bags (peeled).
Freezing them in the peel works fine if you are going to use the bananas within a few weeks. Beyond that, they can get a sort of freezer taste. Peeling them and putting them in ziplock bags, removing as much air as possible with a straw, and then freezing them, will allow them to keep perfectly well for a couple of months.
I’m disappointed, twicks, you obviously never watched Arrested Development. Frozen bananas are very tasty and it’s not harmful to the banana flavor if you thaw it out. But don’t freeze them in advance, before they’re ripe. The results are gross.
Seems to be some cross-purpose chat going on here: some of us are talking about frozen bananas, and others are talking about *thawed *bananas. And some of us are taking the question entirely literally: of course you can freeze bananas; you can freeze anything. Just put it in a freezer. The question is what will the consequences be? I mean, you can freeze your pet canary, but will it still sing?
Frozen bananas, as noted, are a frosty treat. Frozen-then-thawed bananas will be too mushy to eat as-is, but will still work perfectly well for baking. Yes, their skins will blacken. Just sticking them in the fridge will accomplish this; remember that a banana is a tropical plant and comes from climates that never see such low temperatures; the species of banana that provides fruit would die if its home climate suddenly became that cold. So while a banana sitting on your table is still alive (till it’s not), stick it in the fridge and it’s dead, and it will begin to decompose. Obviously this is also true if you freeze it.
So freeze to bake, or to dip in chocolate and eat frozen, but not to thaw and snack on . . . unless you like snacking on dead, mushy bananas.
I freeze bananas and then use them to make breakfast smoothies. What I do is I pull the entire frozen banana out of the freezer and then peel the banana with a steak knife. I found this out through trial and error. Then I cut the still frozen banana with a knife and throw them in the blender with some yogurt, sweetener, protein powder and then blend to an icy goodness.
I have vague memories of making banana popsicles: peel the banana, insert a wooden stick into it lengthwise (we used disposable chopsticks), wrap in cling film and freeze.
