How to ripen bananas quickly (2024)

FAQs

How to ripen bananas quickly? ›

Store bananas in a warm spot: Try placing your bananas next to a heater or on top of the refrigerator. They'll ripen even faster. Use a paper bag: Place bananas in a brown paper bag and loosely fold over the top. If you have other ripe fruit, like apples or avocados, place them in the bag as well.

As mentioned earlier, bananas produce ethylene gas, which dictates the rate at which the fruit ripens. The more ethylene gas in the air, the faster the fruit will ripen. By placing bananas in a paper bag, the ethylene gas is trapped with the fruit, which will help increase the rate of ripening.

If you need ripe or overripe bananas in a day or two, but going natural won't get you there, Taylor suggests you brown-bag them. She explains that, as bananas mature, they emit ethylene, a gaseous hormone that accelerates ripening.

The banana ripening process can be enhanced using artificial ripening agents such as ethylene gas, ethephon, acetylene (emitted from calcium carbide), ethylene glycol, and alkyl alcohols (containing 6-14 carbon atoms such as lauryl alcohol).

The heat and sun will encourage ripening, but this will take a few days. To cut a day off that ripening time, place the bananas (still in their peels) in a paper bag alone, or along with an apple or two. The bananas will give off ethylene gas, which speeds up the ripening process for bananas, avocados, and other fruit.

Place bananas in warm areas such as near a heater, above your refrigerator, in a sunny spot, or in an oven that's cooling down. In the latter, make sure to check on them frequently. You'll want to pull them out when brown spots begin to form.

The first thing to try is to place them in a paper bag for a day or two to help the process along. This usually does the trick with unripe avocados too. Ripening fruit gives off ethylene gas, and putting the fruit in a paper bag traps the gas near the fruit, causing it to ripen faster.

Wrap the stems with plastic wrap to keep the bananas ripe for longer or to stop them from becoming overripe too quickly. This method slows down the release of ethylene gas, which is responsible for ripening fruits.

Bananas that are stored in plastic bags will ripen faster. Instead, keep your bananas at room temperature in a cool, dark place to be sure they receive fresh, well-ventilated air. Bananas sitting in direct sunlight or near the stove will shrivel up and turn brown at a faster rate.

Cover the stem ends of each banana with plastic wrap or aluminium foil to reduce the release of ethylene gas. Bananas release high amounts of ethylene gas, which accelerates the proces of browning. Thus, to slow it down, separate the bananas from the bunch and then store them.

Why do bananas ripen faster in a plastic bag? ›

Ethylene hacking

Putting ethylene-producing fruits in an enclosed space helps to concentrate the ethylene and speed up ripening. One well-known strategy is to put bananas or avocadoes inside a paper bag to ripen faster.

To prevent your banana slices from browning, you can use the same trick you've seen for apples: acid! Just toss your banana slices in some lemon juice to inhibit enzymatic browning.

Use cotton towels. Cloth towels are a very easy to find item in our kitchen area. A cotton towel or linen cloth can also be used to speed up the ripening of the fruits.

Why do some bananas not ripen? Bananas are picked before ripe, and transported in refrigerated trucks. The refrigeration stops the ripening process completely. Then once they reach their location, in order to start the ripening process back up they are put in a room that is pumped full of ethylene gas.

Bananas will ripen faster in a warm room with sunlight. However, if they are covered, they may not receive enough light to ripen as quickly. Additionally, covering bananas could trap ethylene gas, which can speed up the ripening process, but if the gas is trapped it can lead to over-ripening or spoilage.

Put them in a paper bag with ripe fruit

Place the bananas in a paper bag with your ripe fruit and fold the top of the bag to concentrate that useful ethylene gas. This way, your unripe bananas should go nicely yellow in a day or two.

First, put the banana in a ziploc bag with some rice — jasmine rice is used in the video. Be sure to get all the air out of the bag before sealing it. After leaving the banana in the bag of rice for an hour, use a blowdryer to turn it back to yellow.

The biggest reason for this is bananas release naturally-occuring ethylene gas to stimulate the ripening process. If the plump bananas were picked in a more yellow state, they would be inedible by the time they got to stores. Regardless of when they are picked, bananas release ethylene.