A ripe banana can be a thing of beauty. Sweet on the inside, a ripe banana can be enjoyed as a healthy snack or transformed into a tasty baked good. On the flip side, an unripe banana can taste bland, and it's not ideal if you're looking to make banana muffins or banana bread. Luckily, there are several ways to ripen bananas quickly. Whether you want to ripen it in five minutes or overnight, we'll break it down so you know how to ripen a banana the next time you're faced with a green bunch.
What Causes Bananas to Ripen?
Bananas are a climacteric fruit, meaning they ripen after they are picked from the plant. Bananas produce high amounts of ethylene gas, a plant hormone that regulates growth and development. On the inside of the fruit, ethylene gas works to convert the banana's starches into sugars while the exterior turns from green to yellow. That's why an unripe banana is mild in flavor while a ripe banana is sweeter. Fortunately, when you have unripe fruit, you can manipulate the banana's ripening process to speed it up.
What Happens to Your Body When You Eat Bananas Every Day
There are several methods for ripening bananas. While all of them work well to ripen the fruit, some methods are better for baking. These two methods will produce a softer, mushier banana, perfect for mashing and incorporating into a batter, but not ideal for snacking.
How to Ripen Bananas in the Oven
Preheat oven to 300°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Place unpeeled bananas on the prepared baking sheet, leaving space in between. Be sure to remove any produce stickers before baking.
Bake until the banana peels are black and the fruit is soft, 15 to 30 minutes. Let cool slightly before scooping out the flesh.
The bake time in this method will vary depending on the ripeness of your bananas before they enter the oven. You can easily adjust the time as needed. Just be sure to keep an eye on the color of the peel, as that will be the easiest way to tell when they are done.
How to Ripen Bananas in the Microwave
Rinse bananas with water. Pierce unpeeled bananas all over with a fork. Place on a microwave-safe plate and microwave on High in 30-second intervals until the bananas are soft. Let cool slightly before scooping out the flesh.
Ripening bananas in the microwave is a quick process, ideal if you only have five minutes. It's important to pierce the peel with a fork or else the banana may explode and make a mess in the microwave.
These methods take longer to produce ripe fruit, either overnight or a few days. But they're ideal for helping the bananas retain their soft but firm texture, ideal for snacking and enjoying as is or slicing and adding to your morning oatmeal or smoothie bowl.
How to Ripen Bananas in a Paper Bag
Place bananas in a paper bag. Fold the top over to close. Leave at room temperature on the counter to ripen, checking every day until they've reached the desired level of ripeness.
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. To speed things up even further, you can place another high ethylene-producing fruit, like an apple or tomato, in the bag with the bananas.
How to Ripen Bananas in a Warm Spot
Place bananas in a warm area, such as on the windowsill or on the top of the refrigerator. Leave in the warm spot to ripen.
Placing bananas in a warm environment encourages ripening. This method can vary in time; the bananas can take as little as one day to ripen or as many as five days, depending on how green they were to start.
How to Store Ripe Bananas
If your bananas are ripe—but you're not quite ready to use them yet—there are a few ways to preserve their peak ripeness. Place unpeeled bananas in the fridge. The cool environment will slow down the ripening process. This method is ideal if you plan to use the bananas within a few days.
If you're wanting a long-term storage solution, place unpeeled bananas in a freezer-safe bag and store in the freezer. Frozen bananas can last up to three months in the freezer. When you're ready to use, simply defrost the banana in the refrigerator. This method is ideal if you want to keep ripe bananas on hand for baking. You can also use frozen bananas in smoothies. In that scenario, peel and slice the bananas before storing, as it'll be easier to grab just the amount you want. For smoothies, there's no need to defrost the frozen fruit before using.
She suggests placing whole, unpeeled bananas on a sheet pan and baking them at 300°F for 1 hour. Since the bananas may leak, line the baking pan with parchment or silicone for easy cleanup. This fast banana ripening technique turns the peel black, but the inside comes out soft, sweet, and delicious.
Place the unripe bananas in a bag (a brown paper bag, plastic bag, etc) along with a high-ethylene-producing fruit, such as a ripe banana or apple. Loosely fold the paper bag closed and let the ethylene gas from the fruit encourage the banana to ripen.
When bananas are ripening, they release carbon dioxide, which will build up in a ripening room. The CO2 production begins as the fruit ripens enters the “climacteric” phase, or the period when bananas release ethylene and and have an elevated rate of respiration (along with a great deal of other physiological changes).
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.
How to Ripen Bananas in 15 Minutes. If you need ripe bananas right away to make that loaf of banana bread you promised you'd bring to book club, you can do it right in the oven. Place unpeeled bananas on a baking sheet and warm in a 250ºF oven for 15 to 20 minutes.
To help bananas ripen faster, place them in a paper bag where the ethylene gas can accumulate. Fold or clip the top of the bag shut, which will seal the ethylene inside. You can also speed things up by adding a ripe apple, tomato, or other ethylene-producing fruit to the bag.
If, for some reason, your bananas don't get exposed to enough ethylene gas, the ripening process never starts back up and they stay green and hard, and slowly become dry and wood-like.
Banana ripening starts with a full green fruit (stage 1 in Fig. 1a), pale green (stages 2), green yellow (stage 3), yellow with green tips (stage 4), bright yellow (stage 5), pale yellow (stage 6) and yellow with brown spots (stage 7) (Fig. 1a).
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.
In order to speed up the ripening process, all you need to do is trap the ethene gas in with the banana by putting them in a paper bag – fruit gives off moisture, so you must use a bag that won't trap moisture. Ripening in a bag usually takes a day or so, but can be as speedy as overnight – just keep checking.
You can take advantage of ethylene's ripening properties at home by putting your banana into a closed paper bag; the paper will trap ethylene while letting in enough oxygen to help move the process along. For even faster ripening, add an apple, pear, apricot, or avocado — they also release ethylene.
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.
Ripening bananas in the oven will take an hour and is the best option if you are using the bananas the same day. Place unpeeled bananas on a baking sheet. Bake at 300°F for 15-30 minutes, or until the skin turns black and the bananas are soft. Let bananas cool before peeling and scooping out the fruit.
This is the low-effort trick for you: Storing your bananas in a paper bag traps the fruits' naturally occurring ethylene gas, which expedites the ripening process. (Note that our colleagues at Epicurious found that storing bananas in a plastic bag had the opposite effect, prolonging the fruits' ripening.)
When stored in a paper bag—like a brown paper lunch bag or paper grocery bag—ethylene concentrations increase, so the ripening process goes quicker. Paper also allows oxygen to enter, which is another requirement for ripening.
By putting them inside a bag, the concentration of ethylene increases, which accelerates ripening. Other fruits also produce ethylene. This is the case with apples and tomatoes, which can be put in the bag along with the bananas to speed things up.
Address: Apt. 935 264 Abshire Canyon, South Nerissachester, NM 01800
Phone: +9752624861224
Job: Forward Technology Assistant
Hobby: Listening to music, Shopping, Vacation, Baton twirling, Flower arranging, Blacksmithing, Do it yourself
Introduction: My name is Nathanial Hackett, I am a lovely, curious, smiling, lively, thoughtful, courageous, lively person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/How-to-Ripen-Bananas-01-6cefae0d188145db979aeb1a3a81d319.jpg "How to Ripen Bananas (1)")
