Skip to Content

How to Make Banana Bread Without Butter

How to Make Banana Bread Without Butter

Share this post:

This post may contain affiliate links. If you click one of these links and make a purchase, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. In addition, as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Banana Bread is delicious and is a staple around the holidays, and you might love it so much that you want to make it more often.

The problem with this is that you could be trying to eat healthier. For example, you might be trying to eat less butter than usual.

Typically, butter’s used when making banana bread, but can you make it butter-free if you want to?

Read on to find out.

How Important Is Butter in Banana Bread?

Butter plays an important role in getting banana bread to turn out normally. If you don’t use butter or some type of substitute, the texture and the taste of the bread won’t be quite right.

You’ll find that butter helps make banana bread turn out light and fluffy. This is because it has the right leavening ability.

So butter adds to the flavor of the bread while also improving the texture. Failing to use it could lead to the bread turning out far worse than you’d expect.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you have to use butter to make banana bread. There are substitutes that can work fine as well.

Can You Substitute Oil for Butter?

Pouring Vegetable Oil

Yes, you can substitute oil for butter when baking banana bread. This is very easy to do so long as you approach things the right way.

Generally, the recipe will turn out great when you use the right amount of oil. If a recipe calls for one cup of butter you should only use ¾ of a cup of oil.

You don’t need quite as much oil as you do butter. However, there are some exceptions to this rule.

Certain types of oil such as coconut oil can be used as 1:1 replacements for butter. So you would use one cup of coconut oil instead of ¾ of a cup.

So long as you do things right, the recipe will turn out rather tasty. Banana bread that’s made using oil will still be very flavorful.

What Kind of Oil Can You Use?

There are many different types of oil that can be used to make banana bread. You can use vegetable oil to get the job done if that’s all that you have in your pantry.

Otherwise, it’s fine to use other oils such as olive oil, canola oil, or coconut oil. There are various different banana bread recipes out there and some of them recommended different types of oil.

Ideally, you’ll want to seek out a recipe that calls for you to use oil instead of butter. This allows you to get the best results.

You can use a recipe that calls for butter and adapt it to use oil as well. However, most find it easier to just seek out a recipe for banana bread with oil.

Which type of oil you’ll prefer will come down to personal taste. Some people love olive oil the most while others are fine sticking with vegetable oil.

How Much Oil to Use in Banana Bread

The exact amount of oil you should use in banana bread might differ slightly based on the recipe. However, most common recipes call for ½ of a cup of oil.

You can easily get great results with common recipes when using ½ of a cup of vegetable oil or canola oil. Some recipes might call for slightly different amounts, but it’s best to simply follow the recommendations of whatever recipe you’re following.

Following a recipe ensures that you’ll get the right results. Do everything the way that the recipe asks you to do it.

You want to enjoy predictable results when baking banana bread. Once you’ve discovered a favorite recipe or come up with your own, it’ll be fine to do it by memory.

Which Is Better – Oil or Butter?

Oil And Butter

There isn’t a real answer to this question. The truth is that both oil and butter can make excellent banana bread.

Banana bread is delicious whether you use oil or butter to bake it. Both types will turn out well.

Some people are going to prefer banana bread that’s made with butter. It’s true that it’s more common to use butter for banana bread than it is oil.

Even so, there are plenty of oil-based banana bread fans out there. Your preferences will come down to your tastes.

Perhaps you should try both options and taste the difference for yourself to help you formulate an opinion.

Can You Make Banana Bread With No Oil or Butter?

You can make banana bread with no oil or butter. There are recipes that don’t use either to get the job done.

Note that this is a much less common way to make banana bread. Also, the results are going to be fairly different than what you’re used to.

Sometimes people will use other oil substitutes besides butter. For example, there are people who use something like applesauce.

Applesauce works as a 1:1 replacement for vegetable oil. So it can work when baking banana bread, but it’ll alter the flavor of the bread a bit.

You’ll likely be left with far sweeter bread than you expected. Some people love this type of banana bread, though.

Getting Banana Bread Out of the Pan Easier

Banana Bread In A Pan

Sometimes it’s difficult to get banana bread out of the pan. It’s annoying when you have a hard time getting it loose.

You don’t want the loaf to get stuck inside the bread pan. It’d be a shame if the bread pulled apart when you tried to remove it.

Make your life a lot simpler by remembering to grease the pan. Greasing the bread pan with either oil or butter before baking the bread helps substantially.

This will allow you to have an easier time getting the bread out of the pan when everything is finished baking. Allow the bread to cool for ten to fifteen minutes.

Once this amount of time has passed, use a butter knife to pull the bread away from the sides of the pan a bit. It should be easy to turn the bread pan upside down and carefully remove the loaf at this point.

Of course, be careful not to burn yourself, and don’t drop the loaf from a high distance. You want to place it on a serving plate or some other safe surface.

Eat Banana Bread in Moderation

Note that making banana bread with oil instead of butter doesn’t suddenly turn it into a healthy food. Banana bread isn’t the most unhealthy dessert dish that you can make, but it’s still not something you should eat too much of.

Banana bread contains many calories and you don’t want to eat it all the time. It’s important to enjoy it in moderation.

There are many healthy ingredients contained in banana bread, though. So it isn’t as if eating banana bread is all bad for you.

It’s just that eating anything too much will be detrimental. Yes, banana bread is delicious and it’s normal to want to indulge in a few slices.

Eating more than a few slices per day might not be wise, though. So try to hold back a bit and only enjoy it on cheat days when you’re not worried about counting calories.

You can have fun eating banana bread in moderation. It’ll be a good treat for you and your family so long as you don’t enjoy it too often.

Final Thoughts

Now you know that you can make banana bread without butter. Doing so is going to involve using oil, in most cases.

When baking banana bread with oil, you’re generally going to use less of it than you would butter. The easiest way to approach this is to seek out a recipe that calls for oil instead of butter.

This allows you to enjoy predictable results without worrying that you’re doing things wrong. Luckily, oil-based banana bread is popular enough that there are many recipes out there.

You can find various recipes online that you’ll enjoy. Bake your banana bread and enjoy it with your family.

Some people might like banana bread that’s made with oil better than banana bread that’s made with butter. Others will feel the opposite, but it’s up to you to decide what your preferences are.

Try out both and then you can determine which type of bread you’d like to bake moving forward. For some, it might be more practical to use oil, but it’s fine either way you want to approach things.

Share this post: