What to cook with bananas: 4 recipes

How to choose and store bananas

Buy bananas at two stages: a few yellow ones for eating now and a few slightly green ones for later in the week. For baking and smoothies, the best bananas are the ones nobody wants to eat any more: deep yellow with plenty of brown spots. They are sweeter, softer and far more fragrant.

Keep bananas at room temperature, away from other fruit if you want them to ripen slowly. Once they are as ripe as you like, the fridge slows them down; the skin darkens but the flesh stays fine. Peeled, sliced and frozen in a bag, overripe bananas wait for months for your next smoothie or bake.

Tips for better banana bakes and smoothies

• Mash with a fork, not a blender. A few small lumps give banana bread a nicer, moister crumb.
• Measure by weight. Bananas vary a lot in size; the recipes give grams, so the batter is never too wet.
• Don't overmix once the flour goes in: stir just until no dry streaks remain.
• Frozen banana makes a thick smoothie without ice; add it straight from the freezer.

If you want less sugar, bananas help: the riper they are, the more you can reduce added sweetener in bakes without noticing much difference.

A banana week: what to cook

• Monday and Thursday: a banana berry smoothie for a fast breakfast.
• Wednesday: healthy banana oat muffins for lunchboxes and snacks.
• Sunday: banana bread with walnuts, sliced for the week ahead.

Round it out with overnight oats topped with banana slices on busy mornings.

Leftovers, kids and budget

Banana bread and muffins freeze beautifully in single slices or pieces; warm them for 20 seconds or toast them. Two lonely bananas at the end of the week are exactly the amount for a smoothie for two.

Children love mashing bananas and stirring muffin batter, and the oat muffins are sweetened only with a little honey and fruit. Bananas are among the cheapest fruits all year, and using up the spotty ones is pure savings.