Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, No Added Sugar (and still delicious) Banana Bread

One may read gluten-free, dairy-free, no added sugar (and still delicious) banana bread and assume that combination is impossible, but this recipe may surprise you (it certainly surprised me). I saw it on Live with Kelly & Ryan last year when Ryan Seacrest’s girlfriend Shayna made this recipe in a banana bread bake-off. She won the competition and I immediately wanted to try it since it fit all my dietary preferences. The original recipe added a crumble topping, which is included in the link above, but I left that out to avoid buying too many ingredients since I was trying this for the first time. I also left out the unsweetened dark chocolate chips.

I usually don’t make desserts because I try to avoid sugar, but if you don’t want to go through the effort of making this banana bread from scratch, I recommend the Simple Mills Pumpkin Muffin Mix. It’s easy to make and only requires adding eggs, water, and oil to the mixture before baking. You can buy online or at Whole Foods (which is where I buy mine).

Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, No Added Sugar Banana Bread

Shopping List

• 1 cup unsalted almond butter
• 1 cup mashed, very ripe bananas (If you don’t have very ripe bananas you can “ripen” them in the oven in 30 minutes. This link taught me how to do it.)
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree (make sure it is pure pumpkin and does not have any added sugar)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 tablespoon Pumpkin Pie Spice (I bought mine at Trader Joe’s but you can make your own using 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger, and 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
• Unsweetened dark chocolate chips (optional)

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350°
• In a medium bowl, combine all of the ingredients until batter is smooth
• Pour batter into a non-stick bread/loaf pan
• Bake for 30-45 minutes (you can use a toothpick to test if it is done. Stick a toothpick in the center of the bread and if the batter is still wet, it needs more time. If the toothpick is clean, the bread is done!)