This brown butter banana bread with pecans has quickly become a cherished favorite in my kitchen for those easy, cozy weeknight baking sessions. The sheer simplicity of this recipe is a game-changer – all you need is a single bowl and a whisk. You can leave your bulky stand mixer tucked away! While the brown butter undeniably elevates this banana bread to new heights, infusing it with an incredible toasted, nutty flavor, don’t feel intimidated. If you’re short on time or simply not in the mood for an extra step, using plain melted butter will still yield a delicious loaf. However, I highly encourage you to try browning the butter at least once; the depth of flavor it adds is truly unparalleled and transforms a simple banana bread into something extraordinary.

Much like my other beloved banana bread recipes, this brown butter banana nut bread is absolutely bursting with flavor. It owes its delightful warmth to a generous amount of ground cinnamon and its irresistibly moist and tender crumb to the addition of rich sour cream. Every slice offers a perfect balance of sweet banana, aromatic spice, and the satisfying crunch of pecans.

If you find yourself, like me, utterly smitten with the irresistible aroma and flavor of brown butter, then you absolutely must explore my other creations. I particularly recommend trying my Cardamom Almond Cake with Brown Butter for another exquisite brown butter experience.

For those who can’t get enough of ripe bananas, I have a treasure trove of recipes waiting for you! Be sure to check out my One-Bowl Chocolate Chunk Banana Bread, my perfectly portioned Chocolate Chunk Banana Muffins with Oats, and for a show-stopping dessert, my elegant Banana Coffee Cake and decadent Chocolate Chip Banana Bundt Cake!

Why you’ll fall in love with this Banana Bread recipe!

• Effortlessly Easy Recipe: This banana bread is designed for simplicity. The process is straightforward and incredibly rewarding. The most “complex” step is browning the butter, which, I promise, is a technique you’ll master quickly and wonder why you haven’t been doing it for everything! Once that’s done, it’s just a matter of mixing all the ingredients together – truly a beginner-friendly bake that delivers gourmet results.
• Convenient One-Bowl Method: Say goodbye to a sink full of dishes! All the wet and dry ingredients come together seamlessly in a single large mixing bowl. A simple whisk and a rubber spatula are your only required tools, eliminating the need for a bulky stand mixer or even a hand mixer. This makes cleanup a breeze, allowing you to enjoy your delicious creation sooner.
• Explosion of Flavor: Prepare your taste buds for an unforgettable experience. This banana bread is packed with an incredible depth of flavor from multiple sources. The brown butter imparts a rich, nutty, caramelized essence. The crunchy pecans add a delightful texture and earthy note. And the warm cinnamon spice ties everything together, creating a symphony of flavors that evoke serious butter pecan dessert vibes. It’s a comforting, sophisticated flavor profile that stands out from typical banana bread.

Gather Your Essential Ingredients

Achieving the perfect brown butter cinnamon pecan banana bread starts with selecting the right ingredients. Here’s a closer look at what you’ll need and why each component is crucial for the best flavor and texture.

• Overripe Bananas: The star of the show! For the absolute best banana bread, prioritize using very ripe bananas. You’re looking for bananas with abundant brown spots and freckles on their peels. These aren’t just sweeter due to their higher sugar content from enzymatic breakdown, but they’re also incredibly easy to mash, ensuring a smooth batter. Most importantly, deeply ripened bananas provide a much stronger, more intense banana flavor that truly shines through in the final bake.
• Pure Vanilla Extract: A crucial supporting act, a good quality vanilla extract enhances and deepens all the other flavors in the banana bread. It adds a subtle warmth and sweetness, rounding out the overall taste profile.
• Ground Cinnamon: To imbue this banana pecan bread with its desired warm and inviting spice, ground cinnamon is essential. It pairs beautifully with both the banana and brown butter, creating that comforting, aromatic quality that makes this loaf so irresistible.
• Sour Cream: This ingredient is a secret weapon for an exceptionally soft and tender crumb. Thanks to its higher fat content and acidic properties, sour cream contributes significantly to the banana bread’s moisture, preventing it from drying out and ensuring a delightful, melt-in-your-mouth texture. Make sure it’s at room temperature for easier mixing.
• A Blend of Sugars: Using a combination of granulated sugar and light brown sugar is key to achieving the perfect balance of sweetness and texture. Granulated sugar provides crispness and helps with browning, while light brown sugar adds a deeper, molasses-like flavor and contributes to a wonderfully moist and slightly chewy texture.
• Unsalted Butter: For optimal control over the salt content in your baking, I always recommend using unsalted butter. This allows you to precisely measure and adjust the amount of kosher salt, ensuring your banana bread isn’t too salty or bland. This butter will also be browned, creating a richer flavor foundation.
• Pecans: These provide the delightful crunch and nutty flavor that defines this recipe. While you’ll chop most of your pecans to distribute throughout the batter, save a few whole pecan halves. These can be beautifully arranged on top of the bread just before baking for an appealing visual and extra textural interest.
• Kosher Salt: In all my baking, I exclusively use kosher salt over standard table salt or fine sea salt. Specifically, I highly recommend Diamond Crystal kosher salt for its flaky texture and less aggressive salinity. Be mindful that Morton Kosher salt has a different crystal structure and is much saltier by volume, so if you’re using Morton, you’ll need to adjust (halve the amount) to prevent your bread from becoming overly salty.

Simple Substitutions & Creative Additions

While this recipe is perfect as is, it’s also incredibly versatile! Feel free to customize it to your taste or what you have on hand. Here are some easy substitutions and delicious additions to experiment with:

• Nut Swaps: Not a fan of pecans, or simply don’t have them? No problem! You can easily swap out pecans for other nuts like crunchy hazelnuts, which offer a slightly sweeter, rounder flavor, or classic walnuts, which provide a more robust, earthy note. Toasting them lightly before adding can enhance their flavor even further.
• Chocolate Chips: Elevate your banana bread with a touch of chocolate! Feel free to stir in about ½ to 1 cup of mini chocolate chips or semisweet chocolate chips into the batter along with the pecans. This addition creates a delightful Chocolate Chip Pecan Banana Bread, adding pockets of gooey sweetness that complement the nutty flavors beautifully. Dark chocolate chunks would also be a fantastic option for a more intense chocolate experience.
• Dried Fruits: For a different kind of sweetness and chewiness, consider adding ½ cup of dried cranberries, raisins, or even chopped dried apricots. These can add a lovely tartness or a different textural element.
• Spice Variations: While cinnamon is wonderful, you could add a pinch of nutmeg, allspice, or even a tiny amount of ground cloves for a more complex spice profile, especially during the fall season.

1. Step 1: The Magic of Brown Butter. Begin by browning your butter. Place the unsalted butter in a medium-sized, light-bottomed saucepan on the stove over medium-low heat. As the butter melts, stir it occasionally with a heat-proof rubber spatula. Initially, it will foam, then subside, and you’ll start to notice small milk solids forming and collecting at the bottom of the pan. Continue to cook, stirring gently, until these milk solids turn a beautiful golden brown color and the butter emits a rich, nutty, and toasted aroma. This transformation should take around 5-8 minutes. Immediately pour the browned butter, including all the golden bits, into a large heat-proof mixing bowl and set it aside to cool completely for about 10-15 minutes. This cooling period is crucial to prevent scrambling the eggs in the next step.

2. Step 2: Prepare Wet Ingredients & Oven. While your browned butter is cooling, preheat your oven to 350°Fahrenheit (175°Celsius) and adjust an oven rack to the middle position. Prepare a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan by greasing it thoroughly and lining it with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on the sides for easy removal later. Once the browned butter has cooled to a lukewarm temperature (it shouldn’t be hot enough to cook the eggs), add both the granulated sugar and light brown sugar to the bowl. Whisk vigorously to combine them thoroughly with the butter. Next, add the mashed ripe bananas, eggs (ensure they are at room temperature), sour cream (also at room temperature for smooth mixing), and vanilla extract. Whisk all these wet ingredients until they are well combined and relatively smooth. A few small lumps from the mashed banana are perfectly normal and add to the bread’s rustic charm.

3. Step 3: Incorporate Dry Ingredients. To the wet ingredients in your large bowl, add the all-purpose flour, baking soda, kosher salt, and ground cinnamon. Switch from the whisk to a rubber spatula for this step. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet mixture until they are just combined. Be careful not to overmix the batter; overmixing can develop the gluten in the flour, leading to a tough and chewy banana bread instead of a tender one. Stop mixing as soon as no pockets of dry flour remain.

4. Step 4: Fold in Pecans. Gently stir in your roughly chopped pecans into the banana bread batter. Ensure they are evenly distributed throughout the mixture. The pecans add a wonderful textural contrast and a rich, nutty flavor that complements the brown butter and cinnamon perfectly.

5. Step 5: Fill Loaf Pan & Top. Carefully pour the prepared banana bread batter into your greased and lined loaf pan. Use your spatula to spread it evenly into the corners. If you wish, arrange additional whole pecans on top of the batter before baking. This not only adds visual appeal but also provides an extra layer of crunch and nutty flavor on the crust.

6. Step 6: Bake to Golden Perfection. Place the loaf pan in the preheated oven and bake for approximately 55-65 minutes. Baking times can vary, so the best way to determine doneness is to insert a wooden skewer or toothpick into the center of the loaf. It should come out with just a few moist crumbs attached, but not wet batter. If the top of your banana bread starts to brown too quickly before the center is cooked through, loosely tent it with aluminum foil to prevent further browning. Once baked, remove the pan from the oven and let the banana bread cool in the pan for about 10-15 minutes before carefully lifting it out using the parchment paper overhang. Transfer it to a wire rack to cool completely before slicing and enjoying.

Expert Baking Tips for Success

Achieving bakery-quality banana bread at home is simple with these helpful tips:

• Prevent Over-Browning: If you notice the top of your banana bread is becoming too dark during baking, but the center is still not cooked, simply create a loose tent with a piece of aluminum foil over the loaf. This will shield the top from direct heat, preventing further browning while allowing the inside to continue baking evenly.
• Skipping Brown Butter (with a Pro Tip): While browning the butter adds an unparalleled depth of flavor, if you’re truly pressed for time or prefer a simpler approach, you can certainly just use melted butter instead. However, a small adjustment can improve results: when browning butter, approximately 10-20% of its water content evaporates. To account for this moisture loss if using melted butter directly, consider using slightly less butter (around 90 grams instead of the 113 grams or ½ cup called for) to maintain a similar consistency in your batter.
• The Power of Over-Ripe Bananas: I know the temptation to bake banana bread immediately, but patience is a virtue here! Trust me, it is absolutely worth waiting for your bananas to be perfectly ripe—those with abundant brown spots and freckles. Not only are these bananas significantly sweeter, naturally enhancing the bread’s flavor, but their softer texture makes them incredibly easy to mash, resulting in a smoother, more consistent batter. Crucially, very ripe bananas contribute a much stronger, more pronounced banana flavor and contribute significantly to the bread’s moistness.
• Efficient Banana Mashing: My preferred tool for quickly and effectively mashing bananas is a potato masher. It gets the job done in minutes, creating the ideal consistency for banana bread batter – a mix of smooth puree with a few desirable small lumps. If you don’t have a potato masher, a sturdy fork will work just as well, requiring a bit more elbow grease.

Storage & Freezing Instructions

To keep your brown butter cinnamon pecan banana bread fresh and delicious, proper storage is key. Here’s how to ensure it lasts as long as possible:

Once your banana bread has cooled completely to room temperature, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap or store it in an airtight container. It will stay wonderfully fresh at room temperature for 1-2 days, perfect for quick breakfasts or snacks. For extended freshness, you can store it in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Chilling tends to firm up the texture slightly, but a quick warm-up in the microwave can restore its tender, moist quality.

For longer-term enjoyment, this banana bread freezes beautifully. To freeze, slice the cooled loaf into individual portions. Wrap each slice tightly in plastic wrap, then place the wrapped slices into a large freezer-safe ziplock bag or an airtight container. This double layer of protection helps prevent freezer burn. Your banana bread can be stored in the freezer for up to 2 months. When you’re ready to enjoy a slice, simply transfer it from the freezer to the refrigerator to thaw overnight. You can then gently warm it in the microwave or a toaster oven for that freshly baked taste and texture.

Expand Your Baking Repertoire: More Delicious Bread Recipes!

If you loved this brown butter cinnamon pecan banana bread, you’ll surely enjoy these other comforting and easy-to-make bread recipes from my collection:

If you’ve made this incredibly delicious recipe, I would absolutely love to hear from you! Please make sure to leave a ⭐️ rating and a thoughtful review below! Your feedback helps other bakers, and it brings me so much joy to see your creations. So, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram @alpineella so I can admire what you’ve made! You can also stay updated on my latest recipes and baking adventures by following along on Pinterest, Facebook, and TikTok!

Brown Butter Cinnamon Pecan Banana Bread (One Bowl)

Ella Gilbert

Nutrition