I don’t live a gluten free lifestyle, but I have friends who do and I’m always looking for alternative recipes to add nutrients to the recipes I love. With that in mind, when I discovered that you could use quinoa flour in baking, I was really excited. This gluten free banana bread is delicious for anyone, but it’s especially great for anyone who’s gluten free because it has the same texture as traditional banana bread. This gluten free banana bread does have a nuttier flavor due to the quinoa, but I actually love it.
As an added bonus, this recipe is packed with protein and fiber, and makes a super filling and delicious breakfast or snack.
NOTE** You can absolutely buy quinoa flour and oat flour, but they can be extremely expensive so I always just start with the whole ingredients and grind them into a flour using my nutribullet. You will get the exact same result if you buy the flour or grind it yourself.
Gluten Free Banana Bread Ingredients
- 3 medium ripe or over-ripe bananas (comes to 1 cup of bananas)
- ¼ cup + 1tbs plain Greek yogurt (I use 2%)
- 1 stick (½ cup) salted butter, melted
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- ¾ cup uncooked quinoa
- 1 cup uncooked rolled oats
- 2 tbs flax seed meal
- 2 tbs cornstarch
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- Additional rolled oats to sprinkle on top (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Start with the dry ingredients. Mix the rolled oats and dry quinoa and grind them in a blender or food processor until they are the consistency of whole wheat flour. I just add the dry quinoa and oats to my nutribullet and blend until they become the consistency of whole wheat flour. Once you have the flour mix, add in the flax meal, cornstarch, baking soda, and baking powder and mix well so that everything is evenly distributed throughout the flour mixture. This is very important.
In the bowl of a standing mixer, mix bananas until they are broken down and mashed up. Add in yogurt, butter, brown sugar, and vanilla bean paste, and mix to combine. You may see some small pieces of banana throughout the mixture, and that’s okay. Next, mix in the eggs, one at a time until everything comes together.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in four batches, mixing until all of the dry ingredients are moistened. You want to make sure that there are no lumps of dry ingredients in the batter. Since you don’t have to worry about overworking the gluten, it’s okay to mix this batter more than usual.
Line a standard loaf pan with parchment paper and spray lightly with cooking spray. Add the gluten free bread batter to the loaf pan, and sprinkle with additional rolled oats if you’re using them. This just creates a pretty topping.
Bake the gluten free banana bread at 350 degrees for one hour until the banana bread is cooked through. I’ve made this recipe over and over again with different flour combinations, and it always takes my bread exactly one hour to cook through. Even if the top looks done ahead of time, I find that it can be gooey in the center if I don’t give it the full hour to cook.
Let it rest in the pan until it’s cool enough to handle, then slice with a serrated knife and serve. This makes 12-15 servings depending on how thick you cut the slices. You can always slice up this gluten free banana bread and freeze the slices in a freezer bag so you can simply pop one in the toaster in the morning when you want a healthy and delicious breakfast.