Pecan Banana Bread Recipe (Moist & Crunchy)

This pecan banana bread recipe will help you to create a delicious banana bread stuffed with ripe bananas & crunchy pecans. My family likes this recipe because it is a nice change of pace from “regular” banana bread… and because they love pecans!

Delicious & Nutty Interior of Pecan Banana Bread

Since this banana bread contains pecans, please do not serve it to anyone with a nut allergy.

This banana bread with pecans recipe should take you roughly 10 minutes to prepare and clean up. Please be aware that this is an oven-baked banana bread recipe. It is not made with a bread machine. You will find a printable and “pin-able” recipe at the bottom of this page.

Recipe Sections

• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Helpful Tips

Pecan Banana Bread Fresh From The Oven

Ingredients

• 1/2 Cup – Vegetable Oil – 115 milliliters – 1/2 cup equals 8 tablespoons
• 2 Large Eggs
• 1 1/2 Cups – Mashed Bananas – 345 grams – Roughly 2 1/2 – 3 large & RIPE bananas
• 1 Teaspoon – Vanilla Extract – 5 milliliters
• 2 Cups – All Purpose Flour – 240 grams
• 1/2 Cup – White Granulated Sugar – 100 grams
• 1/2 Cup – Light Brown Sugar (packed) – 107 grams
• 1 Teaspoon – Baking Soda – 5 milliliters
• 1 Teaspoon – Baking Powder – 5 milliliters
• 1/2 Teaspoon – Salt – 2.5 milliliters
• 1 Cup – Chopped Pecans – 115 grams – 3/4 cup mixed into batter & 1/4 cup sprinkled on top of batter

Servings – Roughly 12 slices

Equipment Needed – Measuring cup & spoons, mixing bowl, long wooden spoon, 9 by 5 bread pan, oven mitts, silicon spatula, cooling rack and an oven.

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Sprinkle 1/4 Cup Of Chopped Pecans On Top Of Batter

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
• Mash bananas with a fork.
• Lightly beat eggs.
• Stir eggs, mashed bananas, vegetable oil and vanilla extract together in a large bowl.
• In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients (except chopped pecans) together. This helps to evenly spread out the dry ingredients (i.e. baking soda & sugar). Optional – If you have a whisk, use it to mix the dry ingredients because a whisk is better at breaking up any small flour and brown sugar lumps.
• Pour the mixed dry ingredients (except the chopped pecans) into the bowl containing the wet ingredients. Stir with a large spoon until the batter is fully mixed.
• Add 3/4 cup of chopped pecans to the batter (and save the remaining 1/4 cup of pecans for later). Stir until the pecans are evenly mixed throughout the batter.
• Pour the finished batter into a nonstick bread pan. Smooth out the top of the batter within the bread pan.
• Sprinkle the remaining chopped pecans (1/4 cup) on top of the batter within the bread pan.
• Bake in the oven for 65-70 minutes or until golden brown.
• Take out of oven and let the banana bread cool down in the bread pan for 10 minutes. Do not remove the banana bread from the bread pan during this 10 minute cool down period. Use oven mitts as the bread pan will be very hot coming out of the oven.
• After 10 minutes, remove the banana bread from the bread pan. Place the banana bread on a cooling rack in order to completely cool. This cool down may take 1-2 hours. Gently slide a silicon spatula between the banana bread and the bread pan walls if the banana bread is stuck in the pan.
• Please read Bread Dad’s tips section below for extra information on how to make this recipe successfully & to avoid common banana bread problems.

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Key Ingredient – Chopped Pecans

Helpful Tips – Pecan Banana Bread Recipe

• The tips below are designed to help banana bread “novices” and/or people with limited baking experience. This recipe results in a moist banana bread with pecans (that also has lots of banana flavor).
• Since this recipe contains pecans, please make sure that anyone eating this banana bread does not have a peanut/tree nut allergy. Do not serve to anyone with peanut/tree nut allergies.
• Click on our “print recipe” link if you want to print out this recipe. It includes all of the recipe’s ingredients and instructions. However, the recipe print function does not include our tips section. Please read the tips section in order to avoid common recipe problems.
• This recipe is part of Bread Dad’s series on easy Banana Bread Recipes.
• If you like banana nut breads, you might also like to try our Almond Banana Bread, Chocolate Chip Walnut Banana Bread, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Banana Bread, Sour Cream Banana Nut Bread, Walnut Banana Bread and Walnut Banana Muffin recipes.

• Use RIPE bananas for the best results!! If you use unripe green or hard yellow bananas, your banana bread will come out bland (with little banana flavor). Unripe bananas have more starch and less sugar than ripe bananas. The natural sweetness of ripe bananas works best when making banana bread recipes. Ripe bananas are soft and have small brown & black spots on the exterior of the yellow banana peel.
• Use FRESH pecans. After you have opened a bag of chopped pecans, the pecans can go rancid (bad) quickly due to their high oil content. Once the pecan package has been opened, you should store the chopped pecans in an airtight container in your refrigerator or freezer. Do not use old pecans that have been sitting in your pantry in an already opened bag. For more information on pecan storage, you should read this U.S. Pecan Growers Council article on pecan handling and storage.

• Aim for the 1 1/2 cups of mashed bananas. If you don’t have enough mashed bananas to equal the recipe’s called for 1 1/2 cups of mashed bananas, you can add a little milk until the combined mashed bananas & milk equals the required 1 1/2 cups. If you are under the 1 1/2 cups, the banana bread might be too dry. If you are over the 1 1/2 cups then the banana bread might be too moist and come out undercooked. If you have extra mashed bananas (beyond the 1 1/2 cups), you can freeze the extra mashed bananas… and save it for a future Bread Dad banana bread recipe!
• You should use a “neutral” flavored vegetable oil (i.e. canola oil or corn oil) so it does not interfere with the banana & pecan flavors.
• Optional – If you do not have vegetable oil or want a more buttery flavored pecan banana bread, you can replace the vegetable oil with unsalted butter (but it should be softened in your microwave before using). I prefer to use vegetable oil for this recipe because it seems to result in a moister pecan banana bread (as oil stays liquid at room temperature).
• Optional – If you don’t have enough chopped pecans, you can easily replace them with chopped walnuts, chopped peanuts, etc. Or you can make your banana pecan bread with a blend of your favorite chopped nuts (i.e. a delicious pecan walnut banana bread).

• Optional – You can easily make fun & delicious variations of this banana bread with pecans by switching out 50% of the pecans and adding fresh cranberries, chocolate chips, fresh blueberries, etc.
• Optional – If you want a “softer” interior (non-crunchy interior), you can add the pecans only to the top of the pecan banana bread.
• As you probably know, this banana bread with pecans is a type of “quick bread”. Quick breads use faster rising baking soda and/or baking powder (versus slower rising bread yeast). This often results in a delicious muffin-like “bread” that rises & bakes more quickly than a sandwich-type bread that uses yeast.
• Here are some interesting pecan facts… According to Wikipedia, “The pecan (Carya illinoinensis) is a species of hickory native to the southern United States and northern Mexico in the region of the Mississippi River”. Moreover, the “seeds of the pecan are edible, with a rich, buttery flavor. They can be eaten fresh or used in cooking, particularly in sweet desserts, such as pecan pie, a traditional Southern U.S. dish. Butter pecan is also a common flavor in cookies, cakes, and ice creams”.

• Wikipedia also states that pecans are “a rich source (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of total fat, protein, dietary fiber (38% DV), manganese (214% DV), magnesium (34% DV), phosphorus (40% DV), zinc (48% DV), and thiamin (57% DV)”.
• Use FRESH ingredients (i.e. baking soda and flour) for the best results. For example, if you use stale baking soda and/or baking powder, your banana bread will not rise properly and will be too dense. Baking soda & powder is best if used within 6 months of opening the container. Using baking soda from an open container (that has been deodorizing your refrigerator for months) may lead to subpar results. Old & hard baking soda/powder may lead to rising problems and/or leave small bitter clumps in your banana bread.
• This doesn’t happen often but if the top of the banana bread looks too moist or under cooked, you should try the “toothpick test”. Gently push a wooden toothpick or wooden skewer into the top of the bread and see if any batter sticks to the toothpick. If batter is sticking to the toothpick then it hasn’t completely cooked. Place the bread pan back into the still hot oven for another 3 to 5 minutes. Make sure to wear oven gloves because the bread pan will be very hot. After the 3 to 5 minutes, remove the bread pan and test the banana bread again with a toothpick.

• Do not skip the 10 minute “cool down” (where the banana pecan bread stays in the bread pan after being removed from the oven). This helps to finish the baking process and makes the banana bread easier to remove without breaking.
• Optional – To prevent the pecan banana bread from sticking to the bottom of the bread pan, you should consider either “greasing” the bottom of the pan with butter or vegetable oil, using a cooking spray, using a nonstick pan or lining the interior of the bread pan with baking parchment paper.
• However, don’t grease the bread pan near the top of the pan. There will be nothing for batter to cling to as it rises. This could cause the bread top to collapse as it rises.
• Please use the suggested 9 x 5 bread pan to make this recipe. If you start using different sized pans, there is a greater potential for bread top collapses (potentially less bread pan “wall” support for the quick bread as it rises), different interior batter to exterior bread ratios (thus the need for different baking lengths), smaller pans are more likely to overflow, etc.
• Optional – If you are finding small white clumps of flour in your banana breads, you can use a fine mesh strainer or flour sifter to sift your flour (before mixing the flour with the wet ingredients). This “aerates” the flour and breaks up & screens out small flour lumps.

• If your oven does not have a built-in thermometer, you can buy an inexpensive oven thermometer that you can place inside your oven (in order to correctly gauge the temperature). Moreover, some built-in oven gauges can be 25-50 degrees different than the actual temperature inside the oven. For the best results, you should know the actual temperature inside your oven (as this reduces the potential for over or under cooked baked products).
• Make sure that your oven has been completely preheated. If the oven has not been properly preheated, this quick bread could come out undercooked. Use a portable oven thermometer to check the interior oven temperature.
• If you have a problem with a banana bread recipe, please make sure that you are following the recipe exactly (i.e. using the correct oven temperature), using the correct amounts of ingredients (i.e. don’t eyeball the measurements versus using a measuring cup or accidentally add a tablespoon when a teaspoon is called for), using the correct ingredients (i.e. baking soda/powder versus yeast or all purpose flour versus bread flour), etc. Please don’t “wing” things with recipes.

• My recipes are based on US ingredient measurements (i.e. US cups & tablespoons). However, as a courtesy to our European visitors, I have also included some very ROUGH European equivalents (i.e. grams & milliliters). Since I rarely use European measurements when baking, please let me know in the comment section below if any of the European ingredient measurements need to be changed (i.e. for XYZ ingredient, milliliters are more commonly used versus the grams information listed in the recipe).
• Be safe! Nuts can be a potential choking hazard. Do not serve food with nuts to young children.
• Always wear oven mitts/gloves when dealing with a hot oven and bread pan.
• For more banana bread ideas (i.e. chocolate chip banana bread, vegan banana bread or blueberry banana bread), please visit Bread Dad’s main Banana Bread Recipes section.

If you liked this recipe, please leave a comment below & give us a 5 star rating. We LOVE to hear from people who have enjoyed our recipes!! Jump to comment section

Other Bread Dad Sections

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• Bread Machines – My favorites
• Bread Making Books
• Bread & Dessert Mixes
• Ingredients, Sandwich Books, etc.

Banana Bread with Pecan – Common Questions & Answers

Are pecan and walnuts the same?

Pecans and walnuts are not the same type of tree nut. Pecans tend to be smaller, darker in color & sweeter than walnuts. Walnuts tend to be larger and a little more bitter than pecans. Pecan are grown primarily in the southern United States and Mexico. In contrast, walnuts are grown around the world with commercial production coming mainly from China, the United States, Iran and Turkey.

How much pecans to add to banana bread?

The amount of pecans to add to your banana bread depends on how much you love pecans. You can add a little or a lot to your banana bread. This recipe uses 1 cup of pecans so the pecans do not overwhelm the banana flavor but you still have enough pecans to create a nice “crunchy” banana nut bread. Some bakers like to sprinkle the pecans only on top of the banana bread and do not mix any pecans into the banana bread interior. If you follow this type of variation, you only need 1/4-1/2 cup of pecans to sprinkle on top of the banana bread batter.

Reference Sources

• Wikipedia, Banana Bread
• Wikipedia, Pecan
• Wikipedia, Walnut
• U.S. Pecan Growers Council, Pecan Handling and Storage

Your fantastic comments motivate us to write more easy & delicious recipes. Also beginning bakers learn a ton from your helpful suggestions, tips and amazing recipe variations.

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• Vegan Banana Bread
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