One day the husband was watching me prep my bananas and was utterly amazed by somewhat interested in my banana cutting skills. Then it hit me that I used to work at an ice cream stand which has made me very proficient in chopping up bananas {you know…for banana splits}. Maybe this is something all of you already know; but I thought if I could help even one person obtain banana prepping skills, I would be achieving the mission of this blog! So read on…
– Start with a whole banana, and cut off the ends.
*I prefer using a paring knife for cutting, but a butter knife will also work.
– Carefully slice the banana skin from one end to the other. Try not to cut into the banana or your fingers.
– Peel off approximately half of the skin.
– Cut the banana in slices, leaving the skin underneath intact.
– Pick up the banana {using the skin} and dump the slices onto a foiled baking sheet. Spread into a single layer.
How easy was that?!?! At first it might seem to go slowly, but trust me you will soon get the hang of this and be a banana slicing master!
– Put the cookie sheet into the freezer until bananas are {mostly} frozen. I aim for an hour, but you can get away with less time if need be. Remove the bananas from the foil and place in a plastic bag labeled with the date.
*The reason you pre-freeze the bananas on the cookie sheet is so they don’t get frozen into one big clump in the bag. It’s a life smoothie saver method for sure!
This can make it more difficult to measure out when a recipe calls for ‘1 banana’ but I haven’t had a problem…just eyeball it!
I’d love to try some of your favorite smoothie recipes – comment below if you have a great one!
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I never thought of cutting up bananas that way. When you read what put it seems to just make sense. I have used other kinds of frozen fruit to make smoothies too. I have also frozen juice in ice cube trays to use for smoothies.
Awesome tips, thanks!!
I’ve been freezing my bananas whole, in the peeling, and it’s super annoying trying to cut the skin off once it’s frozen.
This will be super helpful for making banana “ice cream”, if you’re not familiar with it, you HAVE to try it.
Just blend the frozen bananas (with a touch of milk, to make the blending easier) then you can either eat it as banana flavoured soft serve, or you can refreeze the soft serve and get hard ice cream.
I like to add peanut butter, coco, or berries for added flavour options.
My favourite smoothie has a little bit of kale (about 2 or 3 leaves) a whole lot of spinach (3/4 full), one banana, frozen mangos (about 8-9 chunks), frozen strawberry (10-12 chunks) a little bit of milk (I use flax milk) and a little bit of water. I like my smoothy texture thick, so I just add enough liquid to blend.
cheers
Thanks for the tips! I’ve never had banana ice cream, but I’ve heard of it and am DYING to try it! I’ve never thought of adding peanut butter or chocolate! :-)