This chunky monkey banana bread is super moist and loaded with chocolate chips and walnuts, to give it that extra crunch! Naturally sweetened with over-ripened bananas & maple syrup, it’s a healthy banana bread to enjoy as a snack or for breakfast.

What’s Chunky Monkey?

Classic Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor and one of their most popular. It’s a soft banana ice cream, chocolate chunks and chopped walnuts.

We named this recipe Chunky Monkey Banana Bread, since it features bananas, chocolate and walnuts.

Why We Love this Recipe so Much

Super moist: super soft, it will literally melt in your mouth. We use 3 bananas in this recipe.
Healthy banana bread: since it’s naturally sweetened and you get healthy fats from the nuts. We love to mix all purpose flour with whole wheat flour for a more nourishing banana bread.
Crunchy: thanks to the walnuts!

Overripe Bananas

You’ve probably heard it…The key to a good banana bread is to make sure your bananas are overripe. It has to be dark to get that sweet flavor. Here is some tricks:

Freeze overripe bananas: Freeze your bananas when they have dark spots to have them on hand in the future. To do so, peel each banana and place in an airtight container or ziploc bag. You can also slice the bananas to use in your smoothie recipes as well.
How to ripen bananas? What to do if your bananas are not overripe? You can place them into a paper bag, cover it and leave at room temperature for one day. You can also add an apple to the bag to speed up the process.

Substitutions

Here is how to adapt the recipe with what you have on hand.

Replace maple syrup with honey.
Swap the walnuts for your favorite nuts. Pecans, almonds or pumpkin seeds are also good choices.
Choose and mix flour varieties. I love to use whole-wheat flour, almond flour or brown rice flour. But, you can use what you have in your pantry!
Make it vegan. Swap the eggs with flax eggs. To make a flax egg, combine 1 tablespoon of ground flax seeds with 3 tablespoons of water. Let it sit for 10 minutes.

Pros Tips

Use overripe bananas for texture and to sweeten naturally.
Don’t over mix the batter. We want to make a moist banana bread, so we don’t want to overwork the dough.
Add extra toppings on top: chocolate and walnuts. We also like to add ½ sliced banana.

Freezer-Friendly

Make sure your banana bread has cooled down completely. I like to slice the banana bread before freezing it to have individual portions. Place into a ziploc bag or airtight container and freeze the banana bread slices up to 3 months.

To defrost banana bread, simply remove from the freezer and leave it on the countertop for about 20 to 30 minutes. To speed up the process, you can also microwave for 30 seconds.