Sourdough Banana Bread (With Sourdough Discard)

Are you looking for sweet ways to use up old bananas and sourdough (discard or active)? This classic banana bread recipe is made fabulous with the addition of a healthy long ferment cycle. You can use your favorite sugar and flour and choose to add chocolate chips or other inclusions like dried cranberries. Without further ado, here’s our recipe for sourdough banana bread with active starter or discard.

You can make this sourdough banana bread recipe with sourdough discard or active starter, whichever you have. There’s an option to use baking soda for the final rise if you’re impatient and don’t want to wait for more rise, but it’s not necessary at all.

FYI, this sourdough banana bread recipe is a long-ferment sourdough recipe.

What is Long Ferment Sourdough?

A long ferment sourdough recipe calls for an initial fermentation time of 6-8 hours. All the sourdough recipes on Homestead Lady are long ferment with the exception of our Pumpkin Drop Biscuit Recipe where we use sourdough discard just for flavor.

Long fermentation cycles are used with sourdough to allow time for the starter to consume enough of the sugars in the flour to create a great rise for your recipe. This time also means that the amount of sugar (carbohydrate) in the recipe will reduce by quite a bit since the sourdough eats it up!

Each bubble and blister in your sourdough dough represents one more starter “burp”, the chemical reaction that takes place as the starter eats the sugar. This is what raises the bread and reduces the carb content. (Diabetics and Keto people be advised: sourdough bread still has carbs, just fewer than regular bread.)

I long ferment my sourdough recipes for health reasons, even though we love the flavor and texture of sourdough products and would eat them anyway. 

Sourdough Banana Bread (With Sourdough Discard or Active)

Make this long ferment sourdough banana bread with sourdough discard or active starter, whichever you have on hand. Long ferment this recipe for health benefits and a delicious, finished product. Choose inclusions like chocolate chips, raisins or other dried fruit, or keep it plain. Pick your favorite flour and sugar, and away we go!

You may refrigerate the dough before or after ferment, if you need, FYI.

Few More Sourdough Recipe When You Have Time:

Sourdough Dragon Bread

Mini Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls

Sourdough Pumpkin Cookies

Sourdough Banana Bread Baking Notes

If you decide to use honey in this recipe, reduce to 1 cup and omit the cream/milk. If you need a drop or two of cream to get a workable batter, go ahead.

The moisture content of each banana will be different, so you’ll need to eyeball the finished batter. It should be like thick pancake batter.

Cream and butter will give you the best results, but you can switch out the fat and dairy. For example, you can use melted coconut oil and low-fat milk. I’ve never used non-dairy options, FYI.

Do not overmix this recipe or you will end up with a more bread-y texture. Banana bread is a sweet bread with a spongy, smooth texture in the finished bread. Excessive mixing will encourage more and more gluten bonds that will result in tougher bread texture.

Neither do you want to undermix or you’ll end up with a gummy texture. Don’t stress about it, though, if you’re an anxious sourdough baker!

Simply mix until everything is nicely incorporated and then stop stirring. I always mix this recipe by hand so that I’m more in tune with its texture. (I actually mix all my sourdough recipes by hand, without an electric mixer, for this reason.)

I use my hands to mix the eggs into this recipe because it’s simply easier on my shoulders than using a mixing spoon. (I guess I’m getting old.)

You don’t need to use the baking soda if you have another 1-2 hours to allow the sourdough banana bread dough to rise until it’s about doubled. If you need to bake it right now, use the baking soda.

I don’t think the finished bread is as pretty with baking soda, but I’m extremely and unabashedly biased in favor of pure sourdough products. 

Try to exercise restraint and allow the sourdough banana bread to cool in the pan at least one hour. If you cut into it too soon, it can get a little gummy and flat. 

If you absolutely can’t wait, cut it up in large chunks and cover it with butter. Eat right away!

Sweet Sourdough Breads

People often think that sourdough is only for bread, but in actuality you can make pretty much any dessert with sourdough starter! Sourdough imparts its classic tangy flavor which can be the perfect balance to sweet recipes.

The sugar is sweet breads is a favorite treat of sourdough starter – it likes eating sugar just like we do! In fact, sugar will make the sourdough a little more active.

Can Sourdough Bread Taste Sweet?

Yes, some regular sourdough bread recipes call for a bit of sugar or honey, especially sandwich breads. The American mouth is used to tasting a bit of sweet in their sandwich bread, but the sugar also gives the sourdough a little kick (like downing an energy drink).

For a super simple loaf bread with a slight honey flavor, try our Easy Sourdough Sandwich Bread.

However, you can also use sourdough for sweet breads and desserts that naturally include various amounts of sugar. In our upcoming book, The Weekly Sourdough, we’ve included recipes for delicious desserts like:

• Sourdough Cherry Chocolate Loaf
• Sourdough Brownies & Cookies
• Sourdough Banana Bread – the recipe you’re making today!

Al of these recipes are long-ferment sourdough sweets for those who favor healthier treats.

Can I Make Banana Bread with Sourdough Discard?

Yes! As I mentioned in the recipe, you can make this recipe with active or sourdough discard, also sometimes referred to as unfed starter.

Pretty much any sourdough recipe you have can be make with sourdough discard because active and unfed starter are made from the same ingredients: flour, water, sourdough culture.

The only real difference is that sourdough discard hasn’t been fed recently and active starter has. Unfed starter will be a limp in comparison and not have as many bubbles.

However, once you feed it the flour from the recipe, unfed starter will perk back up and behave just like active starter. You will often need to wait just a bit longer for sourdough discard to raise a bread recipe, but that’s usually the only difference.

Can I Add Sugar to My Sourdough Bread?

Yes, you can add sugar to any sourdough bread recipe. I would start with 1-2 Tablespoons. Experiment with different sugars like honey, raw, sugar, sucanat, and coconut sugar. Each has a unique flavor!

Also be aware that your favorite slightly sweet bread won’t lose their subtlety by converting them to sourdough. One of my favorite slightly sweet breads is brioche.

Brioche is an enriched bread with egg and cream and is, in a word, delicious. Classically light and airy, and so rich you salivate just thinking about it.

I recently converted my favorite brioche recipe to sourdough and was blown away with how light and delicious this  bread was made by the inclusion of sourdough. It also had a very faint hit of sourdough tang which gave depth to the flavors. 

I’ll never make brioche without sourdough again!

Is Sourdough Bread High in Sugar?

If you’re diabetic or Keto and watching every carb, I’m sorry to say that sourdough bread is still bread and does have a higher carb content than spinach.

However, as bread goes, sourdough bread will always be lower carb because the starter actively feeds on the sugars in the starchy grains all during its fermentation cycle, all during its rise time, and even after its been baked. The longer your sourdough has to “chew on” your grain, the lower carb it will be.

If you use whole grain flours, the numbers will improve further. In our article that includes a recipe for Sourdough Spelt Bread, we talk a little about the benefits of spelt as a lower carb flour. Scroll down to the section entitled “Does Spelt Flour Spike Insulin?”

My Daily Sourdough has a great article that I’ve linked is several of our sourdough posts called Is Sourdough Bread Healthy? 9 Reasons It’s Good For You!

Pretty much any ancient grain like Spelt or Einkorn will have fewer carbs, especially if you use the whole grain version of the flour. Although, it’s much more common to use the all-purpose (without the bran) version of these flours.

If you need Einkorn sourdough recipes, including discard ones, a great site is A Modern Homestead. In fact, Victoria has a course on baking sourdough with einkorn flour. She created it because einkorn flour has a really different structure than white and modern wheat flour. It takes some practice to make great sourdough einkorn loaves but you CAN learn it, especially with Victoria’s class!

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