Baked Bananas with Toasted Coconut

Here’s a quick and simple dessert: maple baked bananas, topped with crunchy toasted coconut. Serve with vanilla Greek yogurt or vanilla ice cream!

Bananas are pretty far from Indiana produce, but in the middle of winter, there’s not much in the way of fresh local fruit. Much as we love working with local produce, we do keep a balance with a little not-so-local as well. So, we hit up some tropical produce to make this delicious baked bananas recipe — and man was it worth it! We topped it with toasted coconut and creamy Greek yogurt.

How to make baked bananas

These baked bananas are delicious and quite easy: it’s truly as simple as making foil packets and throwing them into the oven. Here are the basic steps for how to bake bananas:

1. Preheat the oven to 400F.
2. Slice the bananas in half and in about 3-inch pieces. Place them on a square of aluminum foil. Drizzle with maple syrup, dot with butter, and sprinkle with a little cinnamon.
3. Fold up the aluminum into a packet. Bake for about 12 minutes, until tender.

You can use this loose method anytime you want to make baked bananas — and serve them in whatever way you’d like! See below for some topping ideas.

How to serve baked bananas

In this recipe, we’ve paired the gooey them with some crunchy toasted coconut, which we simply toasted in a dry skillet for a few minutes until browned.

For a creamy element, we mixed up a vanilla Greek yogurt with a little maple syrup and vanilla. Dolloped over the baked bananas, it tastes almost decadent. It’s a great gluten-free choice, and also naturally sweet. For a vegan option, you could use vegan vanilla ice cream or coconut whipped cream! We also have a few great whipped cream recipes that would work well: our Basic Whipped Cream, Yogurt Whipped Cream, or Coconut Whipped Cream.

And of course, what baked bananas wouldn’t taste even better with a drizzle of chocolate? And you could add in crushed pecans, walnuts, or peanuts, and chocolate chips or chocolate shavings. A caramel drizzle would be fabulous as well!

Here’s a make ahead tip: When we prepared the packets for these baked bananas before our guests arrived. Then we threw them in the oven before enjoying them at the end of the meal.

Looking for banana recipes?

Outside of this baked bananas recipe, here are a few of our favorite banana recipes, from breakfast to dessert:

• Bananas Foster with a Perfect Flambé
• Healthy Banana Bread Muffins
• Healthy Banana Bread
• Banana Oatmeal Pancakes
• Easy Chocolate Banana Bread
• Vegan French Toast with Caramelized Bananas
• Berry Banana Ice Cream
• Easy Banana Pancakes with Berries

Looking for easy dessert recipes?

This baked bananas recipe is a truly easy dessert recipe; here are few more of our favorites:

• Bliss Bites (Healthy No-Bake Cookies)
• Chewy Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies
• Favorite Banana Cake
• Granola Instant Pot Apple Crisp
• Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse
• Chewy Cookie Cake Recipe
• Maple Vegan Blondies
• Chocolate Tahini Vegan No Bake Cookies
• Chocolate Cherry Dessert Bites
• Blackberry Vegan Cheesecake Bites
• Fudgy Vegan Brownie Recipe

This baked bananas recipe is…

Vegetarian, gluten-free, refined sugar-free, naturally sweet. For the vegan / plant-based / dairy-free option, use coconut oil and vegan ice cream or coconut whipped cream.

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