The 6 Best Banana Bread Mixes, All of Which Are Legitimately B-A-N-A-N-A-S
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Banana bread is often an exercise in patience: You buy ingredients in advance, waiting days for bananas to brown—and hoping your family doesn’t gobble them all up beforehand. When the moment is right, you have to pounce quickly, baking up a loaf before that fruit starts attracting flies. But you can have homemade banana bread practically on demand; several brands sell box mixes made with dried bananas, so you don’t even have to provide your own.
Of course, you may be wondering, could they possibly taste as good as my go-to recipe? And which is the best banana bread mix out there? We were too, which is why we put them to the test in our latest PureWow100 series.
The Best Banana Bread Mixes, At a Glance:
Scroll down for in-depth reviews of each.
Methodology:
Each banana bread was blind-tasted by three people, who judged it on overall flavor, aroma and texture (including how close it tasted to homemade). We followed the package’s instructions to a T, making muffins only when the mix didn’t offer directions for preparing them in a loaf pan. To that end, we noted how involved each process was, how easy the instructions were to follow and just how much easier the box mix was to make versus preparing banana bread from scratch (because, let’s face it: It’s one of the easier desserts to make).
The Best Banana Bread Mixes of 2023:
- Value: 19/20
- Quality: 19/20
- Ease of Use: 20/20
- Flavor: 18/20
- Texture: 18/20
TOTAL: 94/100
We’ve all tried protein baking mixes that taste gritty. Not so with this surprisingly light, airy mix. Nobody could guess these muffins contain a whopping 12 grams of protein per serving, and across the board, it received highest marks for tasting closest to from-scratch. There was light banana flavor, but it wasn’t the overwhelming, banana Runts taste some mixes had (which, BTW, those blends were not included in this feature, since we’re highlighting only the best).
- Value: 19/20
- Quality: 16/20
- Ease of Use: 20/20
- Flavor: 17/20
- Texture: 18/20
TOTAL: 90/100
If you live by yourself or with a roommate, you don’t want to whip up two dozen muffins. How about six? That’s exactly how many each just-add-milk Martha White mix makes, resulting in a cupcake-like, more vanilla-forward muffin that’s studded with chocolate chips. At $1 a pouch, the price is hard to beat, and it makes for a great dorm care package. Just sayin’.
- Value: 18/20
- Quality: 17/20
- Ease of Use: 19/20
- Flavor: 16/20
- Texture: 18/20
TOTAL: 88/100
When you want banana bread now, this is the mix to seek out. It’s available at most major grocery stores and it’s incredibly easy to use. (Plus, you can make a loaf or muffins, and it’s a solid base for all kinds of mix-ins, so bring on the chocolate chips.) Some tasters noted that it had more of an artificial banana flavor—though the box notes it features real banana—than other mixes, but otherwise, it was a hit.
- Value: 16/20
- Quality: 20/20
- Ease of Use: 19/20
- Flavor: 19/20
- Texture: 19/20
TOTAL: 93/100
Nobody knows the challenge of finding perfectly browned bananas like Chrissy Teigen (remember her 2017 Twitter saga?). Well, the cookbook author developed a mix based on her famous recipe—which thankfully doesn’t require you to trade anyone’s boxers for bananas. It features the dark chocolate chunks and unsweetened coconut, like her actual recipe, and tastes every bit as amazing. Taste testers raved about the hint of coconut and how the ribbons of chocolate infused the ultra-moist cake. It’s a pricier box mix option, but the unique flavor made it worthwhile in our book, especially considering the price of quality dark chocolate.
- Value: 17/20
- Quality: 20/20
- Ease of Use: 19/20
- Flavor: 17/20
- Texture: 18/20
TOTAL: 91/100
It’s gluten-free! It’s Paleo-friendly! It’s non-GMO Project verified! You can feel good about eating Simple Mills’s banana bread, which features a straightforward list of ingredients. Organic cinnamon gives this bread a more robust, complex flavor than some of the other mixes on the list, and tasters loved that the bread was dense and hearty without weighing them down.
- Value: 16/20
- Quality: 20/20
- Ease of Use: 17/20
- Flavor: 20/20
- Texture: 18/20
TOTAL: 91/100
At first, we balked: This mix called for providing your own bananas, maple syrup (or honey/agave), non-dairy milk and coconut oil. At that point, why not just make it from scratch?! The flavor is why, dear reader. Taste testers were blown away by how decadent these mixes tasted, particularly the Salted Caramel flavor. It made for a dense, almost fudgy banana bread that people went out of their way to devour seconds and thirds of, gobbling up the loaf faster than any other we tested. Plus, the mix itself is gluten and nut free, and it can be made dairy free as well.
VP of editorial, recipe developer, kitsch-lover
Candace Davison oversees PureWow's food and home content, as well as its franchises, like the PureWow100 review series and the Happy Kid Awards. She’s covered all things lifestyle...
