With a rich banana flavor and soft, chewy texture, these Banana Cookies are a unique and fun twist on a traditional chocolate chip cookie. Recipe includes a how-to video!
Perfectly Textured Banana Cookies
Meet your new favorite cookie! These banana cookies are packed full of banana flavor, sprinkled with chocolate chips and walnuts, and baked to golden brown perfection. My other banana recipes are pretty popular around here (I’m looking at you, banana muffins and banana bread), and I have a feeling this recipe will be too.
Why You’ll Love My Recipe:
- The cookies come out soft and chewy, NOT cakey (we have banana cake if you’re looking to fix a cake craving!)!
- Comes together easily by hand–no mixer needed.
- It’s perfect for using up those last few brown bananas lingering at the bottom of your fruit basket.
- Can handle add-ins like chocolate chips and nuts, but will still bake up just fine without them.
- The dough can be made up to 24 hours in advance.
What You Need
I wanted these banana cookies to be a chewy and flavorful twist on chocolate chip cookies. Here are a few ingredients that will help us achieve that:
- Very ripe bananas. If there’s one piece of advice I can give you for this recipe, it’s to make sure your bananas are about as old (or ripe) as possible. Not only are less ripe bananas more firm, but they are also less sweet and don’t have as strong of a flavor.
- Melted butter. Melted butter enriches the entire flavor of the cookie, but it also encourages some spreading (as opposed to creaming cool butter with sugar, which would make them fluffier and cakier).
- Brown sugar. I like to use a 50/50 blend of light and dark brown sugar. All light will work, but I’ve found that all dark brown sugar tends to be too rich and doesn’t balance quite as well with the banana flavor.
- Egg yolk. These banana cookies were inspired by my equally chewy pumpkin cookies. Like in that recipe, we’ll be using an egg yolk (no white!) for the perfect chewy texture.
SAM’S TIP: For pretty cookie tops, I like to reserve a few chocolate chips (about ¼ cup or so) for pressing into the cookies after they’ve come out of the oven. Simply let the cookies cool for a minute or two, then randomly (and gently!) nestle a few chips right in the top. It makes a noticeable difference!
Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Banana Cookies
- Mash your very ripe bananas in a large bowl.
- Add the remaining wet ingredients and stir until combined.
- Whisk together the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then gradually add them to the wet ingredients.
- Fold in the chocolate chips and nuts, then cover and chill.
- Scoop your dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 12-14 minutes.
- Let the cookies cool on the sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
SAM’S TIP: For neater, more uniform cookies, roll the dough into smooth balls between your palms before baking. You may find the dough to be a bit sticky, but this is normal.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes! This dough can be made 24 hours in advance. Make sure to cover it tightly in plastic wrap before chilling.
Nope! I prefer to store my banana cookies at room temperature. As long as they’re in an airtight container, they’ll keep for up to 4 days.
Brown bananas have the most banana flavor, so they’re great for baking. Besides banana cookies, you can use your brown, spotty, and mushy bananas for delicious hummingbird cake, banana nut muffins, and banana cupcakes! They’re also delicious in oatmeal, smoothies, and milkshakes too.
Enjoy!
Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook
Banana Cookies
Ingredients
- ⅔ cup well-mashed very-ripe bananas (185g, this is typical 1 ½ bananas for me)
- 1 cup unsalted butter melted and cooled until no longer warm to the touch (226g)
- 1 cup light brown sugar firmly packed (200g)
- ⅔ cup granulated sugar (135g)
- 1 large egg yolk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3 cups all-purpose flour (375g)
- 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon table salt
- ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 ½ cups chocolate chips use either milk chocolate or semisweet, or a blend of the two! (255g)
- 1 cup chopped walnuts optional (115g)
Recommended Equipment
Instructions
- Combine well-mashed banana, melted/cooled butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, egg yolk, and vanilla extract and stir well until completely combined.⅔ cup well-mashed, 1 cup unsalted butter, 1 cup light brown sugar, ⅔ cup granulated sugar, 1 large egg yolk, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.3 cups all-purpose flour, 2 Tablespoons cornstarch, ½ teaspoon baking powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda, ¾ teaspoon table salt, ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Gradually add flour mixture to butter/banana mixture until completely combined (I do this in 3-4 parts).
- Add chocolate chips and walnuts, if using, and stir until well-combined.1 ½ cups chocolate chips, 1 cup chopped walnuts
- Cover bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 30-60 minutes (or up to 24 hours).
- Once dough has nearly finished chilling, preheat oven to 350F (175C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Scoop dough by 1 ½ Tablespoon-sized scoops and drop on prepared baking sheet, spacing at least 2” apart.
- Bake in 350F (175C) oven for 12-14 minutes. Allow to cool for 5 minutes on baking sheet then transfer to cooling rack to cool completely before enjoying.
Notes
Storing
Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days. Interestingly, I’ve found that the fresher these cookies are the stronger the banana flavor is!Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Lynn Warnicke
These are great!!
I used peanut butter chips and pecans
Will make again!!!
any chance you have tried to cut sugar a bit-my bananas are home grown and very sweet and that is the only thing about your recipe that gave me pause.
BTW- I actually like them better out of the refrigerator!!!
Many bananas will try your muffins next!!
Thanks
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
That sounds like a delicious combination, Lynn! Reducing the sugar a bit should be fine. Enjoy 😊
Elizabeth Perez
Mine came out like bread. Not sure what I did wrong.
Sam
Hi Elizabeth! That’s a bummer! It’s always hard to troubleshoot without being in the kitchen with you, but sometimes when people run into this issue it’s due to the flour accidentally being over-measured.
Jamie
These cookies have amazing flavor. The only thing is they spread out thin. I did refrigerate the dough and I didn’t make any changes. What could I have done wrong?
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Hi Jamie! Could it be that your butter may have been a little too warm when you added the sugars/wet ingredients? We’re happy they still tasted great though!
Lindsay P
These are incredible!! I used 16 crushed oreos instead of chocolate chips and they’re amazing. My dough was a little bit stickier looking, so maybe I needed to chill it longer or add more flour, but regardless they came out great. They’re like banana bread in a cookie. Absolutely love – thank you for this recipe and I love your videos!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Lindsay! 🙂
Laura
These are super easy and delicious.
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We’re so happy you like them, Laura! 💛
Deborah Nicole
Hi these are BEAUTIFUL. My kids instantly said SAVE THIS RECIPE! will note that i basically halved the sugar, unintentially, because I decided to double the recipe but forgot the sugars. They still came out quite sweet enough. Also the only brown sugar I had on hand was swerve, but it worked.
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them, Deborah! 🙂
Elaine Roede
I’m at a cabin in the mountains of Norway right now. I had some ripe bananas so I decided to make these cookies. I didn’t have any baking soda, so I just added a little more baking powder + a whipped egg white. They are sooo delicious‼️ Thank you for this wonderful and easy recipe‼️ ❤️
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We’re so happy they turned out, Elaine! Enjoy the cookies (and the cabin–sounds lovely!) 😊
Amy
Hello, Would this recipe work as a cookie bar? Thank you
Sam
Hi Amy! I haven’t tried it myself, but I think it should work. 🙂
Rashmi Devaprasath
Would oats added to this recipe work? I could call it breakfast if it does. Right?
Sam
Hi Rashmi! I haven’t tried it to be sure. I think it could work though. I’m not sure how much you could add.
Evelynn
I just made these cookies with oats and they turned out great! You can swap out “quick” or “1-minute” oats and flour as a 1:1 ratio, so basically for every cup of oats you use, subtract a cup of flour from your recipe. I was afraid of putting too many oats so I did 1/2 cup quick oats and 2 1/2 cups flour. The final product isn’t too “oaty”, I think it was a nice texture.
Amy Dillon
Sam, these are delicious. I ate four of them right away! What I have found to be helpful is to watch several of your videos before making anything. You have tips and techniques (placing eggs in warm water to bring them to room temperature faster, for example) that are helpful for many recipes. Following your methods exactly yield excellent results. I really appreciate the time you take to create detailed recipes and videos. I can’t wait to see the result of my next attempt (and neither can my family and friends)!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Amy! Also, I’m incredibly impressed that you were able to stop at 4. 🤣
Cathy
I was wondering if I could freeze these I also added peanut butter chips
Sam
Hi Cathy! I haven’t frozen them myself, but you shouldn’t have any issues doing so. Peanut butter chips sound delicious. 🙂
Vicki
Mine look nothing like these. I rolled them into balls and that’s how they ended up. They didn’t melt down down or anything. Haven’t tasted them yet. We’ll see.
Sam
Hi Vicki! I’m so sorry this happened. 🙁 It sounds like there may have been a little too much flour in the dough. If you didn’t weigh your flour I recommend checking out my post on how to measure flour to hopefully prevent this in the future. 🙁
Ashley
Simple, easy and absolutely DELICIOUS! Thanks Sam!
Musang
My husband and daughter loves it! Big hit to them. Thank u for sharing this recipe.
Marcela
These cookies are so delicious!!
Juanita J Sparkes
No corn starch, will they still come out okay?
Sam
Hi Juanita! I would replace the corn starch with flour here if you don’t have any cornstarch. 🙂
Ma Yohana
Wonderful