This Healthier Chocolate Chip Banana Bread is all about healthier choices. Implementing unsweetened applesauce and whole wheat flour into your baking recipes will really help decrease the amount of unhealthy ingredients you are using.
Old Bananas On Hand?
It seems like any time we buy bananas at the store we always buy more than we actually eat. They end up getting super ripe and have those black spots all over the peel. But have no fear…those are the perfect type of bananas for our Healthier Chocolate Chip Banana Bread!
The other great thing about this recipe is that you only need 1.5 cups of mashed bananas. So you don’t have to worry that you only have three bananas on hand instead of the entire bunch.
What’s Healthier About Healthier Chocolate Chip Banana Bread?
Healthier Chocolate Chip Banana Bread is all about implementing some healthier choices along with the good tasting ones. 🙂 This is a step down process…by no means are we telling you to leave out the white sugar and all-purpose flour entirely. This recipe allows you to find a happy medium and that’s what we love about it!
Whole Wheat Flour
Our Healthier Chocolate Chip Banana Bread recipe uses half all-purpose flour and half whole wheat flour. This is a great trick to get kiddos used to the flavor and texture of whole wheat flour. The all-purpose flour is still there to lessen the change, however, they are still able to taste the nutty hints throughout the bread. Whole wheat flour in general is a much denser flour than all-purpose or cake flour. It also has a tendency to produce a drier bread. Lucky for us though, the bananas make this bread super moist and we don’t have a problem in that area!
One more thing worth mentioning about whole wheat flour is that it is much more nutritious than all-purpose flour. This is because when whole wheat flour is made, the bran, endosperm, and germ of the wheat grain are all included. When all-purpose flour is made, only the starchy endosperm is used; the bran and germ are excluded.
Unsweetened Applesauce
Healthier Chocolate Chip Banana Bread also incorporates unsweetened applesauce as part of the sweetness of this recipe. There is still some white sugar that goes into the recipe, however, you use less than the normal amount and you also are able to get used to the taste while excluding some of the sweetness. It is not as noticeable that you took out some of the sugar, as opposed to taking all of it out and replacing it with just unsweetened applesauce.
So overall, you are helping yourself get used to a treat that isn’t quite as sweet, as well as teaching yourself to getting accustomed to the whole wheat texture!
Your Chocolate Chips Matter
We stumbled upon our new favorite chocolate chips a few months back. Normally, we always used Nestle Chocolate Semi-Sweet Morsels. But once we found this new type, we haven’t looked back since!
Nestle Simply Delicious
Nestle Simply Delicious Morsels totally helped us up our healthier choices game. They only have three ingredients folks! Three ingredients! And the best part is…you can pronounce all three of them. This was huge to us! I mean, if you are trying to make healthier choices, wouldn’t you want to look at the ingredients for the entire recipe? Also, besides just loving to bake, a big part of us baking homemade goodies instead of buying packaged ones is to get rid of all those preservatives.
By no means are we hating on the normal Nestle Semi-Sweet Morsels. If we have them on hand, we definitely put them to good use. But, if you are wanting to make a small (AND EASY) change, this one is a no brainer! Nestle Simply Delicious is made with 100% real chocolate, cocoa butter, and pure cane sugar. That’s it! And they taste amazing!
If you love chocolate chips, be sure to check out our 24 Hour Chocolate Chip Cookies that we get asked to bake time and time again!
Healthier Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Recipe
Healthier Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp butter melted
- 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1.5 cups very ripe bananas mashed
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 extra large egg
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 cup all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips To taste (We used Nestle Simply Delicious Semi-Sweet Morsels that only have three ingredients)
- coarse sugar crystals To taste
Instructions
- Using an 8.5 inch x 4.5 inch loaf pan, spray with cooking spray. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large bowl, mix together melted butter, applesauce, and mashed bananas with a wooden spoon.
- To that same bowl, add sugar, vanilla extract, and the egg. Stir together.
- Add in salt and baking soda; mix together.
- Lastly, add in the all-purpose and whole wheat flour. Don't over-stir this; stir until just combined. No one wants a tough loaf of bread. 🙂
- Pour in the chocolate chips and incorporate into the dough. Again, mix just until combined. Pour batter into your prepared loaf pan.
- Top with coarse sugar crystals.
- Bake for 45-50 minutes or until brown and a toothpick comes out of the center clean. Cool on wire rack.
We want to thank The Seasoned Mom for the inspiration for this recipe! 🙂
We hope you guys give this Healthier Chocolate Chip Banana Bread recipe a try and enjoy it with your family. Have a great March morning!
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This looks absolutely delicious! Especially with the chocolate chips!
We thought the chocolate chips added a little something extra!
*drooling a little over here* 😀 This looks like an absolutely wonderful twist on a yummy classic! I love how you’ve kept what’s good and taken out what’s not so good. Sharing this on Pinterest, ladies!
The Nestle Simply Delicious Morsels sound delicious too. I’ve recently discovered their Simply 5 chocolate syrup and it is also wonderful! How refreshing to have only a few ingredients you can actually pronounce, right?
Thank you so much for sharing these incredible tips & recipes on your site. I love this place and wish you both nothing but the very best in success now & in the future. ♥
Awe, you are so kind! Thank you so much!
What?! We have not heard of the Simply 5 Chocolate Syrup!! Adding to our grocery list! 😀 We love when we can pronounce the ingredients and actually know what they are!
Oh, this looks good! I love banana bread and adding chocolate chips really ramps up the flavor and gives that extra burst of sweetness. I will have to get some bananas and give this a try.
We love that this recipe uses up old bananas that we did not get eaten throughout the week! 🙂
This looks delicious and I can’t wait to make it! I haven’t tried the three ingredients Nestle chips, but I am definitely going to. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!
We hope you really enjoy it!! Sometimes we have a hard time finding the Nestle Simply Delicious Morsels at certain grocers. We have had good luck at Wal Mart though!