The only vegan gluten free banana bread recipe you’ll ever need! Perfectly textured, moist, and packed with banana flavor.
Gluten free baking isn’t always as simple as just switching the all purpose flour for a gluten free blend. Sometimes it is, but often it isn’t.
So…while I will often advise our readers to try a gluten-free all purpose blend and see how it goes, it won’t always work that great because gluten-free baking is it’s own thing entirely.
So since we’ve done a lot of recipes for banana bread on this blog (like our classic vegan banana bread, our vegan chocolate chip banana bread and our vegan chocolate banana bread), I knew I wanted to do a gluten-free version. And at first I thought it would just be a simple switch of the flours.
But it turned out not to be ‘quite’ that simple. It was turning out too dense, and the bananas were sometimes ending up at the bottom of the loaf with a sort of gummy texture. It wasn’t great!
Turned out to be just a few simple tweaks to the recipe to create a vegan gluten free banana bread that is pure perfection, but those simple changes made the world of difference!
So this is our tried and tested recipe for the perfect vegan gluten free banana bread.
And if you love gluten free baking check out our vegan gluten free carrot cake and our vegan gluten free chocolate cake!
Ingredients You’ll Need:
Ingredient Notes
- Walnuts – chopped walnuts are optional, but recommended. Chopped pecans would be great too. Or you can switch the nuts for chocolate chips!
- Bananas – should be ripe and spotty.
- White granulated sugar and light brown sugar – a mix of the two sugars prevents this loaf from becoming too dense.
- Gluten free all purpose flour – You can use any gluten-free all purpose flour blend. This recipe has not been tested with a single type of flour like almond flour or coconut flour, so stick with a blend. The blend does not have to contain xantham gum, so long as it is an all purpose blend, it should work fine.
- Coconut oil – can be replaced with vegan butter, in the same quantity.
- Soy milk – can be replaced with almond milk if you prefer.
- Baking powder plus a baking soda/vinegar combination – gives this bread rise as well as a perfect texture. Making this bread with only baking powder created a texture that was too dense.
How To Make Vegan Gluten Free Banana Bread
You will find full instructions and measurements in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. This is a summary of the process to go along with the process photos.
- Add the gluten free all purpose flour into a mixing bowl (no need to sift it) along with the white sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg and mix together.
- Prepare a flax egg by mixing 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed meal with 3 tablespoons of hot water and letting it sit for a minute to become gloopy.
- Then add bananas, soy milk and coconut oil to a blender and blend until smooth.
- Pour this out over your dry ingredients. Add in the flax egg, vinegar (to react with the baking soda) and vanilla.
- Mix into a thick batter.
- Add chopped walnuts and mix in.
- Transfer the batter into a prepared loaf pan and sprinkle some more chopped walnuts on top.
- Bake for an hour at 350°F until browned on top and cooked through.
- Let it cool for around 10 minutes before transferring it onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
- Slice and enjoy!
Recipe Tips
Blend the bananas, soy milk and coconut oil so you get a perfect distribution in the batter and this results in perfect texture and no gumminess.
The color of the baked banana bread is darker than banana bread made with regular flour, but I have noticed this in gluten free baking before and it’s nothing to worry about.
Storing and Freezing
Keep leftovers covered at room temperature and enjoy within around 4 days. Reheat in the microwave or toaster if you like it served warm. It is also freezer friendly.
More Gluten-Free Vegan Desserts
- Vegan Gluten Free Vanilla Cupcakes
- Gluten Free Chocolate Cake
- Vegan Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Vegan Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes
- Vegan Gluten Free Pancakes
- Vegan Gluten Free Brownies
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Gluten Free Banana Bread
Ingredients
- 2 cups Gluten Free All Purpose Flour (272g)
- ½ cup White Granulated Sugar (100g)
- ½ cup Light Brown Sugar (100g)
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- ¼ tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
- ¼ tsp Ground Nutmeg
- 1 Flax Egg 1 Tbsp Ground Flaxseed Meal + 3 Tbsp Hot Water
- 1 ⅓ cups Mashed Ripe Banana (300g)
- ½ cup Soy Milk (120ml)
- ¼ cup Coconut Oil (55g)
- 1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1 cup Chopped Walnuts (100g) plus more to sprinkle on top
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Prepare a 9×5 loaf pan by spraying with non-stick spray and lining the bottom with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Add the gluten free all purpose flour, white sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg to a mixing bowl and mix together.
- Prepare your flax egg by mixing 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed meal with 3 tablespoons of hot water and letting it sit for a minute to become gloopy.
- Add the bananas, soy milk and coconut oil to a blender and blend until smooth.
- Pour out the blended banana mix over the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl. Add the flax egg, vinegar and vanilla and mix into a thick batter.
- Add in the chopped walnuts and mix in.
- Transfer the batter into your prepared loaf pan and sprinkle more chopped walnuts on top.
- Bake for an hour until browned on top and cooked through.
- Let cool for around 10 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
- Slice and enjoy!
Notes
- For the most accurate results weigh your flour. I have tried this with different blends, so any gluten-free flour blend that is meant for baking should work great here.
- If you have a food scale and can weigh out the banana, then there is no need to mash it first. You can just add the peeled bananas to the blender and blend with the other ingredients. However, if you’re only using cups to measure then mash the banana to get the correct amount in cups, before adding it to your blender with the other ingredients to blend.
- The walnuts are optional. You can leave them out or use a different nut like chopped pecans or add vegan chocolate chips instead.
- This recipe was first published in July 2019. It has been updated with extra tips and photos but the recipe itself is unchanged.
I love banana bread and this recipe works beautifully. GREAT TEXTURE and flavor. Thanks
Thanks so much Francis!
I normally never post on these things but my banana bread came out of the oven 15 minutes ago and my (very fussy and more savoury-favouring partner) has proclaimed it the best banana bread/dessert he has ever eaten! Will definitely be making again!
Yay! Thanks so much!
This turned out great! I substituted coconut milk for soy milk. Love the spongie texture.
Awesome! Thanks Sue!
I’m excited to try this recipe-it looks delicious! What would i need to adjust to be able to bake it in high altitude?
Hi Cherise, I’m not sure of the adjustments you would need for high altitude, though we have been told before (on other recipes) that it was made as written and worked fine for high altitude. This article from All Recipes has some good tips though!
it‘s so strange.. My batter was so so dense, that i am ending up making cookies out of it.. I already noticed it when wheighed the flour and saw how little liquid is supposed to go in..
How the batter texture is supposed to look like?
Hi Arina, we have pictures of the batter, it is thick but not super thick, not like cookie dough at all.
This recipe worked out fantastic.
Awesome! Thanks so much! 🙂
We are also nut free in our household so I replaced the walnuts with rolled oats. Oh man is this delicious and spongy! Thanks for an amazing recipe. I’ll be checking out the rest of your site.
Awesome! So happy it was good! Thanks for the wonderful review. 🙂
I made this recipe already twice and this time a tried it with a mixture of buckwheat flour, tapioca flour/starch (just a little like 3-4 tablespoons) and coconut flour (also not much, maybe 6 tablespoons) and it came out very good! Very soft and a little moist, really nice. The first time I made it with ground oats, a little bit of almond flour and a little shredded coconut, came out very well too! Thank you for this great recipe!
Hi Rina! So glad it worked out great! Thanks for sharing and the awesome review! 🙂
Made this with vegan chocolate chunks and it is out of this world. Thank you so much!
Awesome! So glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for the wonderful review. 🙂
This. This recipe was FANTASTIC! I just made this tonight. Uh So delicious! <3 Thank you for this recipe! I can't wait to try your other Gluten free vegan recipes!
So happy to hear that Cassie! Thanks for the amazing review. 🙂
Hello again! I made this again for my Mom last night cause she loves this recipe too! But that silly lady snuck it into the fridge this morning, how long will it stay good for in the fridge?
Hahaha, it should be okay! It will last longer in the fridge, up to a week, but it may get a little too firm in the fridge and lose some of the softness, so you can just let the slices come to room temperature on the counter before eating. 🙂
Delicious, with perfect texture! I only had coconut palm sugar and oat milk so that’s what I used and it was still awesome!
Awesome! Thanks for sharing and the great review Connie. 🙂
Really great recipe. I can’t handle that much sugar so I subbed 1/2 a cup of pear juice concentrate and simply left out the soy milk. The texture was perfect. I could see this recipe being adapted to use pumpkin instead of the banana, ginger instead of the cinnamon/nutmeg, maybe throw in some dried apricots and a few walnuts. I’ll let you know the results when I give it a try! Thanks.
So glad you enjoyed it! And I totally agree it could be very versatile! Thanks for the wonderful review! 🙂
Hi Alison! I’m trying to reduce my sugar intake and was wondering if I could leave the sugar out altogether, or is it needed for texture, looks etc? Thanks!
Hi Priscilla, I’m not sure about removing it altogether. It may be that you would need to increase the banana. I feel like the structure would hold up but it might be dry since the sugar melts and caramelizes, it might just need a little trial and error but I am sure it can be done! All the best! 🙂
This is amazing! Perfect PERFECT texture. Can’t believe it’s gluten free!
Yay! Thanks Sara! 🙂
So you did not use xanthan gum in your Banana Bread? Looks delicious!
Hi Patricia, I didn’t use any added xantham gum no. I have used blends that had it and blends that didn’t and both were fine. 🙂