Make this banana coconut sourdough quick bread with either active sourdough starter or the discard left over from feedings. This recipe calls for both coconut oil and shredded coconut for double the coconutty goodness.

A loaf of coconut banana nut bread cools on a silver wire rack on a wooden background

Notes on ingredients

Bananas

Very ripe bananas with brown spots or almost completely brown skin taste very sweet and their soft flesh mashes up quickly and easily with a fork. You can sometimes pick up brown bananas at the grocery store for a discount—and reduce wasted food while saving money! If you end up buying an entire crate of discount ripe bananas—and really like this banana bread, which I think you will—mash them and freeze them to bake many future loaves. If you have no time to mash them before freezing, you can toss them into the freezer whole but, once thawed out, peeling makes a bit of a wet mess.

Sourdough starter

You’ll use ½ cup (125 grams) of sourdough, either active and fed starter or unfed discard straight from the refrigerator. Discard will add a bit of tang.

Sourdough discard: How old is too old?

Well, it depends.

If your jar of discard has sat in the refrigerator for two months without any additional discard added to it, it will likely taste too tangy. But don’t toss it! Either stir a bit of fresh flour and water into the jar or into a portion of the discard.

My discard jar lives in the refrigerator for months and months but I constantly recycle it—adding half a cup from a feeding one day and removing half a cup for this banana coconut quick bread the next. I constantly turn it over and usually wash the jar only when I reach the bottom of it or it the lid becomes too crusty to open and close easily. (Go here for sourdough discard management.)

A loaf of sourdough bread sits in the foreground. A loaf of coconut banana nut quick bread sits behind it. The loaves are cooling on a silver wire rack sitting on a wooden table. — Sourdough bread (front) and banana coconut sourdough quick bread (back)

Subjective brown sugar measurements

The volume of brown sugar can vary wildly—my packed ¾ cup may be much looser than yours. If you have a scale, consider using it. You’ll also save time. But if you don’t have a scale, don’t worry about it! I included measurements for both US cups and metric weights in the recipe.

Room temperature ingredients

Bring the ingredients to room temperature so that when you add the melted coconut oil, bits don’t solidify upon hitting cold ingredients like eggs straight from the refrigerator or barely thawed mashed banana.

However! If you choose sourdough discard instead of an active, room temperature starter for this coconut banana quick bread, keep it cold. Discard sitting on the counter and warming up will ferment further and become even tangier than it already is.

Easy tricks to conserve energy while baking

Inside an oven, walnuts roast in a cast iron pan. Coconut oil melts in a glass bread loaf pan. — Toasting nuts and melting coconut oil as the oven heats

While the oven heats up, I take advantage of that energy to toast the optional walnuts (or pecans) in a cast-iron pan. Any pan will work though. Keep an eye on the nuts by setting a timer for five minutes—you can easily forget about them and risk burning them. Stir and continue toasting for another five minutes or until the nuts become fragrant but not dark.

While the nuts toast, melt the coconut oil in the warming oven as well. By doing this in the loaf pan I’ll bake the bread in, I don’t dirty an additional pot or pan. (Go here for more strategies to wash fewer dishes.) The loaf pan still does need a little greasing however—solid coconut oil adheres to the sides of a pan better than melted. But after you pour out the melted coconut oil, residual oil gives you a head start.

Oh and after you bake the bread, if you won’t cook anything else in the oven, open the door after you turn it off to warm the kitchen on a cold day. Go here for more easy ways to conserve energy in the kitchen.

On a wooden table, melted coconut oil cools in a glass loaf pan sitting on a red metal trivet. A jar of solid, unmelted coconut oil sits beside the loaf pan. — Let the coconut oil cool until no longer hot to prevent curdling the eggs

Next level strategies to conserve energy

After PG&E jacked up its rates at the beginning of 2024, my daughter MK’s energy bill increased by nearly a third! But thanks to the installation of rooftop solar and an induction-electric range in my home last year, my bill decreased. Substantially. (We also now use the gas furnace less and a small electric space heater more to heat up whatever room we’re in rather than heating several rooms we’re not in.)

The solar, range and electrical panel upgrade were not inexpensive but those investments will eventually pay for themselves.

January 2023 energy bill: $328.99
January 2024 energy bill: $122.85

A screenshot of a February 2023 PG&E bill — February 6th, 2023 energy bill

A screenshot of a February 2024 PG&E bill — February 6th, 2024 energy bill

I can make many, many loaves of this quick bread with the $206.14 I saved this month! And I’ll want to because it tastes so delicious.

Looking for more sourdough discard recipes?

Try my three most popular:

Don’t have a sourdough starter? Go here to start one. I also teach a free sourdough starter workshop every couple of months. Sign up for my newsletter to receive updates about workshops and events.

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5 from 1 vote