Fried bananas with sweet cinnamon butter sauce is an irresistibly delicious, sweet fruit dessert, especially with a scoop of ice cream on top. It only takes 10 minutes to make this easy banana dessert recipe!

Ripe bananas may be well known for their ability to pack flavor into a loaf of banana bread, but they are also great for making many other things.

Thanks to a food science known as the Maillard reaction, fried bananas have an elevated flavor. Adding a blanket of warm cinnamon butter sauce and a scoop of vanilla or mango ice cream on top transforms them into a crave-able sweet treat!

Fried bananas

Although this is an easy banana dessert, you can also enjoy it for breakfast. Add them over the top of a stack of churro waffles or fluffy griddle cakes.

Actually, the sweet cinnamon butter sauce is tasty even without the bananas! You can make a jar full and keep it on hand to use as a dipping sauce for Banana Pumpkin Bread or soft breadsticks.

Ingredient notes and substitutions

Gather up the following ingredients:

• Ripe but firm bananas – Look for bananas that aren’t overly ripe. Those that still have a tinge of green color are best, but steer clear of those that are completely green. They do need to be slightly soft, but not mushy, so also avoid the ones with a lot of black spots.
  
• Butter – I like to use salted butter because salt is a flavor enhancer. If all you have is unsalted butter, go ahead and use it.
  
• Honey – If you don’t have any honey on hand, you can use maple syrup instead. But please, use real maple syrup, not bottled pancake syrup. Your fried bananas will taste MUCH better with the real thing.
  
• Ground cinnamon – Any variety of cinnamon will work, but I recommend buying a good quality brand. Be sure to check the expiration date too. The freshness of the cinnamon definitely affects the flavor of the cinnamon butter sauce.
  
• Lemon juice – Fresh squeezed juice will give you much better flavor than concentrated juice from a bottle.

Video: Making fried bananas

Pan frying bananas is incredibly easy to do, and so quick that it’s ready to serve in only 10 minutes!

Watch the video in the recipe card at the bottom of this post to see the process from start to finish!

Recipe notes

1. Leftovers– If you have any leftovers, refrigerate them in a covered container and use them up within 3 to 4 days. After that, they’ll become too mushy. Unfortunately, fried bananas don’t freeze well.
   
2. Reheating– Under refrigeration, the cinnamon butter sauce will thicken, and may even harden. However, it will thin out as it reheats.

PRO TIP
To prevent the butter sauce from scorching, be sure to reheat it over medium-low heat, and stir occasionally until the bananas and cinnamon butter sauce are warmed through.

Fried Bananas FAQ

This post, originally published on Kevin is Cooking Sept. 4, 2020, was last updated with new content on Dec 7, 2021.