If you have some ripe bananas sitting on your counter and you want to use them before they go bad, you may be wondering…
Can you freeze bananas for smoothies?
Yes, you can freeze bananas for smoothies. And it is super easy to do. It is best to remove the banana peel and chop the banana into small pieces prior to freezing.
This ensures your smoothie prep time is fast, and the smaller chunks makes it easier for your blender to mix the ingredients together.
Frozen bananas add a creamy texture to smoothies which almost tricks me into thinking I’m drinking a milkshake!
So don’t toss out bananas with lots of spots…freeze them instead. It’ll save you money and reduce food waste.
Read the simple steps below…
How to Freeze Bananas for Smoothies
Below are the simple steps explaining how to freeze bananas for smoothies so they don’t all clump together. (If you don’t care about big frozen clumps of bananas, you can skip ahead to the end.)
Step 1 – choose ripe bananas
Grab the bananas that are ripe. The banana peel will be yellow and will have light brown or dark brown spots on it. The banana itself will be soft but not mushy or liquidy.
Step 2 – peel the bananas
The next step is to peel the bananas.
You can freeze bananas with the peel on if you’re making banana bread, but if you are freezing the bananas to put into a smoothie, peel them first.
It’s more difficult and time consuming to prepare a smoothie if you have to peel the bananas after they’re frozen.
So peel the bananas before freezing. (I put the banana peels into our compost bin.)
Step 3 – cut the banana into small pieces
The next step is to cut the peeled banana into several small pieces.
Some people prefer to cut it into small, thin slices (like coins), while others prefer pieces that are approximately 1-inch long. (I personally prefer the inch-long chunks.)
Having the banana in small pieces allows us to customize our smoothies. We can use more or less small pieces.
Some days we may not feel like having an overly sweet smoothie, so we would use less pieces.
If you do not cut the banana into slices then you have to either blend the entire banana – which can bog down some blenders – or try to cut the frozen banana into pieces.
It is just way easier to cut the banana prior to freezing.
Step 4 – lay the banana pieces onto a parchment-lined baking sheet
Place a piece of parchment paper over a flat baking sheet. A flat tray will work if you don’t have a baking sheet
Then lay out the pieces of banana in a single layer upon the parchment paper. Make sure the pieces of banana are not touching each other.
This helps ensure they don’t clump together during the freezing process in the next step.
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Step 5 – put the banana chunks into the freezer (aka flash freezing)
Place the entire baking sheet with the banana chunks upon it into the freezer.
Lay the sheet flat in the freezer so the banana pieces don’t slide together.
Keep the baking sheet in the freezer until the pieces of banana are thoroughly frozen and hard. This could take about 2 hours for the bananas to freeze.
You’ll sometimes hear this called “flash freezing” the bananas.
This flash freezing step is to help prevent the banana chunks from clumping together – which can happen if you just toss all the chunks into a freezer bag or container.
Step 6 – transfer the frozen banana chunks to an airtight storage container of bag
After the banana chunks are frozen, remove the baking sheet from the freezer.
Scrape the frozen pieces of banana off the baking sheet and place them into an airtight storage container or freezer bag.
Try to remove as much air from the bag or container as you can to lower the risk of freezer burn.
Tip to remove air from a freezer bag – seal most of the Ziploc bag leaving only a small opening, then suck out the air from the bag using a straw or your mouth directly, then seal the bag completely.
Label the container or bag with the date you made the frozen banana bits, then put them back into the freezer.
References vary when it comes to how long bananas are good for in the freezer, but most sources say 3-6 months.
Honestly, if you’re just using it in a smoothie though, you can probably go longer. Long-frozen bananas may have ice crystals on them and some freezer burn, but according to the USDA’s Food Inspection and Safety Service, freezer burn doesn’t make food unsafe but it may affect quality of the food.
Step 7 – enjoy your frozen banana chunks in your smoothies
When it is time to make a smoothie, just add as many banana chunks as you want to your smoothie to get the sweetness and creaminess that you desire.
Shortcut Steps
Sometimes I’ll just peel the bananas, cut them into chunks, put them into a small Tupperware container or freezer bag, and then put this into the freezer.
With this shortcut approach, I don’t flash freeze the bananas in a single layer so sometimes they do form big clumps…but I use a butter knife to pry them apart when I’m making a smoothie.
I don’t do this if I have lots of smoothies to freeze at once, but if it’s just a couple bananas that are becoming over-ripe, I’ll use this shortcut. It is simple, quick and easy.
Thank you for reading my article on how to freeze bananas for smoothies. As you can see, it is super easy and a great way to reduce food waste and save money on your produce.
I thought everybody froze bananas that were getting over-ripe, but I read some YouTube comments on banana-freezing videos and I was surprised by home many people throw out bananas like this.
So I hope this article helps you reduce your household food waste, saves you some money, and gives you a tasty addition to toss in your smoothies.
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