What to Do With an Abundance of Bananas

I got a big bag of bananas for 39 cents a pound the other day and the kids didn’t get to them all. So, I needed to come up with some ways to use bananas, or at least save them for later use. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem. We’d make banana bread. However, normally, it isn’t over 100 degrees outside! No way was I heating up the kitchen with the oven.

I grabbed a few bananas and tossed them straight in the freezer, skins and all. The skins will turn black and hideous, but the bananas inside the skins will be fine. I use frozen bananas to make very healthy “ice pops” or to blend with blueberries and a bit of yogurt to make smoothies.

I sliced up the rest of the bananas into 1/4 inch rounds and made dehydrated banana chips. Now, if you’ve never tried homemade banana chips, you probably aren’t too excited by the thought of dehydrating bananas. The thing is, these banana chips are nothing like those rock hard things you buy in the store. We dehydrate ours at 135 degrees for about 12 to 14 hours. They come out smelling and tasting just like banana bread. Sooo good. Since they aren’t completely dried out, I recommend freezing your chips instead of just sticking them in a jar in the pantry. We usually don’t end up with enough to bother freezing, though. I stick the bag in the fridge and they are devoured in a few days.