Tired of Waiting? Here’s Exactly How To Ripen Bananas—Fast!
Cheap, convenient and cherished by almost everyone, bananas are useful in so many recipes from breakfast to dessert, but they can take their sweet old time to ripen. Especially when you buy a bunch that’s totally green.
Whether you’re waiting for yours to ripen up for banana bread or simply for snacking, you don’t have to sit around wondering if—and when—nature will do its thing: A little hocus pocus (ok, science) can help you peel off the time it takes for your banana to ripen, lickety-split. And with these expert-approved hacks, you'll never have to wonder how to ripen bananas again.
Related: What Happens If You Eat Bananas Every Day
How Bananas Ripen
Bananas go through “respiration” throughout their ripening cycle, explains Bil Goldfield, director of corporate communications at Dole Food Company. In other words, they consume oxygen and produce carbon dioxide, water and heat as by-products while they ripen.
During this process, bananas also release a naturally occurring by-product called ethylene that triggers ripening. While cool temperatures inhibit ethylene, warmth triggers its release—one reason why banana distributors go to great lengths to control shipping and warehouse temperatures until the fruit lands on grocery store shelves, Goldfield says.
How To Tell When a Banana Is Ripe
Internally, ripening transforms the pulp’s starch into sugars. (It’s why ripe bananas taste objectively superior.) Externally, ripening breaks down chlorophyll to reveal the yellow peel we all associate with delicious bananas.
That said, “ripe” is a subjective state, Goldfield points out: “Some consider a banana ripe and ready to eat when there are still shades of green on the shoulders,” he says, explaining that this stage will yield a banana that’s firm and starchier than sweet. If your definition of ripe directly translates to “sweet,” look out for “sugar spots” (the little brown dots) on the peel, and wait for your peel to give a little when gently prodded.
Worth noting: While ripening changes the fruit’s carbohydrates from prebiotic fiber and resistant starch to sugar, it doesn’t change a banana’s nutritional status, Goldfield points out. In other words, a ripe and unripe banana will have the same amount of calories and nutrients, in case you’re counting. It will just be digested a bit differently.
Related: 41 Easy Banana Bread Recipes
How Do You Ripen Bananas Overnight?
Try as we might, it’s impossible to expedite the ripening process to occur overnight. “There are seven recognized color stages, from full green (stage 1) to yellow flecked with brown (stage 7),” Goldfield explains. “Depending on conditions at home or on the retail shelf, bananas typically advance ? stage per day,” he says.
For all of us non-math people: That’s about two weeks from tree to ready-to-eat. (Sorry!)
5 Expert Tips To Make Bananas Ripen Faster
Lucky for those with little patience, there are ways to help a banana ripen faster when you simply can’t wait. In fact, the internet is rife with banana-ripening tips and tricks, like sealing bananas in a paper bag with other fruit, baking the entire banana, and even microwaving them. But which of these tricks works? Goldfield recommends the following techniques:
1. Maintain the bunch.
Because bananas release both ethylene and heat as they ripen, and these agents both help green bananas ripen faster, a bunch of bananas should—at least in theory—produce more of both and thus ripen faster than individually separated fruits, Goldfield says.
2. Store with other fruit.
Besides bananas, other high ethylene-producing fruits include apples, avocados, tomatoes and melons like cantaloupe and honeydew. “These products can be placed near green bananas to help them ripen,” Goldfield confirms.
3. Trigger ripening with the paper bag trick.
The internet recommends putting bananas in a paper bag with other ripe fruit to expose bananas to ethylene and expedite ripening. The thing is, the bananas you buy at the grocery store have already been exposed to ethylene gas, which acts as a trigger but doesn’t dictate the rate of ripening, Goldfield explains. In other words, once ripening begins, ethylene (and this technique) won’t impact ripening speed.
If you are starting with green bananas, dropping one or two apples or tomatoes in a paper bag with the bunch should be sufficient to trigger the process, Goldfield says. (It just won’t do much good if the bunch has already begun to turn.)
4. Bring on (a little) heat.
While you’re welcome to follow internet advice to microwave an entire banana for 30-second intervals until soft, or even bake it at 300 degrees F until the skin turns black—good luck! “I cannot confirm that these techniques accelerate the ripening process without jeopardizing product integrity,” Goldfield says, adding that surpassing 65 degrees (just below room temperature) can soften bananas and lead to a mushy pulp. However, there is some truth to these somewhat extreme banana-warming techniques: “Warmer temperatures do speed up the ripening process,” he says. The ideal storage temperature for bananas is between 56 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit, with good airflow to keep heat from building up.
5. Store in paper bags, not plastic.
Paper bags “allow the banana to continue to get the oxygen it needs to ripen,” Goldfield says. But how do you ripen bananas without a paper bag? Just make sure your plastic bag isn’t sealed or is pierced for optimal airflow.
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How To Stop Bananas From Ripening
Now that you’ve got your Ph.D. in how to ripen a ‘nana, perhaps you’d like to extend the lifespan of one or two in the bunch? To slow down the ripening cycle, keep bananas away from other ethylene-producing fruits (and each other!); seal them in a vacuum-packed plastic bag to reduce oxygen exposure; and store them below room temperature.
If you’ve done all you can to control ripening and your bunch still begins to brown? You can always freeze your bananas (here’s how!) to enjoy later in baked goods or smoothies.
Next: 19 Recipes for Ripe Bananas (That Aren't Banana Bread)!