I love making a delicious treat for my family that’s healthier than what’s out there, I know what’s in it, and I can choose top quality ingredients! For ‘specialty’ desserts like this in bake shops you’d be spending a fortune, but baking at home is a lot less expensive, plus you really get a quality piece of cake or two! If allergies are a concern – this is one way to avoid them and still enjoy life to the fullest! (nuts are in this recipe – but those could be entirely omitted for a nut-free cake, of course!
If you’re excited to start the journey of gluten-free and vegan baking – do not fear!
Whether you need to go with gluten-free, dairy-free and egg-free ingredients due to Celiac, allergies or lifestyle decisions – baking should still be fun and not complicated – and best of all Delicious!!!
Making Banana Bread is quite possibly the easiest gluten-free and vegan baked dessert you can imagine! (that and my Sweet Potato Brownies that will be coming to the site soon!
Now here’s how to make an easy Gluten-free and Vegan Walnut Banana Bread :
Walnut Banana Bread : gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free/ vegan
Ingredients :
2 tablespoons ground flax
6 tablespoons warm water
1 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 raw cane sugar
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
2 medium ripe bananas
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cups chopped walnuts
Directions :
Preheat oven to 350F. And line a 6×9” baking dish with parchment paper. Grease the top with extra coconut oil.
In a small bowl, mix ground flax with warm water and set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, stir in flour, baking soda and salt and mix to combine.
In another bowl, smash the bananas and add in sugar, coconut oil, vanilla extract and the ground flax mixture to the bananas and mix well. Add to the flour mixture and combine well. Stir in chopped walnuts and pour into the prepared baking dish.
Bake at 350F for about 50 minutes or until golden on top.
Allow to cool about 30 minutes before cutting into it.
We love making Banana Bread around here! It is so good, moist and tasty! And it’s really fool-proof!
The ingredients are clean and natural and the end result comes out to be a lovely classic-tasting Banana Bread that you know and love – only better!
If you’ve got little hands around as excited to make a Banana Bread as you are ~ don’t forget to involve them in the process! My daughter loves smashing bananas – I think that’s why our Banana Bread tastes so amazing, like no other!!
This is a great dessert to make the night before and serve the next day. Or make in advance long enough so that you allow time to let it cool. My daughter could not resist the amazing smell in our kitchen and waiting 20 minutes was too long….
Whether you’re on a specific diet or not, it’s great to make healthier food choices. And choosing better ingredients that are naturally gluten-free and dairy and egg free, is fantastic for your health. By now, we don’t have a single grain of wheat flour or white sugar in our home, and the ingredients we do stock up are at about 90% organic and 100% natural (unprocessed, foods with no preservatives, artificial flavours or colours etc. )
Cooking and baking from scratch is pure joy that brings warmth and smiles to the table…. and sitting down to a beautiful Walnut Banana Bread with your favourite people is just the best way to spend an evening.
We enjoyed the last of this Walnut Banana Bread and another version when my sister and her boyfriend came over a little while ago (see it on Instagram)…. we ate over 1/2 of this one so quick that I needed to make another one immediately or else it wouldn’t be enough to feed a crowd! Yes, this cake is so good that you might as well double up on your ingredients and make two! ;)
Ella Leché is a cookbook author (‘Cut the Sugar‘), recipe developer, and photographer/stylist behind Pure Ella; where she shares delicious and healthy recipes. Eating PURE is clean ingredients, whole foods, plant-based nourishment and delicious desserts – with quality ingredients and sweeteners so they’re treats with benefits so you won’t have to feel deprived or restricted to eat healthier.Thank YOU for being here!
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Blogger, Recipe Developer, Photographer and Author. Loves healthy food, photography, sunshine and dancing in the kitchen with her two daughters. 
This bread looks so yummy!! Love it!
Oh thanks Katrina ;)
This one is so delicious, I think you’d agree ;) xoxo ella
Love walnuts in banana bread.
Congratulations on the nomination – truly well deserved – have duly voted :)
Not much smells better than fresh banana bread coming straight out of the oven. *drool*
Yum! Hello, Ella! Saw this post in my inbox from bloglovin’ and got excited. Being a brand new SAHM who really knows next to nothing about cooking and baking and has been baking banana bread out of a boxed mix, I’ve been on the prowl for a really good banana bread recipe. And ding ding ding, I think I found it! :) Thank you! Do you think this would work with whole wheat flour?
Hi Vicky! ;)
Thank you so much for your visit and question…. my apologies for getting back to you just now.
Yes, I do think whole wheat would work fine. If anything they might be puffier in texture vs. these. And of course they will no-longer be gluten-free.
But yes, if that’s your preference for the flour (hopefully organic) it will make them great!!
xoxo ella
Can you leave out the flax seed?
Hi Rachel,
In vegan baking ground flax seeds mixed with oil create an ‘egg’ like ingredient.
The same you could do with chia seeds. A key ingredient with lots of added nutrition!
However, in this recipe we have two bananas which also act as a binder for the ingredients… because of those bananas, I would think that it’s ok to leave out the flax and water.
Your banana bread may come out a little more crumbly than it’s supposed to – but it should still bake fine.
I would have to try it out without the flax seeds to be sure though.
If you do try it yourself, do let me know about the results ;)
Happy baking! xoxo ella
I’m so glad I found this!! I’m gluten free and have some bananas that are on their last leg… lol! I don’t have vanilla so I’m gonna just add a small squirt of honey and a little cinnamon/nutmeg. Can’t wait til it’s done :)
Lovely recipe, thanks. I just greased the pan rather than using wax paper and it turned out fine.
Thanks so much, So happy this worked out for you without any paper ;)
To be clear though, I don’t use wax paper and don’t recommend it ever… I use simple unbleached parchment paper.
Too many toxins are in the wax paper… I never buy it along with aluminum foil ;)
Sending my best,
xoxo ella
This is now my go-to recipe for banana bread- it’s simple and so tasty, everyone I serve it to loves it. Tonight I’m going to add dark chocolate chunks when I make it. Thanks again!
Thanks so much for this lovely note ;)
Dark chocolate chunks sound fabulous – craving this now actually ;)
Hugs! xox ella
Hi Ella, I made this today. Next time I’ll reduce the oil by half as I found it too oily and for me this took away from the banana taste. I will make again as it has great ingredients. I should add that I reduced the sugar to 1/4 cup (I don’t like really sweet baked goods). The sweetness was perfect for me, but I wonder if this had an impact on the resulting greasy-mouth-feel.
Thanks for your feedback Anne,
I would have to try this version to see what you mean.
Mind you, this recipe is on the moist side. It’s not a fluffy pastry but much more moist. But yes, in this case I would cut the oil in half too. It’s all about individual preference. Sounds like a good solution.
And I LOVE that you reduced the sweetness. You have no idea how little sugar I want to add to my recipes sometimes but they I know people would not welcome this low-sugar taste. ;)
Just noticed ingredients list says baking soda, recipe says powder.
I LOVE that your recipes are gluten-free and egg-free. I made this and it was very yummy. Tasted like the “real” thing. I was out of walnuts so used pecans. In addition, I replaced the 3/4 cup cane sugar with 1/4 cup honey and 1/2 cup coconut sugar. And used organic palm shortening instead of the coconut oil. And my second time trying, I made them in a mini muffin pan for 20 minutes. Thanks again for the great recipes!
Thank you Beth! :)
I love your changes and I’m sure it was delicious :)
My Fig Banana Bread uses Coconut Sugar and olive oil – you might like that recipe too :)
https://pureella.com/gluten-free-vegan-banana-bread-with-figs-and-walnuts/
xo ella
Love this recipe and I’d love to try it! I was just wondering, why not use a real free range egg instead of the “flax” egg? Would that affect how my bread turns out? Thanks!
Hi Rox,
You certainly can replace an egg-replacer with an egg (haha) :)
I just love using ground flax seeds because they are such a superfood!
And my recipes don’t use eggs or dairy due to intolerances.
I am sure it will be delicious. Best, ella
Absolutely love this quick and easy recipe!
Just a question, was it 3/4 cups of raw sugar?
Thank you for sharing this lovely recipe!
Thanks! And oh yes… oops. I just updated the recipe.
ALSO since Cutting out Sugar I made notes to reduce a bit more sugar – take a look :)
Let me know how you like it! xox ella
Hey Ella!!! Can I use shredded coconut instead of walnuts?