Mashed bananas are surprisingly useful in the kitchen – they can serve as a handy egg replacement in some situations and provide a healthy option for babies. If you’ve got a lot of bananas to mash, can you bulk prepare it?
Can You Freeze Mashed Bananas?
Yes, you can freeze mashed bananas for up to 3 months. The best way to do this is to thoroughly mash the bananas before transferring the mashed bananas to a freezer bag. Seal the bags and then pop them into the freezer.
Do Mashed Bananas Freeze Well? Yes
Can You Refreeze Mashed Bananas? Yes
How to Freeze Mashed Bananas
The best way to freeze mashed bananas is to ensure that your mashed bananas have as smooth a consistency as possible.
You can use a potato masher to mash the fruit, of course, or you could use an immersion blender or a hand mixer to ensure that any banana chunks are utterly smooth thoroughly.
- Transfer to Containers: Once your mash is as smooth as possible, use a spoon to transfer the mashed banana to a freezer bag, being sure to press the mash into the ultimate corners of the bag as much as possible.
- Remove Air Bubbles: Eliminate air bubbles by pressing them out of the mash after transferring it all to the bag.
- Seal: Press any excess air from the freezer bag containing the mashed bananas, ensuring there is as little air as possible. Then, seal the bag completely, and write the correct date on the side of the bag.
- Freeze: Transfer the bag to the freezer, where it will freeze well for up to three months.
3 Tips for Freezing Mashed Bananas
Now you know how to freeze it, we’ve got our 3 top tips which we strongly recommend following when freezing mashed bananas to have the best results:
Make a Smooth Mash
Making sure that your mashed banana mixture is as smooth as possible is a great way to ensure that there are no chunks of banana that could disrupt the way your mash freezes. Chunks of bananas can be starting points for freezer burn.
Consider Additives
If you’ve added milk or other ingredients to your mashed bananas to get a certain flavour or texture, you’ll need to consider how long those ingredients freeze. A mixture will only freeze for as long as its shortest-lasting ingredient.
Eliminate Bubbles
Any bubbles within the mash of your bananas will certainly lead to freezer burn. Air bubbles will condense within the cold environment of a freezer, and that condensation will turn to ice, leading to freezer burn over time. Eliminating bubbles eliminates the chance of that happening.
How Long Can You Freeze Mashed Bananas?
You can freeze mashed bananas in your home for around three months. After three months or so, the inherent moisture of the mixture will start to allow everything to tend toward freezer burn, which is less than ideal.
A great option to avoid that is to wrap the freezer bag in a layer of foil. While this won’t prevent freezer burn forever, it will hold things off just a little, ensuring you can get the full three months out of those mashed bananas.
When kept in an airtight, sealed container, mashed bananas will keep in the fridge for between 2 and 3 days.
How Do You Defrost Mashed Bananas?
The best way to defrost mashed bananas is to thaw them overnight in the fridge.
Keeping them in the fridge will ensure that the ice content will melt and thaw completely while also ensuring that the bananas don’t spoil when they’re fully thawed.
Alternatively, if you’d like to make sure that the mashed bananas are entirely food safe, for example, if you’re going to be feeding them to a baby, then you could microwave the mashed bananas.
Break as much off from the block of frozen bananas as you’d like to use, and place it into a microwave-safe container, heating on full power in increments of two minutes until the banana is steaming hot all the way through.
That will ensure that any bad bacteria will be killed, making the food safe to eat.
Can You Refreeze Mashed Bananas?
Yes, you can refreeze mashed bananas as often as you would like – the reason for this is the same as that you can refreeze soups and stews.
Things that are primarily liquid-based tend to freeze very well. While you risk freezer burn damaging the texture of any banana chunks, it may not matter, depending on what you’re using the mashed bananas for.
Do Mashed Bananas Freeze Well?
Yes, mashed bananas do freeze well – the reason for this is that they tend to freeze at a uniform rate, preventing any odd swelling or rupturing from occurring. Therefore, their quality stays relatively uniform, making mashed bananas freezing well.
Related FAQs
If you’ve still got questions about freezing mashed bananas or mashed bananas in general, then these may help:
Yes, bananas will lose their texture when frozen. This, of course, doesn’t matter if you’re freezing bananas for mashing them in future.
Yes, banana puree can be frozen in small Tupperware containers or an ice cube tray, depending on the portion sizes you want. Banana puree can be frozen for around 3 months.
