Vegan Chocolate Chip Banana Bread (Gluten Free)

Fluffy, moist, and surprisingly good for you, this vegan chocolate chip banana bread is absolutely delicious and made with simple, wholesome ingredients! It’s refined sugar free, gluten free, easy to make, and perfect for dessert, a snack, or breakfast!

My favorite thing about banana bread is that it passes as breakfast, a snack, and dessert! I mean, when could that ever be a bad thing?

This recipe is made with no refined anything, but instead has simple and wholesome ingredients you can feel gooooood about!

My dad seems to think bananas and chocolate never belong together?! Is he crazy or am I crazy?! If you’re on his side of this debate, you can totally make this bread with no chocolate or sub walnuts instead.

If you’re on my side, you can trust me when I say that lots of chocolate chips sprinkled on top is heavenly. No matter how you do it, this banana bread is insanely delicious!

How to make vegan chocolate chip banana bread

This banana bread has no eggs, no dairy, no gluten and NO refined sugar but is 100% delicious you won’t even realize you’re missing those things.

The first step is to preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a small bowl, combine 2 tbsp flax seeds with 5 tbsp of water and set aside. This is our “flax egg” (technically two) and helps bind all the ingredients together. I have not tested this recipe with regular eggs, but imagine it would work just fine. It will, however, be fluffier and a bit lighter than the version with flax egg.

In a large mixing bowl, mash the bananas really well. You can leave a few chunks of banana if you like it this way, or mash them until it’s basically banana puree.

Next, add in the coconut sugar, coconut oil, vanilla, apple sauce and soy milk and mix well.

Add in all the remaining ingredients including the flax egg but not the chocolate chips (yet!) and mix until a batter forms. Carefully fold in the chocolate chips until well incorporated. I like using mini chocolate chips but any type work well.

Resist the temptation to add more chocolate chips to the batter because it will make the bread too moist and it won’t cook properly. It’s tough, I know!

Once everything is mixed together, add to a loaf pan lined with parchment paper or lightly sprayed with oil. Top with additional chocolate chips and a sprinkle coconut sugar if desired.

Baked for 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean!

Let cool completely before slicing to ensure the bread doesn’t crumble. I know this part is annoying, but letting it cool for ideally 2 hours is important to keep the bread together.

How to keep banana bread moist

Thanks to the bananas, apple sauce, and coconut oil in this recipe, this bread is incredibly moist. You shouldn’t have any issues with it drying out.

However, to make sure it stays in tip top shape, I would suggest storing it either in a sealed tupperware container, or on a plate wrapped tightly with aluminum foil.

The crust is the only part that may get slightly dry, but as long as you keep it covered, you should be good to go!

A few thoughts on this vegan chocolate chip banana bread

• The uglier your bananas, the better! You want the bananas to have lots of brown spots before making banana bread. This will ensure they are sweet enough AND will make the bread extra moist.

• Make sure you let the bread cool completely before slicing. This ensures the bread will not flatten and will maintain its rise when you cut into it. I suggest letting it cool for around two hours to keep the bread as fluffy as possible.

• If you don’t like chocolate chips in your banana bread, feel free to leave them out or try my healthy banana bread instead. The chocolate chips obviously make this banana bread a bit more desserty, whereas walnuts make it a tad bit healthier for breakfast.

• You can sub any non-dairy milk for the soy milk. However, soy milk is best because the protein content helps to fluff it up a bit more than other kinds of non-dairy milk.

• Be sure you use almond meal from whole almonds and not almond flour from blanched almonds. These are two different ingredients and will yield very different breads!

• I recommend using refined coconut oil for this recipe or refined avocado oil. Virgin coconut oil will have a coconut-y flavor, and we don’t want that in this recipe! If using the coconut oil vs. the avocado oil, the batter will thicken a bit when it comes into contact with the other wet ingredients, this is totally normal, so don’t worry!

Love this recipe? Try these next!

• Fluffy Chocolate Chip Pancakes
• Best Ever Grain Free Brownies (Paleo)
• Chewy Paleo Chocolate Chunk Tahini Cookies

Lastly, if you want more recipes straight to your inbox, be sure to subscribe to my email list. As always, tag me on instagram if you make this recipe so I can see your creation!

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