Now that the weather is getting to be a bit cooler, I have a strong urge to be busting out my baking supplies and warming up the oven. I mean, who doesn't love the smell of delicious baked goods wafting throughout the house. For me, the quintessential baked good is banana bread. My mother would save loads of overripe bananas in our freezer, waiting to defrost them
to make her delicious easy banana bread recipe. Just thinking of her moist banana bread recipe makes me salivate a little bit.

However, I have found two main issues with her original recipe: 1) Like most traditional baked goods, it's far from a low-cal option. 2) It's definitely not vegan-friendly. With a few twists, I remade my mother's traditional moist banana bread recipe so that it's not only a healthy banana bread recipe, but a vegan banana bread recipe too!

HEALTHY VEGAN BANANA BREAD

Makes: One loaf
Takes: About 1 hour and 25 minutes, not including prep

Ingredients 2 very ripe bananas, mashed into a pulp ½ cup homemade applesauce (To make your own applesauce, you can use my go-to recipe, which can be found on favedietsblog.com 1 ¾ cup stone-ground whole wheat flour 1 ½ cup sugar (I used regular refined sugar because it's all I had on hand. I'm sure you could also use raw sugar or a sugar substitute suitable for baking) ½ cup canola oil ¼ cup vanilla almond milk or vanilla soy milk 1 teaspoon baking soda ½ teaspoon salt Directions

Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees F. Spray a 3x5x9-inch loaf pan with cooking spray

Mash the bananas in a large bowl, and combine with the applesauce, oil and almond milk

To the bowl, add the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. Stir to combine

Pour the mixture into the loaf pan and bake for 1 hour and 25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean

The end result is simply delicious. It is a bit more crumbly than your average banana bread recipe because it has no eggs to bind everything together, but it is still plenty moist. Using whole wheat flour adds lots of fiber, protein and nutrients to the mix, as does using my Homemade Applesauce instead of eggs. If you're worried about your calorie and/or sugar intake, opt for a sugar substitute that is suitable for baking and make sure you're using unsweetened almond milk. Also, this would be great with chopped nuts, say walnuts or pecans. I didn't have any on hand, but they would be a great flavor and texture addition to this. I've been eating this for breakfast for the past week, and I got to say that it easily beats cereal in the morning. Enjoy!

About the Author:

Matthew Kaplan is the Editor for FaveDiets.com, a free online resource featuring hundreds of free healthy recipes, healthy cooking tips and loads more. Be sure to check out FaveDiets on Facebook (www.facebook.com/FaveDiets) and on Twitter (@FaveDiets).