Bananas are available all year round, easy to carry, sweet and creamy, and are a very convenient way to integrate essential nutrients into your diet. Bananas are rich in vitamins, potassium, soluble fiber and protease inhibitors, helping to kill bacteria in the stomach. Studies have shown that eating bananas regularly helps maintain healthy heart function, blood pressure levels, bone density, vision, digestion and kidney health. Buy fresh bananas and store them for future consumption.
Steps
Part 1 of 2: Storing Bananas for Ripening
Step 1. Choose them on the basis of their degree of ripeness
Depending on the use you want to make of them and the length of the period for which you want to keep them, you should choose more or less ripe bananas. If you're shopping just for yourself, you may want to choose greener bananas that don't ripen right away. If, on the other hand, you are shopping for a family or some people who will eat them in a short time, choose the mature ones. Here are some things to remember when choosing a banana:
- The green ones aren't ripe yet. Buy them to keep them longer without freezing them. Choose hard fruit with no black spots or abrasions on the skin.
- Ripe bananas have taken on their adult color. Most bananas are yellow when ripe, but some varieties are brown or red. The more the adult color of the banana is evident on the peel, the more mature it is.
- Bananas with brown spots are the sweetest. When small brown spots form on the peel, the fruit inside ripens even more. When the peel is more black or brown than yellow, the fruit is overripe.
- Avoid bananas that have a gray tint and dull color. This is a sign that bananas have been refrigerated and their ripening is affected.
Step 2. Remove the bananas from the plastic bags as soon as you get home
Never store them in plastic bags, which hold too much moisture and could cause the fruit to rot.
Step 3. Store green bananas at room temperature
Storing them in the refrigerator or freezer before they ripen prevents the fruit from ripening properly even when brought back to room temperature.
- Store green bananas in a brown paper bag to speed up the ripening process. Add an apple or tomato to the bag to ripen the banana in less than a day.
- Another way to speed up the process is to keep them in a fruit bowl next to another ripe fruit, such as other ripe bananas.
Step 4. Leave the yellow-green ripening bananas exposed to air at room temperature for a few days
Be patient. While it is true that the warmer the room, the sooner the fruits will ripen, you shouldn't store them in direct sunlight.
Step 5. Hang bananas on a banana tree
If you truly love bananas, then a banana tree is a great investment. You can find trees to keep on the windowsill and modular bananas. Trees and banana hangers let air circulate and prevent resting bruises from forming on the fruit.
Step 6. Store ripe bananas at room temperature if you will eat them within a few days. Eat or refrigerate bananas when you notice spots on the peel and before they become overripe
Step 7. Keep sliced bananas fresh
If you have cut a banana into slices, to keep it in the refrigerator or for a delicious fruit salad, you should cover the slices with a few drops of lemon juice, pineapple juice or vinegar, to keep them fresh longer.
Part 2 of 2: Storing Ripe Bananas
Step 1. Remove the bananas from the cap
If they are already mature enough, you can keep them fresh and yellow longer if you tear them all off the helmet.
Step 2. Store ripe bananas with fruit that isn't ripe yet
Take an unripe pear or avocado and store it next to the bananas to slow down the ripening of the bananas and ripen faster as well.
Step 3. Wrap the banana stems in plastic wrap
This will prevent the ethylene gas, naturally produced during the ripening process, from reaching other parts of the fruit and causing it to ripen too quickly. You can even tape the plastic for added security. Whenever you tear a banana out of the helmet, wrap it carefully with plastic. It takes some work, but it's worth it!
Step 4. Keep bananas in the fresh produce drawer of your refrigerator when fully ripe
Refrigeration slows down the ripening process a lot, but doesn't stop it completely. The peel will continue to turn brown, but the fruit will remain fresh and hard for 1 to 2 weeks. According to the Dole company, storing ripe bananas in the refrigerator will preserve their delicious flavor longer, even if the skins turn black.
Step 5. Peel the bananas before freezing them.
Keep as much as possible in an airtight bag or plastic container in the freezer. Note: If you keep bananas with their peels, it will be impossible to peel them once they are frozen. And once thawed, they will become a sticky solution. Add peeled, frozen bananas to smoothies.
Step 6. Store bananas in the freezer for several months
When you defrost them, you can use them for desserts and other dishes, as well as in fruit sauces and smoothies. You could also sprinkle them with lemon juice to keep them from turning brown.
- Peel the bananas and cut them into pieces or puree them before freezing them.
- Divide them into portions as needed to make a recipe.
- Store portions in airtight bags or plastic containers.
Step 7. Make banana bread with overripe ones
It is a delicious dessert that must be prepared with overripe fruit. If it is too late to store or eat them, you can take advantage of the opportunity to prepare this yummy. You just need a few simple ingredients: bananas, nuts, flour, eggs, butter and cinnamon.
