Cooking Tips: How to Ripen a Banana Quickly

How ripe do you like your bananas before eating them? I just came from my grocery shopping at the dollar store and bought a huge bag of bananas for a buck. Great deal, with one exception....the bananas were greener than green. Usually I just leave my fruit to ripen on the counter, and the warm climate where I live does the rest. I want to make banana bread later this week, so I'm going to need to ripen this bag in a hurry.

As all of you know, bananas are harvested and shipped to your local supermarket while still green to avoid shipping damage and spoilage. Generally, the bananas will ripen slightly in transit and just be turning light yellow at the time they arrive in the supermarket.

If you should happen to get an extra green bunch of bananas, here are a few tips on how to ripen bananas quickly:

Place the green bananas in a paper bag with an apple in it and fold over the top to seal the bag. Ethylene gas is the gas that ripens fruits naturally. The ripe apple will produce ethylene gas and help the bananas to ripen more quickly. This is the quickest way to ripen bananas at a faster than normal pace. Incidentally, the same works for other types of fruit.

If you need to ripen your bunch of bananas faster still, place the sealed bag in a warm spot to speed the release of ethylene from the apple. Heat makes the reaction progress at a faster rate. You can try placing the bag outside in the sun during the heat of the day, or near a closed window that gets direct sun light. I also like to set my bag of bananas to be ripened quickly on top of the stove once I'm done cooking. Don't do this until the stove top is off and has cooled a bit to prevent fire hazards! But once cooled to the touch, the still warm stove top is a great place to place fruit you need to ripen quickly for about a half an hour or so.