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Have cake for a weekend breakfast with this delicious Banana Carrot Bread. It’s a combination of carrot cake and banana bread that’s gluten-free and low-calorie. It makes the perfect dessert or brunch addition.
This gluten-free banana carrot bread is made with freshly shredded carrots and ripe bananas, along with Greek yogurt for moisture. The combination makes it better for you than regular banana bread, especially the protein from the yogurt. You can enjoy this bread with a cream cheese icing for dessert, or skip the icing and have carrots for breakfast.
If you like healthy banana bread recipes, you will love my Banana Oat Bread with Chocolate Chips and Chocolate Banana Bread with Yogurt!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Only 150 Calories Per Slice: Since this carrot cake banana bread doesn’t have processed sugar and uses Greek yogurt for moisture, it’s lower in calories than your average banana bread.
- Tastes Like a Classic Carrot Cake: Carrot cake lovers will adore this gluten-free carrot bread because it tastes like classic carrot cake, but is better for you!
- Perfect for Breakfast or Dessert: You can top this loaf cake with a cream cheese icing and enjoy it for dessert or have it on its own as part of your breakfast.
Ingredients
- Carrots: Use your food processor to shred the carrots into fine pieces, so cook and soften in the bread. Thicker shreds may stay crunchy.
- Banana: Mash two ripe bananas to sweeten the batter and add moisture. Ripe bananas are sweeter, so it’s important to use slightly browned ones. My strawberry bread is made with bananas and Greek yogurt too.
- Gluten-Free Flour: Any 1-to-1 gluten-free flour works great for this recipe. If you don’t need it to be gluten-free, you can also use whole wheat flour. I haven’t tested this recipe with almond flour or coconut flour. Almond flour may work, but coconut flour will dry it out too much.
- Gluten-Free Oats: Rolled oats are a great source of fiber and are a low-glycemic food, so they won’t spike your blood sugar.
- Greek Yogurt: Instead of using milk, this recipe uses Greek yogurt to add moisture and protein to the batter.
- Spices: The key to making this carrot banana bread taste like carrot cake is to use cinnamon and nutmeg, along with vanilla, to enhance the flavor.
- Cream Cheese: Carrot cake just isn’t carrot cake without a cream cheese icing on top. I used Greek cream cheese for a lighter, more protein focused option.
See the recipe card below for exact ingredient amounts, nutritional information, and detailed instructions.
Variations & Dietary Modifications
- Make It Dairy-Free: If you need this loaf cake to be dairy-free, use plant-based Greek yogurt and dairy-free cream cheese.
- Make it Not Gluten-Free: You can swap whole wheat flour or regular oat flour instead of gluten-free flour.
- Use Regular Cream Cheese: Swap the Greek cream cheese for low-fat cream cheese if you want to.
- Swap the Maple Syrup: You can use honey in place of the maple syrup, or a maple syrup sugar free or reduced calorie option.
- Add Chopped Nuts: Some people love nuts in their carrots. If that’s you, add a half cup of chopped nuts.
- Add Dried Fruit: If you like dried fruit, like raisins, add a half cup to your healthy carrot bread.
How to Make Banana Carrot Bread
This carrot cake banana bread recipe is the perfect gluten-free sweet treat! If you love carrot cake and banana bread, you’ll love this! All you need to make this loaf cake is a food processor, an oven preheated to 350°F, and a greased loaf pan lined with parchment paper.
Step 1: Blend the Ingredients. Add the bananas, egg, and vanilla extract to the food processor and blend them until they’re smooth. Then add the maple syrup, Greek yogurt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and carrots and blend again until well combined. Finally, add the oats, flour, and baking soda. Blend until everything is smooth one more time.
Step 2: Pour the Batter Into the Pan. Carefully pour the batter into your lined loaf pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake the loaf cake at 350°F for 45-50 minutes, or until you can insert and remove a toothpick cleanly from the center. After it is done baking, let the finished bread cool in the pan for 1 hour before removing it and placing it on a wire rack to cool longer.
Step 3: Top with Icing. Once the bread is cool, make the icing. Blend the cream cheese and maple syrup until smooth. Smooth the icing over the cooled loaf.
Step 4: Garnish with Nuts and Carrots. Sprinkle chopped macadamia nuts, walnuts, or your choice of nuts over the top, along with shredded carrots, before slicing and serving.
Expert Tips
- Use Room Temperature Ingredients: Be sure the egg and Greek yogurt are brought to room temperature before adding them to your batter. This helps maintain a smooth consistency in the batter. You should also soften the cream cheese at room temperature so it’s easier to blend smoothly.
- Drain Extra Moisture from Carrots: Carrots sometimes retain a lot of moisture. If you shred the carrots in the food processor and notice a lot of water in the bottom, strain them and use a paper towel to squeeze out some of the excess moisture.
- Cool the Cake Before Icing: It’s important to completely cool the loaf cake before trying to ice it; the cream cheese will melt into a drippy mess.
- Storing: Keep leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 3-4 days. You can also slice this cake into individual slices, wrap them, and freeze them for up to 3 months.
Serving Suggestions
This healthy banana carrot bread is the perfect sweet treat when you need an afternoon pick me up, or a tasty breakfast. You can also bring it as a dessert to your next dinner party. It’s sure to be a hit with your friends and the whole family! No one will even notice that it’s packed with fruit and veggies!
- If you’re enjoying this carrot cake banana bread for breakfast, you’ll need to pair it with protein to ensure a balanced and nutritious meal. This Spanish omelette is an excellent vegetarian option!
- Grab a slice of this loaf cake and blend up a carrot cake protein smoothie to enjoy in the afternoon or after a big workout.
- Use up any extra carrots and make my gluten-free meatloaf for dinner, and have your carrot banana bread for dessert!
Banana Carrot Bread Recipe FAQs
If your carrot banana bread isn’t rising, it’s usually because the batter is too heavy or the leavening isn’t doing its job. The most common culprits are using too much flour (often from scooping and packing it into the measuring cup), baking soda that’s old or inactive, or not enough acidity in the batter to activate the baking soda. For best results, spoon and level your flour instead of scooping, make sure your baking soda is fresh, and ensure your recipe includes an acidic ingredient like ripe bananas, yogurt, or brown sugar to help it rise properly.
If your carrot loaf bread is wet or gummy inside, it usually means it’s underbaked, even if the top looks done. Banana and carrot breads are naturally very moist, so the center needs enough time to fully set. This can happen if your oven runs a little cool, the loaf is too thick, or there’s extra moisture from ingredients like very ripe bananas or freshly grated carrots. To fix it, keep baking the loaf a bit longer and loosely tent the top with foil if it’s browning too quickly. You’ll know it’s done when a toothpick comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs, and the center springs back lightly when touched.
More Healthy Vegetable Dessert Recipes
If you tried this Banana Carrot Bread recipe or any other recipe on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how you go in the 📝 comments below.
Banana Carrot Bread
Ingredients
For the Bread:
- 1 large Egg, room temperature
- 1 cup Banana, mashed, about small 2 bananas
- 1 cup Carrots, shredded
- ½ cup Greek Yogurt
- ⅓ cup Maple Syrup, or honey
- ½ teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 1 ¼ cup Gluten Free Flour , or whole wheat flour
- ¾ cup Gluten Free Rolled Oats, or regular rolled oats
- 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon Nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
For the Frosting:
- ½ cup Macadamia Nuts, roughly chopped or omit as needed
- ½ cup Greek Cream Cheese, or light cream cheese
- ¼ cup Maple Syrup, or honey
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Prepare a loaf pan with parchment paper or grease well with coconut oil.
- To a food processor, add the bananas, egg and vanilla extract. Process until smooth than add the maple syrup, Greek yogurt, cinnamon, nutmeg and carrots.
- Process again until smooth then add the oats, Gluten Free flour and baking soda. Mix until smooth.
- Pour the batter into the loaf pan and smooth with a spatula.
- Bake at 350 F for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick can be inserted into the center clean.
- Cool in the pan 1 hour before transferring to a wire baking rack to cool more. If lining the pan with parchment paper, you can remove from the pan after 10 minutes and finish cooling on a wire baking rack.
- After the bread cools, prepare the optional frosting by blending the cream cheese with maple syrup until smooth.
- Frost the bread with the cream cheese and top with roughly chopped macadamias or nut of choice. Add additional shredded carrots as desired on top!
Video
Notes
- Use room temperature eggs, Greek yogurt, and cream cheese to achieve the smoothest batter and icing.
- Drain excess water from the shredded carrots and pat them dry to avoid extra moisture in the batter.
- Be sure to cool the cake completely, for at least 1 hour, before adding the icing or else it will melt and drip off the cake.
- Store leftovers in the refrigerator in an airtight container up to 5 days.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Dear Skinnyfitalicious, Do you know if this recipe works without the oats? We have an oat allergy in the family and I’d like to make it without the oats. Wondering if it’ll will still work.
Lisa
Hi Lisa, under the variations section of the blog post I have listed out what options would work as alternatives.
Made this today. I didn’t have any Greek yogurt but I knew the recipe needed a little fat so I used coconut oil. I also added orange zest, some dried cranberry and a little left over unsweetened coconut I had that needed to get used up. This recipe is delicious. I haven’t even frosted it yet. Not sure if I will. It’s that good. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it and thank you for taking the time to leave a review! The recipe does not include oil because the yogurt provides enough fat to keep the bread moist.
This was absolutely amazing banana bread! I didn’t have cream cheese so just melted some honey and added a little bit of lemon juice into it, then drizzled it over the top….scrumptious! I also stirred in a 1/2 cup of raisins at the end and they added just the right touch! Grandkids loved it!
Hello,
I made the recipe as is with the only substitute of oat flour instead of oats. I put 1/2 cup of is flour instead of the 3/4 cup rolled oats. It did rise but inside it was sticky and gluey and not dry and fluffy and moist. The toothpick did come out clean. Not sure why that happened. Any suggestions?
Like not enough oats with the substitution you made and it could be they needed to cook longer. Your oven may take longer than mine.