How To Ripen a Banana Faster

Good things come to those who wait, right? When it comes to waiting for bananas to ripen, however, it seems like it can take longer than necessary. We sat down with Dr. Jeffrey Brecht, Postharvest Physiologist at the University of Florida, to see just how quickly we can ripen bananas.

How do you ripen bananas faster?

Dr. Brecht: “The way to get bananas to ripen faster is:

Hold them at room temperature.
Enclose them in a paper bag (not a sealed plastic bag) or place in a ripening bowl along with an apple or an already ripe banana. The idea behind the bag/bowl is that bananas ripen in response to ethylene, a gaseous plant hormone produced by many ripening fruits, including bananas. You are allowing a higher concentration of ethylene to accumulate around the unripe bananas when you place them in a bag or ripening bowl with a fruit that is already producing lots of ethylene.”

Is there any credibility to the claims online about being able to ripen bananas faster? (Ex: separating the bananas and wrapping saran wrap around the stem, hanging them on a banana hanger, etc.)

Dr. Brecht: “None of those methods would result in faster ripening, as far as I know.

How long do bananas take to ripen naturally?

Dr. Brecht: “Around four to five days at room temperature, depending on how far along with ripening the fruit are when you start. (The modified atmosphere, Clearly Fresh, bag I mentioned will about double that time frame).”

Bananas will ripen… around 4-5 days at room temperature, depending on how far along with ripening the fruit are when you start.

Click To Tweet

Some additional ways to ripen bananas include: (from Spoon University)

Leaving them in a bunch
Place in warm places
Place in a paper bag
Baking them in the oven

Are you wondering why you would want your bananas to ripen faster? For baking or quick eating, of course! We gained some inspiration from Yellow Bliss Road’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Banana Bread to try to ripen our own bananas faster.

There are many options when it comes to speeding up the ripening process of bananas. However, if you’re looking for ways to slow down the process, we’ve done some digging on that topic, too. Dr. Brecht gave us the scoop about how to slow down the ripening process, and he also told us where we shouldn’t be storing our bananas.