We have all ended up with this, right? This is actually an entire bunch that has been sitting on my counter, untouched, since it was purchased. I know we don’t go through them but I like to have them around for baking, smoothies, etc. So I happily let them get like this, perfectly sweet, but not the greatest texture to just eat as is. They apparently last a little longer if you separate them, but I actually wanted this bunch to ripen quickly as I was out of frozen bananas I like to have for smoothies.
Most of us know we can use them after this point, but making that practical isn’t so obvious. You could just throw them in the freezer in the peel. That isn’t terrible if you are going to bake with them and let them thaw before peeling, but if you want to use them frozen, it won’t work as well.
The solution: peel and freeze! That way you can use them as they are for a smoothie or let them thaw and make banana muffins or whatever is on your menu. They also still break apart easily in their frozen state so you can use partial bananas with no trouble if that is what you need.
I could fit the last two in here, but I let the first four freeze completely first before I added them on top. That way, I still got away with using one freezer bag, but they didn’t freeze in a big mass and were still easily separated. As you can see below, I removed one from the top layer without any trouble:
