Protein Banana Bars

When we bought our house, we inherited eleven bountiful banana trees. What we didn’t realize was that with that inheritance came a mountain of bananas! I mean – those suckers arrived all at once and it was raining bananas here for about 3 weeks straight. Tiny, sweet and delicious apple bananas flooded my kitchen and I was pulling out all the stops making every banana concoction I could dream up. One of those recipes was something I sort of made up as a trial (when you are harvesting bananas by the 100s you have room for error!) and it was these protein banana bars!

I figured if they came out gross, I really would have nothing to lose except a few wasted ingredients.

But, I was completely bowled over with how they tasted! So much so, that I carried them along to our friend’s house without telling them my secret ingredient. They couldn’t stop talking about how moist and delicious my new dessert was and they begged for the recipe. But then…I kind of got nervous because…well, my secret ingredient is kind of unconventional.

You see, I had previously made black bean brownies that came out amazing! Warning: those photos are terrible – I’ve come a long way in a year! So I figured, if black beans can make brownies moist, I wonder what cannellini (or navy) beans would do?! So I set about tossing things in here and there that I thought would make my mix taste the best and the result was something better than I could have ever dreamed.

So let’s get to it, shall we?

You Will Need:

1 can cannellini beans, blended until smooth in Vitamix or food processor

1/2 cup agave

6 apple bananas (or 4 regular bananas), smashed

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup ghee

1 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 cups chickpea flour

Optional: handful of M&M’s (but could easily throw in Good Life Chocolate Chips to make this recipe vegan friendly!)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Combine all ingredients, except baking soda and flour, in a stand up mixer until smooth. I highly recommend using a stand up mixer as the dough will be kind of tough to stir.

3. Blend baking soda and flour in a separate bowl.

4. Sift dry mixture into wet mixture.

5. Mix until well combined and free of lumps.

6. Pour into a 9×13 pan lined with parchment paper.

7. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until mixture appears spongy and cake-like.

8. Remove from oven, let cool and cut into squares.

9. Refrigerate until you are ready to serve them and store any leftovers in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!

Have you ever taken any “off the beaten path” choices with food and had it work out?