Bananas (brown/over ripe)

We've already covered just how great bananas are on our Bananas food fact page, but what do you do with them once they're over ripe? After all, not many people really like to eat soggy bananas that come out of brown, mottled skins.

The answer is, use them for baking. Bananas with brown, mottled skin generally means that the banana is very soft and ripe, and at it's most banana-ry tasting as the ripeness intensifies the flavour and the sweetness/sugar level.

Use over ripe bananas in banana bread, cakes or desserts. They are naturally very sweet when ripe, so work really well as a substitute for sugar in many recipes.

Storing:

If you're not going to use them immediately once they are very ripe, then before they turn into mouldy mush, freeze them. Simply put the bananas, in their skins, into a Ziploc bag, roll them up in it before sealing to remove most of the air, and store in the freezer until you want to use them.

To defrost frozen bananas remove them from the Ziploc bag, place on a plate and leave to thaw naturally.

Now here comes the really easy part, to use the defrosted bananas simply snip the end off with a pair of scissors and squeeze the banana out, like toothpaste out of a tube. You won't even need to mash them, as the freezing will have further broken them down to a banana puree.

Some other ideas:

• Frozen bananas also make great ice cream, peel them while still frozen and throw into a blender for instant banana ice cream
• Mix with other fruits, some fruit juice, maybe a little ground flax seed, for a breakfast smoothie
• Add to almond milk and chocolate protein powder, whizz for an after exercise protein shake