For breakfast, mid afternoon or as an after dinner dessert, there’s never a bad time for coffee banana bread.

I’ve added coffee to a few of my favorite dessert and breakfast items.

Coffee chia seed pudding, coffee overnight oats, coffee chocolate chip cookies, coffee mousse… now I’m adding coffee to banana bread, which can fall into both a breakfast and dessert item!

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This is the banana bread recipe I’ve been using for years and have made several variations by adding in different flavors and nuts. Now it’s coffee’s turn.

I put just a touch of coffee to give it a very subtle coffee flavor, as I didn’t want to overpower the banana. However, if you find you want a stronger coffee flavor, I’d recommend adding even more coffee based on your taste.

When it’s right out of the oven, cut off a slice, spread some butter and enjoy it with a cup of coffee. (I recommend pairing it with our snickerdoodle coffee or cinnamon coffee.)

Here’s how to make coffee banana bread.

Coffee Banana Bread Ingredients

½ cup sugar
½ cup butter
2 eggs
3 ripe bananas
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon instant coffee
1 ½ cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
Optional: chocolate chips, walnuts

Butter

Use room temperature butter. It’ll be easier to cream with the sugar so you can just mix everything by hand. I use the butter that sticks to the butter wrapper to grease the pan.

Eggs

Also use room temperature eggs.

Bananas

Make sure your bananas are really ripe. The softer and browner the better. One of my bananas wasn’t at the same ripeness as the other two, but it still came out fine.

You’ll need to mash the bananas to add into the banana bread mixture. I used a potato masher, but if you don’t have one at home, a fork will work as well.

Instant coffee

I like using Nescafe Clasico instant coffee for incorporating into desserts. It’s a dark roast coffee that has worked well in my chocolate chip cookies, no churn coffee ice cream and coffee mousse. There’s also a decaf version if you prefer using coffee without caffeine.

I find 1 tablespoon to be just enough instant coffee. It gives the banana bread a very subtle coffee flavor. I don’t like to put too much coffee that will overpower the banana but you can play around with the amount of instant coffee if you prefer a stronger coffee flavor.

To bake with instant coffee, I like to dissolve it in water to avoid having clumps. I do this with as little water as possible. For the one tablespoon of instant coffee in this recipe, you just need 3 teaspoons. Use room temperature water and stir thoroughly to dissolve.

Use your favorite instant coffee, Nescafe Clasico, or check out our other favorite instant coffee brands.

Other optional ingredients

This recipe covers a basic coffee banana bread. But you can customize it and add in chocolate chips, nuts like walnuts or even make it a mocha banana bread. Mocha is the flavor to describe chocolate and coffee.

So to make this coffee banana bread a mocha banana bread, add in an equal amount of unsweetened cocoa powder. If you put in 2 tablespoons of instant coffee, put in 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder.