Did you know you can make recipes using leftover banana peel? I did not, perhaps I have lived under a rock all my life. I eat a banana and throw away the skins, or at least try to comically leave them placed around the house in a cartoon style prank. However it is possible… here are 3 different recipes using leftover banana peel and I would suggest if you can, get ripe bananas, they’ll definitely help with flavour. The tea was my favourite, but they all sort of worked.

Oh and if you need bananas, why not use them to make this triple chocolate banana bread recipe or this salted caramel banana bread. Full video above or you can watch it here too.

Banana Tea

Grab a saucepan and add all the ingredients into it. The cinnamon stick can pack quite a punch so perhaps halve it, or for a more dominant banana flavour remove it entirely.

Bring the pan to a simmer with a lid on and let it gently bubble away over a low heat for approximately 10 minutes to infuse together.

Pour out via a sieve to catch the banana skin and cinnamon stick and serve in a mug. Pretty darn tasty to be honest!

Banana Bacon

Take the banana slices and trim then to bacon rasher shapes if you wish. With the outer side / glossy side facing down use a spoon to scrape inside the banana peel and get rid of the flesh of the banana or the ‘meat’ as someone referred to, the video shows this step well, it tastes horrible, so don’t eat it! Repeat with all the banana skins.

In a plastic tub add the banana skins and the soy sauce, vinegar, maple syrup, liquid smoke, paprika, plus the salt and pepper. Put a lid on the container, shake it well to fully coat the banana strips and then leave to rest for 15 minutes.

Warm a frying pan with some oil, once hot add the bacon and cook both sides flipping it often, and keeping the heat low for more control. The outside will not colour as well as the inside where you scraped the flesh, but push the frying until you get a nice light charring.

Remove from the heat and place on kitchen towel to rest. It doesn’t matter if it’s served hot or cold, but will probably firm up a bit if not eaten straight from the pan.

Banana Pulled Pork

Take each banana slice and using a knife slice thin strips all the way down, try to make banana spaghetti effectively, lots of little consistent sized strands, if too long slice them in half to get more ‘pork’. Repeat with all the banana peel and you should have a nice pile of strands.

Get a frying pan and add a little oil, the onion and garlic. Fry up for a few minutes, then add in the banana strands, stirring often until the onions are lightly browned, be sure not to burn the banana. Add in the bbq sauce, stir through to coat and bring up to a gentle simmer. Let this bubble away for a good 10 minutes or so. Depending on the BBQ sauce, you may want to add a little water at the start so the BBQ sauce doesn’t caramelise / reduce down too quickly or even burn. Adding water will simmer it off and buy you more time to let it all soften and mingle together.

Once done eat as you would normal pulled pork, I grabbed a brioche bun and wedged it in together with some coleslaw – deliciousness!