Sourdough Discard, Overripe Bananas and Zucchinis: The Ultimate "No-Waste" Bread

Sourdough Discard, Overripe Bananas and Zucchinis: The Ultimate "No-Waste" Bread

What do sourdough discard, overripe bananas, and garden-fresh zucchinis have in common? On their own, not much. But when you bring them together in a warm loaf of nut bread or a batch of muffins, they create a seasonal masterpiece.

If you’re a gardener, you likely have a "zucchini problem," this time of year. If you’re a baker, the summer heat means your starter is likely climbing out of its jar, demanding constant feeding. When you combine those with the perennial problem of overripe bananas, you have the perfect excuse to bake.

The Secret to Saving Sourdough Discard

 

Many bakers feel guilty throwing away starter during the feeding process. However, as Amanda Paa from Heartbeet Kitchen points out, you don’t have to:

“With sourdough baking, removing and discarding some of your starter before you feed it each time can feel wasteful. But you don’t have to throw it out! The great thing about discard starter is that  can be used in baking even after sitting in your refrigerator for over two weeks. Think of leftover starter as food, and essentially a levain, or what we would use to give life and rise to a recipe. That’s why I save mine in a separate jar and let it accumulate, then make something delicious from it when the jar is nearly full, as is, straight from the refrigerator.”

Banana, Zucchini, Nut Sourdough Bread Recipe

prep time: 20 MINUTES
bake time: 60 MINUTES fermentation: 20 minutes

Ingredients

Instructions

Wet Ingredients

  • ⅓ cup (80 g) butter
  • ¼ cup (85 g) honey
  • ¼ cup (62.5 g) sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 ripe bananas (240 g), mashed
  • 1 cup (300 g) unfed sourdough starter or discard
  • 1 tsp (4 ml) vanilla

Dry Ingredients

  • 2 cups (25o g) all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp (5 g) baking powder
  • ½ tsp. (2.3 g) baking soda
  • ½ tsp (1.3 g) cinnamon
  • ¼ tsp (0.5 g) nutmeg
  • ½ tsp (2.8 g) salt
  • 1 medium zucchini (262 g), grated and excess water squeezed out with towels
  • ¾ cup (81 g) walnuts or pecans, finely chopped


  1. Coat a 9×5-inch loaf pan with butter or pan spray.
  2. Cream butter, honey, and sugar together until light and fluffy.
  3. Add eggs one at a time, blending after each addition.
  4. Stir in mashed bananas and sourdough starter.
  5. Stir in the vanilla extract and set aside.
  6. In a second bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and soda, cinnamon and nutmeg, and salt.
  7. Add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients, stirring just until blended.
  8. Fold in the chopped nuts and shredded zucchini squash into the dough
  9. Pour batter into buttered loaf pan. Allow the filled loaf pan aside to rest for approximately 20 minutes.
  10. Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C) (for altitudes above 3000 ft [900 meters] increase the temperature to 375°F [191°C])
  11. Bake 60-65 minutes, or the internal temperature of the bread reaches 200°F (93°C).
Pro Tip: This recipe makes excellent muffins! Use the same temperature but bake for only 25 minutes.
For more help on sourdough, zucchini muffins see Heartbeet Kitchen,  where Amanda offers a recipe for Zucchini Walnut Sourdough Discard Muffins sweetened with bananas on her blog. I especially like that her recipe uses less fat than others I have tried including the one listed above.

Tell us about ways you combine zucchini and sourdough in the comment section below.

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2 comments

Taylor, thanks for pointing out our errors; we have now corrected them

Darryl Alder

Where does the honey go? And the temperature for regular and high altitude both say 350….

Taylor Groff

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