Bananas Foster Baked French Toast

Bananas Foster Baked French Toast is a warm, sweet, and comforting crowd-pleaser. It’s perfect for brunch, holidays, or any special morning.

This French Toast Bake is perfect for a holiday breakfast or Sunday brunch because its so decadent. For more sweet Breakfast Casseroles to feed a crowd, try my Easy French Toast Bake or Croissant French Toast Bake.

Sabrina’s Bananas Foster Baked French Toast Recipe

The rich, decadent flavors in this French Toast Bake make it perfect for special occasions like holidays. It has the familiar texture of a French toast, but with new ingredients and toppings to make an exciting change. It’s also a great choice for a holiday breakfast because it’s easy to serve to a big group. The whole breakfast is baked in one dish, and everyone can serve themselves up. Plus, because you make it ahead, you don’t have to wake up super early to prep breakfast.

Recipe Card

About this Recipe

Bananas Foster Baked French Toast is a decadent, buttery make-ahead breakfast with bananas, whipped cream, brown sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. French Toast is a wonderfully versatile breakfast. You can serve the toasted bread with any number of sweet toppings like cinnamon, maple syrup, powdered sugar, fresh berries, or banana. Making the French toast into a breakfast bake opens up still more possibilities because there are any number of delicious fruits and ingredients you can bake with the French toast. For more French toast bakes try our Blueberry Cream Cheese French Toast Bake and Pumpkin French Toast Bake. Follow my easy step-by-step tips to make sure your French Toast Bake comes out perfect.

What is Bananas Foster?

Bananas Foster is a classic dessert originating from New Orleans made with bananas and vanilla ice cream in a rich sauce. The bananas are cooked in the sauce, which is made with butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Once cooked the bananas are served with ice cream often with a whipped cream and pecan topping. This easy breakfast bake takes all those rich, sweet flavors, and bakes them with soft French toast.

Can this be made ahead of time?

Yes, although this bake takes a while to make, most of that time is just a matter of leaving it to sit in the fridge. This is the perfect recipe to prepare the night before and leave it until the morning. While it sits in the fridge the breading is absorbing the flavors around it, and everything combines into one delicious bake instead of separate layers.

Recipe Tips & Tricks

• Make sure to use a microwave-safe bowl to melt the butter.
• Toss the bananas gently, so the they don’t fall apart. Be sure to keep tossing until all the banana slices are coated.
• Grease a 13×9-in. baking dish, and pour the banana mixture over the bottom. Make sure to grease the pan so the bananas and sugar don’t stick.
• Arrange your diced bread in one layer over the top. Make sure that your diced pieces of bread have a uniform dice so they cook at the same rate.
• Put the milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla in a blender. Turn the blender on until mixed together. This won’t take long, and you don’t want to over mix.
• In the morning, all you’ll have to do is preheat the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes. To test if it’s done put a knife in the center of the bread and see if it comes out clean.
• Let it cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.
• If you are inverting the dish, make sure it cools, loosen the edges with a knife or spatula, put your serving dish upside down on top of the baking dish and flip it all over. It may seem intimidating but you’ve got this! Tap the bottom of the baking dish, and lift! If anything is left in the dish, it’s okay, just scrape it and add it to the stop of the serving platter.

How to Store

• Serve: To keep it from drying out, you shouldn’t leave your French Toast Bake out for more than 2 hours.
• Store: After it’s cooled, you can store your leftovers in the fridge for up to a week. Cover the dish or put it in an airtight container.
• Freeze: You can freeze this breakfast for up to 3 months. Let it defrost in the fridge, then reheat it in the oven.

Slow Cooker Method

• Combine melted butter, brown sugar, heavy cream, cinnamon, allspice and the pecans if you want them.
• Gently toss the bananas in the mixture and add to a greased slow cooker insert.
• Add your cubed bread on top.
• Pour your milk (only use 1 cup), egg, sugar, and vanilla mixture over the top.
• Place 2 paper towels across the top of the slow cooker and put the lid on. This will help soak up any excess moisture on the lid so it doesn’t get on your breakfast.
• Cook on Low for 3.5-4.5 hours or High for 2 hours.

Variations

• Bread: If you don’t have egg bread, there are plenty of other bread options you can use. Try using sourdough, French bread, brioche, white bread, or whole wheat bread.
• Mixed Fruit: Because this dish is based on Bananas Foster, I only used bananas in the recipe. However, if you’d like to add some more flavors, add in some more fruits. Put in sliced strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, or try replacing the banana with sliced apple.
• Adult French Toast: Add 1-2 tablespoons of dark rum or banana liquor into the butter and sugar mixture before you add the bananas in.
• More Add-Ins: There are plenty of other delicious add-ins and toppings you can put in this recipe besides fruit. Try putting in other nuts like chopped walnuts or almonds. You can also mix some raisins in with the butter. Another option is adding toppings like cream cheese, chocolate chips, or even crispy bacon.

Related Recipes

More French Toast Bakes

Breakfast Casseroles

Maple Bacon French Toast Bake

Breakfast Casseroles

Cinnamon Raisin French Toast Bake

Breakfast Casseroles

Sausage and Apple French Toast Bake

Breakfast Casseroles

Apple Crisp French Toast Bake

These photos were in a previous version of this post