Bananas Foster French Toast

Bananas Foster French Toast is an indulgent breakfast with caramelized bananas. It can be made with or without rum, and feels like fancy brunch at home.

this recipe

This Bananas Foster French Toast recipe is to die for. Brioche French toast topped with caramelized bananas? Yum.

I love the sticky sweetness of bananas foster. Those caramelized bananas.

And I love French toast. So I’ve been wanting to combine the two into a decadent French toast recipe that would be perfect for breakfast or brunch at home.

And I’m happy to say… it was a huge success! The brioche gets all custardy and delicious. So yummy even on its own. The cooked bananas, butter, and brown sugar combine into a sticky-sweet delight that is spooned over the French toast.

I made this bananas foster french toast with no rum because I didn’t want a splash of alcohol at 10 in the morning when I was making this, but feel free to add a few splashes when you’re making the bananas foster part if you want to make this a boozy French toast recipe!

Ingredients

• Milk - As I said above, I used canned coconut milk for this recipe, but I've also made it using almond milk and regular milk. The coconut milk gives it a nice subtle flavor, but use what you have!
• Vanilla extract - I like to use the pure and not imitation stuff here.
• Eggs - The eggs give the French toast a custardy texture.
• Brioche bread - I LOVE making this with brioche bread, but I've also used a soft French loaf. You can also use thick slices of Texas Toast for this French toast.
• Bananas - This recipe is a great way to use up ripe or unripe bananas. If they are TOO ripe, they may fall apart a bit when cooking, so just keep that in mind.
• Brown sugar - The brown sugar is used to help caramelize the bananas for the topping. I used light brown sugar, but you could swap with dark brown sugar if preferred.
• Butter - The butter is used with the brown sugar to provide the caramel sauce. To control the salt level, use unsalted butter, but salted works great too.
• Rum - Completely optional. I haven't added it when I've made this, but a splash would be delicious! You can also use bourbon instead.

How to make bananas foster french toast

First, make your egg mixture for the French toast.

Recipe tips

• Try to slice the bananas thickly. If you slice the bananas too thin, they have more of a chance of falling apart in the caramel sauce as they cook. Ripe bananas also have a slightly higher chance of breaking apart while cooking.
• Let the French toast get nicely browned. It’s better that way, and will add a bit of a crust.
• If you’re worried about your French toast getting cold while you cook the slices, turn your oven on “warm” or a low temperature of 200 degrees F, and put a sheet pan in there. When you cook a slice of French toast, plop it on the sheet pan, then remove right before serving so all your toast is nicely warm.
• Don't cook the foster sauce too long or on too high of heat, or the butter will start to separate from the sugar. Watch carefully.

What is bananas foster?

Bananas Foster is a desert that originated in New Orleans. It's bananas that get deliciously caramelized in a rum, brown sugar, and butter sauce.

While it's typically made with rum, you can make this french toast without for a nonalcoholic version.

Equipment

• Skillet or griddle - It's easy to make French toast in a skillet, but then you can only do 1 piece at a time. That's fine if you have a lot of time, and put it in the oven to warm, but I love doing mine on a griddle pan on my stove (my stove actually has a burner just for the griddle). Here's one option for a griddle pan that is highly rated on Amazon. You can also use an electric griddle like this, that you can just plug into the wall.

Can I make this with regular bread and not brioche?

Absolutely. Use what you have. The brioche is so soft and soaks up the custard mixture SUPER-quickly. Something harder like a french loaf or baguette may need more liquid to soften up for the French toast.

You could also use Texas Toast, challah bread, or another alternative to brioche. If you're using a regular sliced loaf of bread, then just know you may need more slices since sliced brioche is typically thicker than your regular sliced loaf.

What type of milk to use

I used coconut milk in the French toast. It added a subtle coconut flavor which could ALMOST make me imagine that I was on a tropical island somewhere, enjoying a relaxing vacation.

It was lovely, but you can sub out any milk of your choice. Cow’s milk? Great! Almond milk? Delicious! Oat milk? I haven’t tested it, but it would probably work well (let me know if you try it and it doesn’t!)

Recipe variations

• I used a can of coconut milk, but you can always substitute an equal amount of regular whole milk.
• Add a splash of rum to the bananas foster part if you want to create a rum sauce.
• You can add a splash of heavy cream to the caramelized bananas if you want a slightly creamier sauce.
• I've served this with some roughly chopped pecans or walnuts on top. It adds a nice additional texture.
• If you're not a banana fan (or allergic to bananas like a friend of mine), make this with another fruit! To do so, I'd add a cup of berries to a pan with a touch of water and some regular sugar (instead of brown sugar). Instead of getting caramelized, you'll just want everything to get kind of sweet and syrupy so you can spoon the berries over the French toast.

Bananas foster french toast is delicious served as is, with the sticky-sweet caramelized bananas, but you could also serve with some homemade whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.