Food After Hours

Peanut Butter Banana Toast

The classic for a reason: sweet, filling, and done before the kettle would even boil.

5 min Quiet Toaster Basically no dishes Serves 1 Vegetarian

This is the late-night equivalent of a load-bearing wall. Bread, peanut butter, banana — three things that are nearly always in the house, assembled in the time it takes your toast to cool from dangerous to pleasant. The honey and cinnamon push it from snack to small event.

You’ll need

  • Banana
    1
  • Bread
    1–2 slices
  • Peanut butter
    2 big spoonfuls No peanut butter? Any nut butter. Sunflower butter too.
  • Cinnamon
    a pinch
  • Honey or maple syrup
    a drizzle

Salt, pepper, oil, and water are assumed — if the salt is missing too, we can’t help tonight.

The way through

  1. Toast the bread on the darker side of your usual setting — the banana adds moisture, and pale toast goes soft under it.
  2. Spread peanut butter all the way to the edges while the toast is hot, so it goes slightly melty.
  3. Slice the banana directly over the toast in thick coins. Thick slices stay put; thin ones slide off.
  4. Drizzle honey and dust cinnamon over the top if you have them.
  5. Eat over the plate, or over the sink like a person with nothing to prove.
Night-kitchen noteIf the peanut butter is the natural kind that's gone stiff, a hot spoon (run it under hot tap water) spreads it without tearing the toast.

← what else can I make?